[Sca-cooks] Sourdough

[Decker, Terry D.]

"Hardness" refers to the percentage of protein in the flour.  A hard wheat
is high in protein.  A soft wheat is low in protein.  Most of the protein in
wheat is gluten, so a hard wheat flour produces strong strands of gluten
which are great for trapping carbon dioxide from the yeast.

Gluten strands are tough, so when you want softer bake goods, pies, cakes,
biscuits, etc., a softer flour works better.

Whole wheat has nothing to do with the hardness of the flour.  It is merely
wheat flour which retains the germ and some of the bran.

As an observation, most whole wheat flours make denser bread than white or
unbleached flours.  This is probably due to the amount of visible bran most
whole wheat flours retain.  An exception is King Arthur's white whole wheat
flour which very fine and probably has been bolted to remove any large
pieces of bran.

If you are using whole wheat for sourdough, I would suggest adding a little
diastasic malt to the bread.

Bear

> 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?
>
> Vitha
>