March 3, 2019 - 10:33pm
sourdough and fresh milled grain- help!
Hello bakers, i am new to baking with my fresh milled grain and find that the last few times ive made my "tartain " style bread, it is very different from when i was baking with store bought flour! I am using 90% soft white and 10% spelt. freshly ground, no other changes to the recipe. my bread turns out extra moist and dosent form a tight skin when shaping. it bakes up with less rise and quite dense too.
i used to make such nice airy sourdough loaves,, any advice on what could be the problem?
thanks in advance
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I suspect that the lower gluten content of the freshly milled soft white wheat combined with the presence of bran in the flour may be important factors. Try going to hard white or hard red wheat and see what impact that makes.
Can you be more specific about your "soft" white flour? The term "soft" means different things about flour in different countries. In the US, "soft" wheat flour has too low a protein content for bread making. But in other countries (Italy for example) "soft" wheat refers to all Triticum aestivum flours whereas "hard" wheat refers to T. durum.
Are you trying to make Tartine style bread with American "soft" white flour?
Tom
hmmm yep this grain is bc grown (meaning american soft?) and i did not sift the bran out of either of the fresh milled flours.
I think this may be the problem. i have red fed fife wheat berries aswell. i will try the next batch with that and sifted too!
thank you
so frustrating but i will carry on learning :)
My first bread with freshly milled grain from my Komo mill was as soft as sandwich bread. I couldn't believe it. Remember that commercial flour has had the germ and other parts that would spoil sifted out. Some of those sifted bits are wet and oily, and are excellent food for your levain.
Meanwhile, each whole grain you use has a different profile, including protein content, gluten strength, water absorption, etc. So it will take time to get a feel for how each one reacts. Spelt is known for having fragile gluten and not absorbing as much water as other kinds of wheat.
ok so looking for advice on what is the best to mix with red fief grain. spelt ? Rye? or other. i dont have hard white whole grain. could i use reg all purpose to mix in?
thank you
Red Fife is good wheat. Any other flour that's reasonable for putting in bread, would probably work out fine. "Best" depends on what you want and what you like. All-purpose flour is made to give predictable easy good baking results, therefore maybe increasing the chance of first-time success. But if you want something more "interesting", and are willing to risk maybe making a sub-par loaf or two as "experience" along the way... Go for it!
Almost any bread you make, you can at least eat, even if it isn't a prize winner. As long as you don't start off needing to present the first loaf as a gift to your boss, you are very unlikely to "lose" at this.