[Sca-cooks] Queston on Flours

[Terry Decker]

Whole wheat flour with the bran in it seems to need a little more liquor
than finely sieved flour.  Whole grain flours also tend to produce denser
loaves than all purpose wheat flour.  You can compensate for some of the
density with a longer rise or adding sugar and yeast to increase the
fermentation.  I prefer the longer rise.

A fine bolted, aged whole wheat pastry flour gives better results with the
manchet recipe than most off-the-shelf whole wheat flours.  A high gluten
bread flour is better yet.  Remember, what they really wanted for manchet
was Wonder bread.

You can compensate for hard crusts, by applying oil or butter to them just
after you remove them from the oven.  After they cool, a day or two in a
plastic bag also can help soften the crust.

Don't worry to much about your failures.  Follow the recipe a couple more
times, then try making it from a finer whole wheat flour and use what you
observe in getting the earlier recipes right to make the whole wheat come
out properly.

Bear


                   Deciding to experiment after a bit
    of success with the period bread,I decided to ummmmmm
    experiment with the recipe given.
                  Instead of 5-6 cups of all purpose flour
    I used 3 cups ea. of all purpose and whole wheat flour
      it seemed as i mixed and kneeded it was dryer and more
    elastic then the original recipe......I attribute that
     to the deviation in type of flour used.
   Am I close in my guess or just lost in a cloud of smoke?
     The finished product from this experiment was near cinder
   block crust and a very dense interior that barely absorbed
    melted butter
   whereas the previous batch of bread was of a heavy crust
    and and a dense, butter absorbant interior.well.........
   back to the bread,this time following strictly the original
   recipe.

        Æthelwülf