March 3, 2017 - 10:43pm
Bread, AP and Whole Wheat flour Mix
I clearly did not read the instructions properly and mixed the above flours in this ratio 5lbs,2 1/2lbs and 2 1/2lbs= 10lbs.
Decided to bake some rustic bread and it was great, the crumb was light and holey and the crust was nice and chewy but the bread smells very strong like hops or rye and it looks like whole wheat bread; how can I lessen the smell if possible; it is really strong. Reminds me of beer! Help! --
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Liquid bread. Does the smell really bother you? Looks great to me and you love the taste. Perhaps that taste and smell is emanating from the same place.
Don't have any ideas I can throw out at the moment but you might wish to include a bit more info on starter maintenance, levain build, bread recipe and method.
than those made with just white flour. My favorite rustic recipe is 80:10:10 (white, whole wheat, rye) and it has a delight full odor to it. As Lechem noted, we need to know more about the process you employed. How long was the fermentation? What kind of starter did you use? Flavor profiles of breads are affected by a number of different variables. One that you clearly can try is to reduce the amount of whole wheat flour.
So, essentially 25% of the flour is whole wheat and the rest is white (unbleached). That's not too high, but will make quite a difference if you're not used to it.And there are many kinds of whole wheat flour. Some commercial flours are fairly highly processed with bran (and perhaps wheat germ) added back in after processing. Some of these have extra bran added to them (might be called "Coarse Whole Wheat"). Others are 'whole grain" whole wheat, so the whole grain goes into the hopper and whatever comes out the other end is bagged. And stone ground is different from roller milled flour. The flavour and aroma of freshly stone-ground flour is quite different from bagged commercial flour that was milled weeks or months ago.
It's not surprising that bread smells like beer, particularly when it is unbaked dough or just fresh-baked - it's made with grain, water and yeast after all! There is a slight bitterness to bran, so if your whole wheat flour is one of the ones with extra bran in it this might be giving the 'hopsy' aroma.
Whole wheat recipes sometimes add things like oil (to soften the bran) and sweetener (often honey) to counteract the bitterness of the bran. I have a whole wheat roll recipe that has milk, butter, honey and (surprise) orange juice in it, and the flavour is wonderful!