Ok, you've seen my white loaves before and the photo below is just to show the crumb. Sorry it is blurry, I'm having a bad hand day.
In my white loaves I usually use flour with a protein content of 11.5%. This time around I substituted 17% of the flour with White Wings plain flour at 10% protein. White Wings was the lowest protein flour I could find, even Coles generic was 10.8%.
Mixing in the plain flour reduced, on paper, the protein level of the flour content to about 11.257%, which does not appear to be much. However the tale goes further than the figures would indicate.
As you can see from the photo the crumb structure has not altered noticeably, but the crumb is much softer and moister, and the crust,which is normally crunchy and very chewy, has gone more toward the crunchy with less of the chewy.
Summed up, I see this as an easy way to alter the whole nature of these loaves depending on how I wish to serve them.
Edit. There was a noticeable change in flavour also.
[img]http://www.sourdough.com.au/gallery/d/3894-1/new_Crumb.jpg[/img]
Replies
Nice bread. Bill, I'm interested to know about the flavour. What about the starter? What flour did you feed it with?
Hi TP, I just fed the starter with my normal 11.5% bakers flour as usual. The flavour is a bit hard to describe, but certainly different to straight bakers flour. Give it a try, as I said it's an easy way to change a loaf.
Had a laugh about the Indians on eGull
Hi Bill,
Am curious, why the special number of 17%?
I baked my focaccia with all purpose flour and have notice that the texture is softer and moist and less chewy like you mentioned. Have you tried the recipe yet? Am waiting to admire your loaf....
Cheers...
Don
Don, I'm sitting in front of the 'puter with my morning coffee trying to wake up enough to start the focaccia so it will be ready for lunch. Will post pics later today.
The magic 17% came about because I do a three loaf batch and the added flour is 1500g. So I figured that 300g of the new flour was a good starting point. When I worked out the percentage of the total flour (including starter) it came out to 17%. Very scientific eh!
Bill,
Ah... that's very scientific eh Now I see, you're a genius...
Cheers...
Don
Hi Bill you sure make nice bread.
I have a question regarding flour or gluten in the flour a person asked me if sour dough bread is good for people with a gluten intolerance. I can't remember what they call it. I then started to wonder if all the gluten does get broken down with the acids in sourdough bread...
Cheers Normbake
Hi Normbake, unfortunately sourdough is a no no for Celiac sufferers, I have a Niece who suffers from it and she nearly cries when she smells my fresh baked loaves.
Thanks for the reply Bill
I've looked at your 2 rye loaves and they look very tasty.
I came across a bread recipe using some dark ale added with the water I'm going to give that a try on Saturday.
Something about the malt in the beer gives the yeasts a good feed.
I got some scales and couldn't believe the difference when I started weighing the flour instead of using cups.
Have a good weekend
Normbake
Hi Normbake, yes the beer gives a good taste but it makes it a bit expensive. I put 1 Tablespoon of Blackstrap Molasses in a 1 Kg loaf. In all my loaves I add 1 lightly heaped teaspoon of light dried brewers malt, same effect and a lot cheaper. If you do this don't be tempted to use too much malt as it will have the opposite effect to what you are looking for.
Bill,
Do you know if the brewers malt you use is diastatic or non-diastatic? I'm just trying to learn when to use which one.
Thanks Gary
Found this on the net, I'm going to get some brewers malt too and add it to my dough.
Normbake
[quote]Malt can be diastatic or non-diastatic. Non-diastatic is simply added as a sweetener, diastatic malt breaks down the starch in dough to yield sugars on which the yeast can feed. Having some around in long fermented breads is very important.
Gary, it is of the diastatic kind, the one that will break down and ferment.
OK thanks, I've been looking around here locally and it all seems to be non-diastatic so I'll keep looking.
Gary