How do seeds alter water content/hydration?
Let's say I have a basic formula with 75% hydration that I'm happy with in terms of rise, crust, crumb etc. Let's also say I use a total rise time of about 12h in room temperature (might affect the answer to the question I'm about to ask).
Suppose I want to add whole Non-toasted Non-soaked flax seeds corresponding to 20% of the flour. And I want to mix in the seeds at the same time as I mix the flour etc. How should I adjust the water content in my formula?
Example:
Basic formula
400 g flour
300 g water
Formula with seeds
400 g flour
80 g whole Non-toasted Non-soaked flax seeds
??? g water
How many g of water should i use?
Additional questions:
2. Same question as above but with whole Non-toasted Non-soaked sunflower seeds (kernels).
3. Same question as above with whatever type of seed or addition (like rye berries, sun dried tomatoes, olives, nuts, apricots etc) that you might now the answer to. Please specify if the additive is soaked, toasted or something else that might affect the overall hydration.
Thank you :-)
(This is my first post on this excellent forum that I have consulted for a while. I'm new in this game. I have baked for about a year and about once or twice per week.
I have searched the forum for the answers to the questions above but I haven't found good answers. If I have missed some relevant topics, blog posts etc, please refer me to them and I apologize for asking old questions.)
Morus, your questions are good ones. Dry seeds will absorb (take away) some water from the flour. Soaked seeds may or may not add water to the flour, depending upon how much water was used in the soaker and how absorbent those seeds or ingredients were.
”Hold out water” is a great way to adjust your hydration in this case or any other. See this link for the details. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/61157/tip-making-adjustments-dough-hydration
Danny
Thank you for good tip on method to figure these things out.
I searched a bit more and found this excellent post on absorption data for various seeds : http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/61245/soaker-ingredient-hydration-percents-some-data
According to that post an overnight (i assume 12h) room temp soak of flaxseeds resulted in 130% hydration and the sunflower seeds absorbed 80%.
This should mean that my adjusted formulas should be:
400 g flour
80 g whole Non-toasted Non-soaked flax seeds
300 + 104 g water
and:
400 g flour
80 g whole Non-toasted Non-soaked sunflower seeds (kernels)
300 + 64 g water
Anyone that would like to comment on that? I'm not doing a soak, im going to mix the seeds and everything at the same time and do a total rise of about 12h. Is there reason to believe that the absorption of the seeds will be significantly different when mixed with the flour?
"Is there reason to believe that the absorption of the seeds will be significantly different when mixed with the flour?"
Yes, due to the differing _rates_ of absorption, flour, being milled, will absorb the available water faster than a whole seed in a hard shell. You'll end up with flour that is over-hydrated, and seeds that are less hydrated than they would have been had they been soaked separately.
Flax seeds have a very hard shell. They need to be either toasted, or ground, or hydrated for them to be cooked enough so that they will be digested. Otherwise, they may just pass through. Worse, they could cause problems for someone with diverticulitis or diverticulosis, I forget which one.
And by "digested" I don't mean converted to energy, as fiber is not fully digested, but rather broken down or taken apart, hydrated, smoothed out, or processed, as much as possible by stomach acid and other digestive enzymes in the system.
Toasted flax seeds in the dough, inside the loaf, are fine, as far as I know, Ground flax seeds in the dough are fine. Raw flax seeds affixed to the outside of the loaf, where they get toasted during the baking process are fine.
But in my experience, raw flax seeds (neither roasted nor soaked) in the dough, inside the loaf, just don't get sufficiently cooked.
Regardless of how cooked, people with sensitive stomachs or intestines should be warned that there are flax seeds, or other seeds, in your bread. There are people who are not supposed to eat small seeds.
Even ground flax seeds may have a few whole seeds slip through.
In addition to diverticulitis/diverticulosis folks, bariatric patients can have problems with such high fiber "hard" or thick-hulled seeds, because they have altered stomachs, and many also have shortened small intestines.
"Rue en Y" bariatric patients are particularly sensitive to hard-to-digest food bits.
So just do a "full disclaimer" of ingredients when sharing.
Ok. I will pay attention to what you are saying with the risks of flaxseed. I certainly disclose my ingredients when I'm sharing my loaves.
I will not make a bread with 20% flaxseed. I will probably add 10% flaxseed AND 10% sunflower seeds.
About this that you write: Yes, due to the differing _rates_ of absorption, flour, being milled, will absorb the available water faster than a whole seed in a hard shell. You'll end up with flour that is over-hydrated, and seeds that are less hydrated than they would have been had they been soaked separately.
...interesting. I kind of suspected that.
Thanks!
I wonder if mixing your dough at 100% hydration, with the hope that the flax will pull water, will mess up gluten development or create a weaker dough? Usually a soaker gets mixed in after some strength is already achieved in a dough. This looks like a fun experiment!
When I use unsoaked, toasted mixed seeds (sunflower, flaxseed, sesame), I trade them about 2:1 for flour. So to add 80g of seeds I’d estimate 30 g more water, but be prepared to adjust. As another example, the wonderful Tartine recipe with unhulled sesame seeds calls for only “a little” more water with the added seeds.