[Sca-cooks] question about breads

[Terry Decker]

Some flours, rye for one, retain moisture better than other flours and lose 
less in the baking.  As you surmise, older flours tend to be drier flours 
and require a greater volume of liqour to rehydrate them.  Since most 
commercial flours are aged, they usually will absorb the maximum quantity of 
liquor.  It is more of an issue if you are working with freshly milled 
flour.

Bear

> Bear mentioned:
>> You lose about 25 percent of the weight of the dough during baking, 
>> mostly
>> in fluid loss.  So 4 pounds of ingredients will produce approximately a 3
>> pound loaf.  Type of flour, age of flour, and type of liquids used tend 
>> to
>> alter the amount of loss, but 25 percent is a good rule of thumb.
>
> I remember you mentioning this weight loss before. It surprised me at 
> first, but then I realized the amount of liquid which boils off. I can 
> understand how the type of liquids used affects the loss, since some 
> liquids such as a thick beer are going to lose less water to vapor than 
> say plain water. But how does the type of flour or age of the flour affect 
> this? Is there less or more moisture in older flour? Or is it just that a 
> different flour or an older flour might require more liquid added 
> initially to be workable into a loaf?
>
> Thanks,
>   Stefan
> --------
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas 
> StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
>
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