October 12, 2022 - 5:43pm
Malfabrot question
I'm planning to try the recipe for Malfabrot (East Berlin Malt Rye) from The Rye Baker. I have several barley malts of varying degrees of roast that I could use for the malt. I tried looking for what a typical malt would be in the bread, but was unsuccessful. Ginsberg suggests a 120° Lovibond crystal malt.
Any ideas what the East Germans would have used?
Thanks!
Share
On Wikipedia (which does quote references!) a typical recipe is:
This malt bread contains 10% barley malt flour, 75% rye flour type 1150 and 15% wheat flour type 812. Half of the rye flour is first added to sourdough and then added with water and yeast. The barley malt flour used to bake the bread is produced by a special process (controlled heating, drying and grinding of sprouted barley grains). Malfabrot has a characteristic dark brown color.
The strong malty flavour is the main character of this bread (just what number I couldn't say as it doesn't mention this anywhere) and would be ideal. Lovibond crystal is not specific enough.
Another website with good info and a recipe.
If I were looking for the flavors described (esp chocolate) I would use Solod (fermented red rye malt) not dark roasted barley, don’t know why, but they stated dark roast barley.
“Malfabrot, our bread of the week!
A rye bread rich in deep flavors. Notes of chocolate, caramel and coffee. His dark color and its tastes come from dark-roasted barley malt.
Here served with cream cheese and a touch of fresh basil.”
Specifically mention a roasted barley malt which gives this bread its typical flavour.
Having brewed my share of beer ( not so much recently), I don't understand that attribute being applied to dark roasted barley malt, which always had more of a bitter almond/sweetish coffee flavor to me. I had never experienced anything I would have described as chocolatey until I received my first batch of Solod.
In my basement, I have a few pounds each of malted barley, malted rye, red rye malt, fermented red rye malt (solid), rye malt syrup (50/50 rye barley, best I could find), wheat malt syrup, chocolate rye malt and dark roasted barley malt syrup. Only one of them ever imparted what I would call chocolate flavors to bread, including when I used cocoa powder to darken a pumpernickel bread I made.
While I understand that taste is subjective, I'm genuinely confused by the chocolate description of dark roasted barley malt flavored bread.
Stouts and Porters often have rich caramel and chocolatey flavours. And where did you find that this bread traditionally has a chocolate taste? Could be all down to the malt they chose to use. I'm quite sure barley malt is used for this bread as I haven't found sources saying otherwise. At 10% malt it will part strong flavour. That's quite high.
Every reference I have found says barley malt.
Having never tasted this bread, I was confused (as I indicated) by the description of a chocolatey flavor. I was hoping someone with first hand knowledge would chime in and either confirm or challenge that description.
I'll agree that stouts and porters, if of high quality, can have chocolate and coffee flavor notes. And some Märzens or amber (Vienna) lagers can also have a noticeable caramel note.
Now that I have baked this bread, I can definitely say there is a caramel component to the flavor. I did not really notice a chocolate or coffee flavor. But I also now know what color level of malt should be a little darker, which could bring some of those flavors.
I started looking for other malts and found a Weyermann dehusked malt (Carafa Special Malt I) that is a little too dark (302–378L). The interesting bit of info about this malt is that removing the husk also removes some of the bitterness present in the husk. While I did not notice any bitterness in the bread, it could be the malt made especially for Malfabrot also uses dehusked barley, giving the bread a smoother malt flavor profile.
I'll agree that solod imparted an amazing aroma and flavor in the one bread I used it in (Lithuanian Black Bread, theryebaker-dot-com).
But this bread specifically uses a dark roasted barley malt, as Abe mentioned. Malfabrot is a sort of a German portmanteau of Malzfabrik Kraftma Brot.
Hi Ron,
I was just wondering about what malt to use and the solod is the one I can try with East Berlin recipe.
Have a great summer garden!!
The East Germans used a special malt, today roasted specifically for that bread. The producer of that malt says that their barley malt is lightly/gently roasted and finely milled. This is how it looks
This is how 120 degree Lovibond crystal malt looks when milled, quite close indeed:
Your can try different roasted barley malts that you own in baking that bread and you will figure out which one gives that typical crumb color.
