November 18, 2017 - 5:43am
Natural Levain with fats and sugars
What impact from using fats and sugars with a natural levain starter?
One of my 2 all time favorite breads is Seeduction Bread made by Whole Foods. I am ecstatic to find a recipe that produces an outstanding duplicate. I baked the bread using the original instructions without deviating. The taste and appearance was right on, but I didn't get the openness or airiness that I would like. Next bake I plan to use SAF Gold instead of Red.
Looks for help improving the rise and open crumb.
I am not familiar with sugars and fats in bread.
Here is the link to the recipe
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/54192/seeduction-bread-formula
Dan
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In a yeasted bread.
Things to remember are...
Correct proportions. Fat will slow things down, will interfere in gluten formation and the absorption of water. So the correct percentages and adding it at the right time will help.
You mentioned correct proportions.It's commonly thought that Salt is about 2%. Is there a commonly thought percentage for fats and sugars? The original formula calls for 24% molasses/honey combo.
The recipe calls for AP Flour and Wheat Gluten. Does this make sense? Why not use Bread Flour with or without Wheat Gluten?
It's my understanding that Bread Flour has more gluten than AP Flour.
I very rarely put oil in my breads but an educated guess would be 3-6% ish. I see the recipe has 7.8% so looks fine as some breads will have more and some less.
Good question. Why use AP flour and then add gluten? That part doesn't make sense to me either
"Is there a commonly thought percentage for fats and sugars?"
If I use sugar in the dough, I normally use 5%.
Now to the fats. First, polyunsaturated fats cause dough to rise less reaching nadir at 4% and staying there.
Saturated and monounsaturated fats initially cause a loss of rise (volume) reaching a low at about 2-3%, then increasing with increased fat. The gluten film is replaced by a lipid film which is stronger as far as trapping CO₂. This peaks at about 10% and holds steady. Rule of thumb, coconut oil, olive oil, butter and lard, etc. are good, while corn oil, vegetable oil, etc. are bad.
Fortunately, the polar lipids (saturated and monounsaturated fats) are healthy and the non-healthy polyunsaturated fats are not for both loaf volume and our own selves.
The mix of gluten and lipid films is weaker than either alone which is why the initial reduction, but then the lipids take over.
Info is from Bread Science (Emily Buehler) and private correspondence with the author. Fortunately, a PDF excerpt is available online here which includes the section on lipids and loaf volume.
gary
Thanks Gary, I just bought her book.
You can't learn too much.
I only hope I can remember some of it.
Dan
... a ratio of about 1.5% of the total flour. It softens the crumb and IMHO improves the taste.
First, that looks like a very nice bread. The crumb looks quite nice but perhaps a bit over-fermented. Given the flours and other ingredients I'm not surprised. Here are the things I would try:
Thanks Wendy, I am in the process or mixing the dough so I won't be able to use all of your suggestions this time. But I did reduce the honey from 22% down to 11%. Reduced the Malted Barley flour from 7.89% to 6.32% and the Wheat Gluten from 4.21% to 2.11%. I also sifted the Whole Wheat Flour in order to remove some bran. I'm hoping the sifting may lighten the loaf. I may decrease the barley considerable next time. But it sure seems to taste good. Maybe non diastatic would be better. Would that provide taste without increasing the enzyme activity?
I decided to ad a starter to this all yeast recipe so I'm making a levain (15% to total Flour Weight) and inoculating it @ 20%. 131 grams total starter.
And an autolyse using all flour (including the Malted Barley Flour and the Wheat Gluten) and the remaining water. Is it proper to add the Barley and wheat flour at autolyse?
Would you suggest adding a small amount of IDY during the final mix? Do you think this will increase the rise?
I think I need to strengthen the structure of the bread. Seeds seem to make this more difficult for me. How would you incorporate them? At initial mix or at some other time after?
I'm thinking about a cold proof in a an oval banneton. Then slashing and baking cold. Any thoughts. Would you approach this another way?
Whole Foods store sells this as a free form batard, so I'm hoping to avoid the pan if possible.
Dan
Hope it turns out more to your liking this time. How long is your autolyse? Hopefully the high amount of malted barley won't adversely affect this. Good call on the honey.
The finished bread doesn't look like it was lacking in yeast, actually, but it depends on your timing and strength of the levain, I suppose.
I searched the internet for images of seeduction bread. It appears that this particular bread will not be lofty. I bake lean sourdough bread and have very little experience in this type of enriched doughs.
I was going to allow 4 hours for autolyse, but maybe that will turn out to be a disaster. I could start this over if you are confident that the barley will be detrimental. I'm on a learning mission with this one.
Should the autolyse include flours such as Malted Barley and or Wheat Gluten?
Dan
Hi Dan. I hope you got my reply to your PM, but just in case anyone else is interested in my thoughts, here they are again:
I sent you an email yesterday afternoon. Thanks for all of the information.
I ordered some non-diastatic malt syrup. Does this look good?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NIO5YZ6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I know nothing about malts. If you care to share a link to your favorite malt, I'll give it a try. I really like the malt flavor. You mentioned these. "I like a nice crystal malt or even a darker chocolate malt". I google them but I have no idea where to get it or what to choose.
