moisture content in wheat berries - hydration formulas
I've posted about this before - mainly wondering why, when I use the hydration formulas they say my dough is rather dry (65% or so) but my dough still seems very wet to me. But I have some new data to add to my puzzle.
I mill my own flour from hard white wheat berries.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and average RH around here is 70% -- I've been a bit frustrated with the high price and difficulty finding wheat berries here (I'm used to buying 50lbs for $16 having lived in Utah/Idaho/Montana previously) ... but have been buying wheat locally from Giusto in Petaluma.
I just returned from Bozeman, MT and brought four 50lb bags of Prairie Gold back with me :) and just ground some wheat and made some bread with it. I needed to use MUCH more water than I've been using with the local wheat. I'll have to get a more accurate measurement next time (I measured out my usual 220g water to 300g wheat and it was really dry so I kept adding water until it was right but didn't weigh the added ... guessing another 20-30g)
So I'm wondering if my MT wheat will absorb moisture from the air over the next few weeks/months - and I'll go back to the ratio I've been using with local wheat?
before grinding?
I don't know what tempering the wheat means. So I guess I didn't - haha.
Hey I just started reading about tempering the wheat. One thing it said caught my eye:
"There are several reasons why millers temper wheat. One is to toughen the bran skin so that it holds together rather than creating bran powder, which would otherwise lead to higher mineral content or darker flours."
I did notice that when I ground the wheat I just brought back from Montana, the flour seemed darker in color than the flour from wheat I bought here in California. Both are hard white and the berries look the same color before grinding.