[Sca-cooks] Sourdough

[Ciorstan]

Vitha writes:

> So using whole wheat flour is not necessarly "hard" flour?  If I am using
> whole wheat flour could that be one of the reasons I'm not getting the "lift"
> in my bread that I want?

Yes, exactly. I would advise allowing more rise time proportionately
speaking than for a hard bread flour or for a 'all purpose' flour loaf--
if you're trying purely period methods. Otherwise, boost the loaf with a
bit of malt powder or even some baker's yeast. Up to you. On the other
hand, a firmer loaf isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't much like
bread that has too light a crumb; 'air' bread.

If I recall my wheat anatomy correctly, whole wheat flours are just
that, the entire grain ground into powder. Gluten chains are formed by
the contents of the endosperm of the wheat seed; the nutritionally
valuable goodies are in the bran of the seed, useless for gluten chain
formation.  By removing the non-gluten items (bran and outer shell) from
the flour one ends up with what's called "white flour"-- plus, the
harder the wheat variety ground by the mill, the higher the ratio of
gluten in the end product.

ciorstan