October 15, 2021 - 8:28am
Flour problem
Central Milling Bakers Craft Plus has been my bread flour of choice for close to four years now. I just received a new 25lb bag and none of my formulas are working the way they used to. The dough is super slack regardless of hydration level and no matter how much strength I try to develop through mixing and folding. It just puddles into shapeless blobs as soon as I finish folding or shaping. Has this ever happened to anyone? The new bag of flour is the only thing I can think of. I'm tempted to go buy a small bag of KA bread flour to see what happens, but I'm reluctant since the cost of the 25lb bag and shipping was a small fortune. Thanks in advance for any feedback and suggestions
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Welcome back!
Either the flour changed, or something else changed. Perhaps the water.
Did you move to a new residence? If so, the tap water changed. Does the new home take water from a different source than the previous home? Does the new home have different water filtering/conditioning devices than the previous?
Did you add or remove some water-conditioning device or filter in your existing home?
If you are on a municipal water utility, and are using tap water, have you checked to see if they changed their treatment or source of water?
Did you change your salt?
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As to the flour:
Did you double check your invoice or order confirmation to see if you ordered the flour that you think you ordered?
Did you double check the bag label to see if they actually shipped what you ordered?
If all the above checks out, contact the seller's customer service and let them know that the flour is not performing as previous shipments. Be sure to include the order number.
Possible snafus are organic vs non-organic, and "Plus" versus not-"Plus".
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It is also possible they mis-labeled the bags, or somehow got the wrong flour in the bag. If this is what happened, it would be for a whole batch, not just one bag, so they will be able to tell only if multiple customers let them know what is happening.
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When you say "regardless of hydration" do you mean different formulas, or do you mean you actually lowered the hydration of a given formula in order to compensate for possibly high moisture flour?
Some years, the grain just has more moisture than others. Also, flour in paper bags can absorb moisure while in storage and while in transport.
Is this with all types of bread, starter based and yeast based?
kitchen temps or humidity different?
if using starter, anything in it that is stronger in power?
"The dough is super slack regardless of hydration level..."
Even at 50% hydration? I'm sure at some level it won't be super slack. How much variation are we talking about?
Could be the sd starter. (That's why the questions about baking the new flour with instant yeast.)
Check in the site search under: pesky thiol compounds
See if that applies. Good news, it can be fixed.
She knows her stuff!
I had the same thing happen with my sourdough loaves and it was because I neglected my starter. It got all out of balance and produced bricks until I spent two weeks getting it back up to snuff. Mini Ovens posts really helped.
Why just this new bag of flour? We're assuming they're using starter but may not. Let's wait and see. Would be a coincidence that a starter would be fine but go wrong as soon as the flour changed. Without knowing what the old and new flours are it could be the old flour was bread flour and the new flour plain (cake) flour. It's a puzzle and i'm curious. We need more info!
You are right, she might not be using starter. It was just that her description was so similar to mine, that it seemed it could be the same issue I had. And my issue did come up suddenly. From one weekend to the next, my dough started tearing during shaping and then had very little oven spring. I guess that the balance of bacteria to yeast reached a tipping point that totally messed up my loaves. You can be assured that I take much better care of my starter these days.
Hence the question - yeasted and starter based bread. Starters can and do get out of whack over time. Most of the time due to slight misfeeding ie ratios are not optional. The more it of range it is the quicker it happens, conversely, the less out of range it is the slower it happens. Either way the usual scenario is all is well, then bang, it isn't. Enjoy!