I've received a new batch of organic white flour and it's really sluggish. I keep a regular feeding schedule and normally have no problems, except with certain flour batches. My last problem was remedied by malt. Now the malt is not helping. The miller suggested a little glucose to get the yeast going. He assured me that everything in their analysis is normal and he's stumped. My questions are - how much glucose do I use as a percentage of the flour, and should I use it at all; will it sweeten the dough, etc, or is it simply a catalyst. I make simple organic au levain breads and do not want that altered.
Thanks,
Tony
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Replies
Adding a little bit of glucose might help say 1% flour basis ...
but in principle you are not employing natural ingredients anymore as pure glucose is an industrially refined kind of sugar.
..If the flour is sluggish inspite the presence diastatic enzymes there is some deficiency in nutrients ( or microbial growth factors) in the fermenting medium and you need to add something else.
In the past I had used wheat germ and added it to the starter mash at 1% along with diastatic malt and everything went back to normal.
Thanks Chembake!
Update: the glucose test pot is barely more active than the test pot with diastatic malt.
The yeasted test pot is more active than any other ones.
The freshly milled flour test pot seems to be restoring some of the sweetness back to the starter and is coming alive.
The miller thinks that maybe the white flour is too clean - not enough bacterial load. It sounds like what you are saying too?
So, do I add the wheat germ from mother all the way up to my final leaven, or into the final dough. This is how I do it:
Mother 300g
build to 1000g
then to 10,000 grams
then to specific sponges for various doughs
then the doughs
I add it in the final leaven, to ensure that the starter is rather active before I add the rest of the dough ingredients......
Hey Chembake,
any other tricks up your sleave. The wheat germ helped overall when using different flour but did little with the sluggish flour. It still sits there.
Thanks,
Tony
Pan evino- test that sluggish flour first with bakers yeast and compare it with a normal flour.....
What I did is added 10% red rife whole meal flour to the sluggish flour and the test pot has come alive overnight. I'll follow this throughout the day and reduce the whole meal addition and see how little I could use.
I also mixed the sluggish flour with a similar organic white flour from a different batch, with good results.
Cheers,
Tony
Hey Chembake, did you mean wheat bran when you suggested wheat germ? Why wheat germ? Wondering.
Cheers
Tony
Hey bread& wine...the keyword here is nutrients....... not offal.
therefore the difference between the two is pretty obvious...regarding what substance the critters can utilize to enhance their fermentative activity