June 4, 2022 - 12:01pm
Wheat flour 15.78%
Hi all. Recently been bought 5 kilos of wheat flour with 15.78% protein.
- Will I have to increase hydration with this?
- Are there specific recipes any one can point to for this % of protein?
- Or do I just go ahead using it as replacement for strong bread flour?
Any help very welcome. Cheers
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or whole wheat flour.
MO it is described as semi-integral, with 80% ground by stone. Trigo (wheat) Califa Ecologico Harina fina. Supplier in Spain. Third from left.
I tried my standard bread recipe replacing half the AP with this. The poolish felt a bit stiffer than before but it worked really well. I kneaded instead of Stretch and fold. Very pleasing result, consistent crumb. Good flavour. Should say not only new flour but I also took onboard the advice from here, esp. on over proofing.
I’ll next try pizza bases as that’s what it seems to be often used for (even if a small sample of comentators). I feel 100% would be too much for me.
And a fellow baker suggested a 65% biga as worth a try. Onwards we go.
and it's 80% extraction which means ...I would like to try some of this flour myself to compare to Austrian spelt. Ha! I bake regularly with spelt, love the taste and blend it with rye flour. Or blend the rye with spelt flour. The two complement each other so. Hubby brought home some regular wheat bread flour so sometimes I blend all three in various amounts. Regular bread flour and rye tend to weigh the spelt flour down. I find this helpful although you can easily make a 100% spelt loaf. Spelt is good for dredging, pancakes etc. just give it a little time to hydrate before applying heat.
Anyway...spelt flour needs a little extra time to hydrate or absorb water before kneading no mater how you use it, just 10-15 extra minutes compared to AP recipes. It also ferments slighty faster but holds gas very well so if it can rise too much. When that happens, just Deflate somewhat, reshape and expect a very fast final rise. You will know what too much rise is when you get a nice volume but the crumb would rather tear than let it be cut. Use this to your advantage letting loaves or buns rise fully when you want the bread torn at the table and less volumed final proof for loaves that plan to be cut with knife or machine.
Spelt is naturally sweeter than regular wheat so cutting back or eliminating sugar from recipes is easy to do. You can find spelt recipes in the Fresh Loaf archives or just play around yourself. Have fun!
I think Nigel purchased common wheat, a variety called "Califa,", not spelt. His product is called "trigo."
Their spelt (espelta) products are here: https://espeltaecologica.com/12-espelta
I cant read the writing on the label or I could compare to my spelt bags. The price seems to be more in line with spelt. Oh gosh! The prices are shooting up!
Thank you for correcting me. Too bad it's not spelt. :(
Welcome to TFL. I see from your Track tab on your user account page that you just joined/posted 2 weeks ago.
As a newcomer, it would help if you updated your User page to include your location (country, region, city) so that people can readily know which country's ingredients you are using. There is so much variation in flours between different parts of the world, and even what's available country to country, even in the EU.
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It would also help to know what country-of-origin, brand, and what kind of flour you are using. What is the wording on the package? How does the flour company describe it? What does the flour company say it is good for? Does it say what kind of wheat this flour is made from? There are hundreds of varieties of wheat.
(If you can, please transcibe the wording in the original language and then translate to English.)
There is much more to flour than the protein %. Even in the US, where protein % seems to be the most important, we also want to know things like how much bran is in it, as in extraction % or ash%. In the US, in the grocery stores, we have mainly white (AP and bread) flour and whole wheat flour, and almost nothing in between. We usually have to special order the " in-between flour" (high extraction) from specialty millers.
If your flour was milled in the EU, EU flour companies sometimes include other technical info, either on the package or on their flour's web page. Such info can include the W (strength), and P/L numbers or ratio (which is elasticity/extensibility), and ash%. Those are "good to know" if available, when talking about European flours.
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Mini made a good point. If your new flour is whole wheat, or high extraction, it will not behave like a refined (white) bread flour would.
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You also leave the reader guessing as to what you want to bake. Even if it's just "bread", there are thousands of types of bread. What is it that you want a recipe for?
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Your 15.78% figure is interesting. Flour companies usually only go to 1 decimal place for protein. Did you take the grams of protein from the "Nutrition Info" box and divide by the grams per serving? Those figures are rounded to the nearest gram. As those are small numbers, the rounding error can create discrepancies to the actual laboratory figures. So while 6/38 = 15.78% (truncated to 2 decimal places), the real unrounded numbers could be closer to 5.5/38.49.
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After all that blah-blah-blah, the bottom line is that when using a new-to-you flour, you'll need to experiment, adjust, and experiment again. So maybe experiment with rolls/buns or mini loaves in a small batch of 100 g flour or so to start. Use 2% salt. Add water until it "feels right".
Use whatever you consider to be a "standard" amount of dried yeast, fresh yeast, or levain for whatever you are making. Though keep in mind that whole grain and high extraction flour ferments much faster (due to enzymes in the bran) than refined white flour, and therefore requires less yeast/levain, or shorter fermentation/rise times.
And the "feel" will change as you let the dough rest while the flour absorbs water. So you may have to add more flour (or more water) after you let the dough rest.
You can keep track of water by weighing a small container of water before hand, and then again after you are done, so that you don't need to weigh every little addition of a gram or two.
It pays to keep good notes of all measurements and adjustments during experimentation. If that is whole wheat, it can be tricky as the "feel" can change back and forth during the resting and fermentation periods.
Happy baking, and bon appétit.
Thanks for all that Dave. When I find time LOL I'll see what I can do.
Must admit experience tells me that too much info can lead to replies that miss the point. But we will see. Here so far so good.
Cheers Nigel
Good link.
Ok. I speak the Spanish, un poco. That's W 300, a strong flour, especially for EU. Based on that number, the flour can stand up to mixing, kneading and long fermentation.
( Explanation of W, PL, ash%, extraction, Italian/French/German/US specification systems:
https://www.theartisan.net/Flours_One.htm )
I'm sure you speak Spanish too, but if I may clarify, they mean to say it is "80% extraction", and stone-ground. Not that it's "80% ground by stone."
That means that for every 100 kilos of wheat that they put into their milling process, 80 kilos comes out as this particular flour, and 20 kilos is diverted to other purposes.
On the continuum from refined white flour to whole grain, this is closer to white flour, but with a little bran, so it should taste good. It will ferment a bit faster than white/refined flour, but no where near as fast as whole grain.
A good choice!
I miss understood that. Thanks Dave. I had imagined the percentage related to blending for some preconceived reason.
The feel of the flour, and the enjoyment of kneading it, was for sure different. And the rate my Spanish family ate it told me something. And they are not easily pleased. Next I'll try it with a long ferment which I mustn't forget is the main reason I restarted after so many years away from baking.
Higher gluten flours allow you to increase hydration, but it doesn't mean you have to. Longer kneading and resting periods will achieve good results with less liquid. They will be rather chewy. Unless you want a very open crumb. Since you have it, you might as well use it to the best of its ability, for all the stuff you can't make with weaker flours. If your flour however is a high protein durum flour, not all protein in durum is gluten, so this kind of flour is more akin to a medium grade than strong.
Thank you cterzis. I'll for sure keep your points in mind as I progress. Chewy is not my aim so I'll keep an eye out for that.