November 18, 2008 - 2:28pm
W / W
I am really in a quandary here.
Should I soak my WW grain/flour before baking with it,
I never have I mill the hard wheat berries and
continue to make my bread, now some say the flour should be soaked to remove some nasty thats in there........ Help................. qahtan
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I think you might be speaking of phytic acid, there have been a few posts on here if you'd like to search the forums.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid
I don't concern myself with it too much, but I do know that soaking the flour in a slightly acidic solution will reduce the phytic acid in a few hours time. I use a mix of buttermilk and milk... or buttermilk and H2O. Someone else can tell us if that would actually work. You could also probably use a tbsp of lime/lemon juice. I have no idea what that would do to the taste of the end loaf though.
Generally if you're using the soaker/biga method for your whole wheat breads, that should work.
Something I'd like to know is the difference in amounts of Phytic Acid between store-bought whole wheat, and freshly ground.