[Sca-cooks] effect of fat content in medieval flour

[Terry Decker]

> Bear said:
> <<< Unless you are trying to accurately reproduce a flour, such as emmer, 
> durum,
> or spelt flour, something like King Arthur's Unbleached White Whole Wheat 
> or
> an unbleached all purpose flour should be adequate for most purposes,
> although the fat content may be lower than period flours. >>>
>
> I imagine you may have said this before, but what sort of effects does the 
> fat content make in the use of the flour?
>
> Is this 2.76% vs. 1.40% fat enough to effect the taste or structure? Was 
> this enough to make the medieval bread to seem softer or richer?
>
> Thanks,
>  Stefan

The percentage of difference in crude fat content (from wheat germ) is so 
low as to have negligible effect in baking.

The critical number is the extraction rate.  At 100% extraction (nothing 
removed), the flour retains all of the moisture, crude fat, crude protein, 
crude fiber, ash, and nitrogen free extract (soluble carbohydrate:  sugar 
and starch).  At 100% extraction, all of these reduce the qualities of 
taste, texture, flavor, chewiness, and color.  Bolting removes cruder 
particles from the finer grains of flour, which removes much of the crude 
fiber (bran) and ash, some of the protein and some of the fat (germ).  Lower 
extraction flours also retain less moisture.

According to Best's Farming Book (1641):  "in every bushell of meale that 
commeth from the mill there is neare a peck of chizell drossed out."  As 
there are four pecks to the bushel, one quarter of the flour is dross to be 
removed to produce finer flour to be used in white loaves.  This suggests an 
extraction rate of roughly 75%.  That is roughly equivalent to the 
extraction rate for normal flour.  A loaf made from modern flour, water, 
yeast and salt will be very close to a Medieval loaf.

If you want to delve a little deeper into the mysteries of extraction, you 
might see if you can find these papers:

Y. Pomeranz, Wheat Chemistry and Technology, vol. 2. American association of 
cereal chemists Inc., St. Paul, Minnesota, pp. 99-101, 1988.

R. Venkateswara, G. D. Indrani, and S. R. Shupalekar, "Effect of milling 
methods and extraction rate on the chemical, rheological and bread making 
characteristics of wheat flours," J. Food. Sci. Technol., vol. 22, pp. 
38-42, 1985.

J. Qarooni, E. S. Posner, and J. G. Ponte, "Production of tanoor bread with 
hard white and other US wheats," Lebnsm. Wiss. Technol., vol. 26, pp. 
100-106, 1993.

J. Qarooni, R. Bequetter, and C. Deyoe, "The performance of U.S. hard whit 
wheat : effect of milling extraction on flour, pan bread, tortilla, and pita 
(arabic) bread quality," Lebnsm. Wiss. Technol., vol. 27, pp. 270-277, 1994.

Bear