Thanks for the info, mariana.
I continued searching late last night after posting and I believe I answered my question. I found a spec sheet for that malt flour used for Malfabrot:
Malfa-Kraftma-Spezial-Brotmehl
The color is listed as EBC 425–575, which converts to 160–216° Lovibond. From the brew store I have a 120L malt now that I will try, but I believe I can get a color malt that is closer.
Here is a photo of the bulk dough:
I just realized that I misread my spreadsheet and added too much water. My hydration is now 76% instead of 68%, although I used all medium rye flour instead of the 2:1 medium/white rye specified in the recipe. I probably should bake in pan instead of freestanding, but I'm going to give it a try.
Such a good find, alcophile! That means that the recommended in the book caramel malt (120L) is way too pale. Although I prefer paler malts in my breads, not as burnt. 160L is already characterized as extra dark and very dark crystal malt, imagine 220L(Special B malt)!
I love that color of your dough as well.
If your medium rye is rather high in ash and is rather dry, then 76% water is just right for a hearth loaf. You will see it when it proofs anyways. It is never too late to scoop it up and prove it again in a pan should you find it too liquidy.
You cam take some off (starter for next time?) and just add more flour and a little more salt.
I don't usually save any dough (don't tell J. Hamelman) and it's already baked. I make a different bread nearly every time I bake, so, it would sit in the 'fridge and be forgotten.
I may not like the bread, too. But that's unlikely.😋🍞🤞
Interesting that you specified East. They make it differently in the west?
The company that produces Malfa-Kraftma-Spezial-Brotmehl today is in Strassberg which is very far away from the territory of the former East Germany. Although that mill is ancient, now they specialize exclusively in milling that malt.
We can only assume that they preserved the traditional quality of that product but who knows. Bakers from former East Germany certainly use their malt as they continue baking that bread
https://www.shop.elb-drebach.de/product_info.php?info=p29_kraftmabrot-1000g.html
The recipe that they provide for malfabrot is certainly different from that in The Rye Baker. They say that we should first presoak the malt (prepare QUELLSTÜCK) and then add it to the already made bread dough!
https://www.vogtlandmuehlen.de/HTMLSites-8-Backtipp.aspx
It sounds as though they are laying claim to the authentic variety of this bread. I'm sure there is a reason for adding the malt the way they lay it out. Could the malt compete for water, and pre-hydrating makes for better gluten development? Who knows.
I've been immersing myself in the relative temperatures of amylase, LAB and yeast activity - and their relationship to dough fermentation and gluten structure. The more I learn, the more it seems like a miracle every time a loaf comes out of the oven edible.
Thanks for the link!
Hi, Mariana:
Does the German website provide a recipe for the bread dough?
Thanks!
Yippee
Yippee, the millers don't mention any specifics. Maybe that is why in Germany a variety of breads with the sticker 'malfabrot' is sold by different bakeries. Some are clearly wheat breads, some are rye breads. For as long as 10% of all flour is the trademarked barley malt flour they are OK. They are different from German maltzbrot, which is baked with rye and wheat malt (flakes) in its formula.
There is an article in Wikipedia about that malfa-kraftma bread of the 1960s, and the only official information about it they give is from the book that I don't own. I own plenty of German bread books and none of them mentions that bread. Not even the books from 1960s.
This is what wikipedia says about malfabrot, translated by DeepL
Properties
This malt bread contains
10% barley malt flour (aka roasted and milled barley malt, L160-200),
75% rye flour type 1150 (aka medium rye) and
15% wheat flour type 812 (aka sifted/bolted wheat bread flour).[1]
Half of the rye flour is first fermented in a sourdough leaven and then added to the bread dough along with water and yeast.
The malted barley flour used to bake the bread is produced by a special process (controlled heating, drying and grinding of germinated barley grains).
Malfabread has a characteristic dark brown color.
History
The name is composed of the short words Malfa for malt factory and Kraftma for kraft malt[1]. Malfa Kraftma bread was a product from the GDR, produced in VEB Bako (Bakery Combine) Berlin and advertised as "The Malfa Kraftma Bread".