When I got your response yesterday I had already mixed the dough. So the diastatic malt was included. As with many past attempts with diastatic malt the loaf turned out gummy. I use KA Bread Flour and 25% home ground Hard Red Wheat. It seems the HRW is the only flour that may need gluten. What do you think? I am baking another loaf now without diastatic malt or gluten. I'll post with pics when it is cut. I'm going to bake this thing until I get it right.
It was late when the Bulk Ferment was finished, so I shaped and proofed in refrigerator. No noticeable rise in the morning. It's hard for me to tell the condition of the dough when it is cold. Anyway the bake was a disaster. The crumb was gummy. I've seen it before with diastatic malt and rye bread.
Some time back I decided to learn to cook a proper French Omelette. I determined to cook at least 1 omelette every day until I got it right. After about 2 months I succeeded. I'm that determined with this bread. I hope it doesn't take 50 or so loaves to get the formula correct. :<)
Hey, I just removed the last test loaf from the oven. NO PANCAKE! This bake didn't use any malt or gluten. I did ad 2 grams of SAF Gold IDY.I also upped the molasses from 1.84 to 3.6% and reduced the honey from 4.21 to 2.30%. NOTE, on the last 2 trials I used a Levain.
I'll take a crumb shot when I cut it.
Dan
That last one is looking good! Hope it turns out nice on the inside too.
So, regarding your KA bread flour. The ingredients show that it already has malted barley flour in it, so adding that much diastatic malt to the dough is bound to turn it to a gummy mess for sure.
Next, the malt. Barley malt syrup is a malt extract. It tastes good but is basically sugar (maltose). So, if you are adding that to your bread you have molasses, honey and barley malt syrup as sweeteners. That's quite a bit!
When I was talking about different malts I was referring to barley grains which are soaked and then sprouted to the point where they have tiny little rootlets emerging. They are then dried. At this point it is diastatic malt which can be milled into powder (flour). If the dried grains are then toasted, the enzymes are deactivated. A medium toast is referred to as a crystal malt, while a darker toast is a chocolate malt. Here is a photo of diastatic (untoasted) malt, crystal malt and chocolate malt together. These ones are whole or cracked, but I also mill them into flour to make it easier to blend.
The best place to find these is a you-brew shop (i.e. a place to buy beer making supplies and ingredients). They usually have all kinds of wonderful malted grains for sale in bags or bulk, including malted rye and wheat. At the place where I buy mine, they let me chew on a few grains to get a sense of the flavour. All kinds of fun! You can probably find them online as beer-making supplies too.
How do you grind the malted grains into flour? I have a KoMo Classic grain mill, but I'm not sure if that is the proper tool for the job. I understand that certain things should not be ground using that mill. I think it is bad for the stones.
Dan
I just mill it with my Wondermill Jr. It's not hard on the stones at all; in fact, malted toasted grain is very easy to mill, being light and crispy. I do have to wash the stones after that as it's quite strongly flavoured and I don't want it getting into the rest of my flour.
The stones in my mill are not easily accessible. Do you think running some rice through the machine would do the trick?UPDATE: I rec'd a reply form Pleasant Hill Grain stating, "As I understand the malted grains have been dried so, the KoMo classic should grind malted grains just fine."
Or maybe I could grind the malt first and then grind the HRW after. Since I'm adding Malt to the dough any flavor that migrated over to the Hard Red Wheat would not matter. I plan to grind the malt on demand. It seems it would stay fresh this way. Will the malt say good if kept in a dry cool place like wheat?
How does this sound?
I'm excited to try these grains.
By-the-way, I assume these grains are diastatic when purchased. Is this so? If it is should I roast them in the oven to kill any enzymes. I'm looking for non-diastatic flour.
Dan
Yes, they are already dried and toasted when I buy them from the brewing supply store. Some people toast their own (in fact, some people even malt and dry their own), but I find it way easier and more fun to buy bags of different toasted malts. In fact, the brew shop will also grind them if I ask, but I prefer to keep the whole grains and mill my own. They are, as I said, very light and crisp, not like hard 'raw' grains like Kamut (which is hard as a rock). Toasted, malted grains are very easy to mill or you can grind them in a blender.
The toasted ones are non-diastatic (unless it's a very light toast at a low temperature) and keep well for a long time in a cool dry place.
Wished all of my breads came out like this
For this bake I cut the oil and sugars in half. I also omitted the Wheat Gluten and the Malted Diastatic Malt.
The flavor wasn't near sweet enough. So next bake I'll add some sugars, but will leave out all or most of the malt.
I've ruled out Fats and Sugars as the culprit for the recipe I'm working on.
But I have become a firm believer in adding sugar and fats, especially in high percentages, to the dough after the gluten has been fully developed.
A note about salt---
During test baking this recipe, I really learned a lot that I believe will make me a better bread baker. I was surprised to see how fast the dough changes when salt is added. I've read that to be the case, but when I felt it happening it became much more real. As some point during the testing I decide to pinch and fold the salt into the dough. Once the salt was sprinkled over the dough and I started to incorporate it, the feel of the dough transformed almost immediately. It became much less extensible and more difficult to manipulate by hand. Things did feel normal after resting the dough, though.
I am continuing my quest for Seeduction Bread at this link.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/54192/seeduction-bread-formula
Dan