Help: Water vs Whole Wheat?
I recently did the Vermont Whole Wheat Oatmeal Honey Bread by King Arthur. Well, kneading it was worse than regular white flour, even though it didn't have much whole wheat. It tore and was very sticky. So I let it rest, then it cooperated a bit more, but was still tearing, even when I could roll it into a ball and was only slightly tacky. I can't tell if it was lack of gluten due to myself (or the recipe specifying AP flour instead of bread flour) or lack of water. The Approachable Loaf was easier than this (and so was my recent Walter Sand's bread). The bread itself came out okay, not perfect. Half of it was blown out, but the crumb was tight and even. It tasted good, but I think next time I'll save the maple sugar for cookies since no maple came through.
Vermont KA bread:
170g White Whole Wheat Bread (I used regular whole wheat)
480g of All purpose flour
454g boiling water
89g Rolled Oats (but I used oat flour)
Did the Oat flour count as part of the total flour whereas the rolled oats would not? If so that makes my hydration 61% instead of 69%.
The other whole wheat loaf I've made with not much problem is Floyd's Honey Whole Wheat on here which I think is 70% hydration. 16oz Whole wheat, 8oz of Bread flour, 17oz of milk/water.
And The Walter Sand's sandwhich bread (King Arthur again) which uses only All Purpose flour was 63%. It used 454g boiling water and 720g All Purpose Flour.
Is there a sweet spot for whole wheat flour sandwich bread? Like 75-80% or something?
Hi Sugar Owl. This dough contains a lot of enrichments (butter, sugar, honey) that all contain water and contribute to the overall hydration of the dough so that's something to be aware of before increasing the water. Honestly, I'd start by looking at the change from rolled oats to oat flour – which I don't think is a big deal in and of itself, but if you did the 15-minute soaker using oat flour, I can see where that might have affected dough consistency. The purpose of the short soaker is to soften up the rolled oats, but since you didn't use rolled oats, it's an unnecessary step. More to the point, I think oat flour would absorb more water in that short time frame than the rolled oats would have, making less water available to the other flours. There are other possibilities of course, such as the strength and absorption of your AP and WW flours as compared to the KAF flours with which the recipe was undoubtedly tested, gluten development, human error, etc. All of those factors being equal, I might try the recipe again, doing everything the same way but omitting the soaker (if in fact you did one). That's my first thought and I hope it helps.
I don't think the soaker is the issue. The oat flour is the same amount by weight as the rolled oats so they would absorb the same total water. I've done just hot water and whole wheat and didn't have this problem. So maybe the lack of an autolyze worked against me as well as the lack of gluten that user suave pointed out.
The problem is not so much the hydration, as fully hydrated oat flour should absorb about the same amount of water as rolled oats, as it is the oat flour itself. Think about it, you take 480 gram of, let's say 11% gluten, flour, and cut it with 89 gram of gluten-free flour. That brings gluten content down to 9.3%. That alone will make for a very weak dough.
They lack of gluten didn't occur to me. I think that's why I had a hard time. I use KA flours, but with Floyd's recipe (https://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/wholewheathoneybread) he uses bread flour. So I think not using bread flour plus the addition of a non-gluten flour kinda messed it up. I think I'll just keep using the Floyd's and maybe try a porridge-type bread in the future, after I get done with a cinnamon swirl bread I'm trying to get the hang of.