Present
Today, the Malfa-Kraftma brand belongs to Vogtlandmühlen GmbH Straßberg Plauen. The flour is produced under license by various manufacturers.
[1]Heinz Ackermann: Nutrition and Food Science. An introduction. VEB Fachbuchverlag, 1964, p. 254.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, Mariana.
Thanks!
Yippee
Yippee, are you milling your own flour? There were discussions on this forum which sieves to use to bolt flours. I don't bolt home milled flours, I just use whole wheat and whole rye if I mill mine, because they are uniformly milled. I don't see how I would separate bran from endosperm by bolting them.
However, when I purchase whole grain flours in stores, some brands come with large particles of bran in them. I.e. they are not stone milled. Stone ground flours have uniform look, like so:
Fours with siftable bran flakes are milled on roller mills where the process of milling begins with soaking and washing the grain and stripping it of its outer layers (bran flakes, germ flakes), then milling endosperm, and at the end, all streams are blended together into a whole grain product with a precise moisture content of 14.5% and a desired ash %.
This is how they look under microscope and of course those large bran particles are visible with naked eye
They are so easy to sift/bolt on any sieve at home, if the bran flake are visible
No special equipment is necessary
I consider that I obtain medium rye or T80/type812 once I sift out 10% of such flour in bran weight, because pure endosperm is about 83% of the kernel weight in wheat, this number is very stable. Rye kernels composition by weight is variable depending on the cultivar and is represented by ranges: 80-85% endosperm, the germ 2-3% and the outer layers (bran) about 10-15%.
Now, it is not really necessary, since both medium rye and sifted/bolted bread flours (T80, T110) are easily purchased in stores, but before those flours became available in retail shops I was doing exactly that.
Thank you so much, Mariana!
Yippee
originated with stone mills. They used “bolts” of silk cloth to separate the finest starches out of freshly ground flour. In the town I live in we have a stone water mill that was in operation until 1956. It has since been turned into a museum/cafe/tourist attraction. if you go up to the top floor they have the original bolts of silk used for sifting the stone ground flour.
I bolt my flour, ground at home, from time to time, when I’m looking for increased rise.
It is also done today, stone mills, silk screens to bolt flour. Here, the goal is not so much to sift out the bran, as it is to obtain the fine(st) portion of endosperm (starches) as you correctly mentioned.
For example, how it is done where I live :) The Bolter (flour sorter) in operation at the Old Stone Mill, Delta, Ontario. At 22 sec a woman opens the cabinet door to show the rotating bolter, its silk screens.
Hi Mariana,
If my fresh whole-grain flour is already silky smooth and the dough has good gluten development and a good rise, do I need to take this extra step to bolt it?
Will using whole-grain flour instead of medium rye and T80/110 wheat used in the bakery make my bread unauthentic?
Thanks!
Yippee
Yippee, bran in bread mostly affects its taste and acidity, and rate of bread spoilage. At 15% level I would say would not be that radical of a difference in a barley rye bread looks or tastes.
Formally, it would be a different kind of bread, a bakery or a bread factory in East Germany would have to sell it under a different name, but its taste and looks would be more affected by the quality of the wheat that you are milling and the fact that it is freshly milled than by its ash/bran content. Type 812 is a strong bread flour.
The author of The Bread Baker, for example, decided to use American all purpose flour (essentially, German type 405) instead of Type 812 (80% extraction, ash 0.64% to 0.89%) and still calls his bread East Berlin Malfabrot.
So if we use strong whole wheat flour, essentially "type 1600+", we are definitely going to be baking a malfabrot, just not an East Berlin one but it still will be a great bread.
Not a lot of the bran makes it through the silk.
It depends on the mesh. The miller that is on that Youtube video says
This is how the flour travels through the bolter:
http://www.deltamill.org/flour/bolter-P3210234-600.jpg
middlings and shorts are intermediary or final discards in the filtering process to produce the final product. based on what you quoted.
In Canada, the fraction that goes through #100 mesh sifter is sold as T80 bread flour and middlings, the coarser fraction that goes through #50 mesh sifter, as T110 bread flour.
https://lamilanaise.com/en/product/organic-sifted-wheat-100-bread-flour/
https://lamilanaise.com/en/product/organic-sifted-wheat-50-bread-flour/
Given 3 different filters there are 9 possible outcomes. Since milling is a business it leaves me wondering.
‘if flour is filtered through a #100 mesh sifter, what is the flour that remains after sifting? same question for the remains of #50 and #35.
if the remains of #100 sifted flour were sifted through a #50 what would that flour be? and it’s remains? etc...
The image you supplied looks like a progressive filtration from finest to coarsest meaning that the #100 would have been sifted out of the #50 batch.
Hi Mariana,
Based on this review, do you think it works more like a roller mill or a stone mill?
Thanks!
Yippee
P.S.
The reviewer also stated:
"A modification of steel rollers was the use of steel wheels, which act like stone milling wheels. The classic KitchenAid grain mill, one of the first home grain mills, uses this. They rarely need to be sharpened."
in another article.
I have both a Messerschmitt and mock mill attachments to grind grains. I didn’t get the official kitchen aid for the reason described in the second link you provided - I wasn’t sure I would live long enough to make the loaf of bread it was grinding the flour for, and it works the motor harder.
‘Of the two I own, the mock mill makes “slightly” slightly better flour, the Messerschmittmitt (which has a metal grinder) can handle seeds that the mock mill forbids.
Both, as described in your links, can be easily sifted to separate out finer flour from bran like flakes/chunks in the flour.
Hi Yippee,
what it does is producing schrots, a mixture of finer whole wheat flour and whole grain farina (coarser particles, whole wheat meal).
For the large bran flakes, the grain is presoaked at the mill, washed and then stripped on a special set of rollers, so the large particles of bran (and germ flakes) fall off.
Later, they are added back to the flour to make it whole again.
Home milling is a one step process, maybe a two step process, but it is fundamentally different. It always resembles stone milling as it is stated in your quote. The grain is always milled dry, as is.
You still will be able to sift out something whiter and finer with a one step process, but not like with the commercial milling process which has many sets of rollers and the process of stripping the grain of its bran and germ prior to milling the inner part into different streams of white and very white flours.
Sifting commercially available roller-milled whole rye flour seems the only way to make "real" medium rye at home. How can I be sure that the bag of flour I'm buying is roller-milled? By luck?
Yippee
It will say that it is stone ground if it is Yippee. Otherwise, it is roller milled. It is roller milled by default if it is from a large milling company. But then it is easy to purchase medium rye flour directly.
Baker's Authority sells an amazing quality medium rye from Ardent Mills, very freshly milled, super tasty in bread. I get 50lbs bags from them, but they sell smaller quantities as well.
https://www.bakersauthority.com/collections/rye-flours-bulk/products/ramsey-medium-rye-flour-5lb
💋💋💋
Yippee
Hi, Yippee, here is one example:
https://kuechenlatein.com/kost-the-ost-malfa-kraftma-brot/
It is similar to the one from The Rye Baker that I baked yesterday. I don't have type 1150 rye; I used medium rye (type 1370) in mine. After I slice my loaf, I'll post some pictures.
.
I am very satisfied with this bake. The bread spread only a little despite my hydration error. The crumb is moist and has a definite caramel flavor from the malt. Ginsberg describes a sour crumb because of the 37.5% pre-fermented flour, but I did not find it very sour. It could be the balancing flavor of the malt. I would definitely bake this again.
Wow, this loaf looks absolutely perfect! Amazing.
Congratulations!
Thanks, mariana! I think it is one of my better efforts
Wow, Alco!👍👍👍
Yippee
beautiful dark crumb.
Thank you!
I might even try using a darker dehusked Weyemann Carafa I malt next time.
The malt I used is not the same.
The crust of my malfabrot is a bit bitter.
65% fresh whole rye
10% whole rye CLAS
15% fresh whole wheat
10% Caraaroma malt
~72% hydration
The bread looks great!
Besides the crust, did you like the flavor of the bread?
After I made my bread, I gently tried to roll some of the malt I used to remove the husks, but it just crushed the malt.
The brew store owner once told me that darker-colored malts are not necessarily more flavorful and said that oat? malt was his favorite.
The dark-colored dough also made me fantasize about the chocolate flavor, but I was very disappointed when such a flavor did not exist.
Yippee
This is the one the owner likes:
huskless
I asked him about Weyermann Carafa malt and Briess black malt. He said that even though both malts were huskless, they were both too bitter for bread making.
Yippee
I have used Golden Naked Oats in the Multgrain Struan recipe in Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. I used it whole in the soaker portion of the recipe. I liked the flavor and texture it imparted. I'll have to try milling some into flour to add along with the whole malt.
Here is a blog entry from Simpson's Malt:
https://www.simpsonsmalt.co.uk/blog/malted-oats-vs-golden-naked-oats/
Hi Yippee,
I was looking at Calbeach's recent bake and it drew me into other links on this bread.
Thanks for converting the recipe for me for clas.
I hope your summer garden is flourishing!
“ The husk protects the caryopsis from biological, environmental and mechanical stresses. It also maintains an important role in maintaining seed dormancy. Malting is a process of controlled germination and industry relies on highly consistent levels of germination (Gupta et al., 2010). Losing the husk results in increased damage to the embryo, uneven germination and poor endosperm modification. High proportions of skinned grains are therefore detrimental to malting efficiency (Meredith, 1959; Agu et al., 2002; Hoad et al., 2016; Okoro et al., 2017).”
This might be a better question in it’s own thread but here goes anyway:
‘I’ve been wondering about the role of amylase enzymes in the malting process and their effects on damaged starches at temperatures above LAB and Yeast viability. Specifically as it relates to the scarification of carbohydrates in classic low temperature rye bakes that result in sweet dense loaves. It was my (mis)understanding that once the enzymes were present at the correct temperature scarification would occur. If this is not true, I will have to rethink several baking experiments I had planned in the near future.
Weyermann sells CARAFA malts at three roast levels.The lightest roast is still darker than the spec for the Kraftma-mehl:
https://www.weyermann.de/product/weyermann-carafa-spezial-typ-1/?cat=roestmalz
I don't know what their process is for removing the husk; I assume it is post malting. Unfortunately for us bakers, there is not much demand for dehusked malt from brewers, understandably so. But Weyermann and other maltsters also sell malt flours to the baking and food industry:
https://www.weyermann.de/produkte/lebensmittel/
Abe just posted a link to a Briess roasted malt that is starts with a huskless barley:
https://www.brewingwithbriess.com/products/bitterless-black-malts/
I agree with Mariana that is an awesome loaf.
Benny
Thanks, Benny!
It tastes pretty good, too. As usual, the flavor is improving with time. If you like amber lagers, you probably will like this bread.
That crumb looks so good!! I will start the process this weekend hopefully.
This entire discussion here has so many tips and details about malt. Very instructive.
Thanks for showing a beautiful bake!!
Bread from Malfa. The only Malfa, when googled, is in Italy. Perhaps this is a rye bread which has its roots in Italy. You might wish to have a look into Italian Rye Breads to see if there is anything more to learn about this bread.
Like Sauerkraut is a German take on the original Kimchi then Malfabrot could be a German take on an Italian Rye.
Just a guess when translating Malfabrot.
Hi Abe,
As I understand it, the origin of the bread's name, Malfabrot, is a sort of a German portmanteau of Malzfabrik Kraftma Brot.
The word Kraftma itself is also a shortened version of the compound noun Kraftmalz, literally "power" or "strong" malt. And I guess a dark malt would be considered a strong malt.
I've been looking for rye breads from Malfa and so far can't find anything. I did have an idea of typing Malfabrot into google translator to see if it would give anymore ideas about this bread and all it said was Malfa Bread. So then I googled Malfa and it's a place in Italy. Just goes to show how words come about and doesn't always mean the seemingly more obvious.
Strong malt sounds right. Barley malt is definitely the right kind of malt. The strength you choose can be as much about your own taste I would think.
So it says at the end of the recipe...
https://brotbackforum.iphpbb3.com/forum/77934371nx46130/roggensauerteig-f19/malfa-kraftma-brot-t2061.html
Yippee
I've seen a couple of recipes that use a soaker or a scald with the malt. Another possible variation.