The effects of coarse-ground whole wheat
Hi all,
I've been baking sourdough for many years, and feel fairly confident with it. A couple years ago I was given a KitchenAid stand mixer with a grain-grinding attachment, and since then have been buying sacks of wheat berries from Palouse (I'm in Seattle). The attachment doesn't grind very finely, so what I do is grind 115g of berries to make a firm starter, let that go for a day or two, then break it up and incorporate it into a bread-flour dough. It makes what I think is the best-tasting sourdough I've ever had.
It tastes so good, I decided to experiment with higher ratios of whole wheat: I tried a 100% WW sourdough, and a 33% light wheat sandwich bread (also sourdough). Both of them basically failed to rise at all: the dough sort of "filled out" over the course of several hours, but there was essentially no leavening, and the resulting bread was nearly inedible.
I'm wondering what experience the group has had with coarse-ground wheat. I've read that larger chunks of bran can cut gluten and prevent cohesion, could the effects really be that pronounced? I'm going to try sifting the flour, and maybe putting the bran back on as a topping, but any tips or experience shared would be very welcome.
Some day I'll spring for a proper grinder. The bread I have been able to make has totally sold me on the benefits of home-ground flour.
See my blog entry:
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/64863/7-things-about-freshmilled-flour
If your grinder attachment makes very coarse, you could soak it really well and use it as an add-in. Doing a cold soak in the fridge, with salt, would help prevent excess breakdown of starch to sugar, and any fermentation that might creep in.
That's a great resource, including the additional links, thank you very much! I was definitely experiencing "wet sand", so it's good to see that addressed. I'll try without sifting first, and see how far I can get just with autolysing the fresh-milled flour separately, and giving the whole thing a little more water and time. Then try sifting on top of that.
Thanks again!
A recipe or at least a list of other ingredients would be helpful. What are the other flours in these loaves? Is the coarse grind the only WW in the 100% loaf or is there another finer grind n it? What other flour is in the 33% WW. How are they handled? Any autolyse or retard? Kneaded/mixed to windowpane? So many questions but more info is needed to help get the answers.
Adequate hydration, time for the branny bits to absorb the moisture and kneading to windowpane all contribute to a softer, better risen WW loaf. A soft (even shreddable) loaf is do-able with the 33% loaf. The 100% WW with 115g (about a third of the total flour in that dough) being the coarsely ground flour can be soft but will probably not be especially fluffy. If all the WW in the dough is coarsely ground then it will be a dense loaf.
Sorry if that wasn't clear! I'm only using two types of flour in all these recipes: bread flour and home-milled. The 115g home-milled is my go-to sourdough recipe, that's just a firm starter made with 115g milled berries, 40g water and 100g starter, then the final dough filled out with bread flour (nearly 600g, plus around 420g water). I don't have any trouble with this, likely because of the small ratio of milled flour, and the fact that I let the firm starter hang out in the fridge two or sometimes three days.
The 100% and 33% were one-time experiments that failed disastrously. The 100% I think was just my standard stretch-and-fold at 20min intervals, bulk ferment overnight, then into bannetons the next day. Windowpane was not an option as it never emerged from the "slightly coherent sludge" stage -- I guess this is where a really long autolyse might have made the difference. It came out like cobblestones, and tasted like dirt. I don't usually throw bread away, but these went in the trash.
The 33% was supposed to be sandwich bread, so it was an enriched dough I made in the stand mixer and didn't retard. I let it sit in the bread pans for ages and it swelled a little, but no oven spring and the loaves were flat. This tasted good, though, and while my family wouldn't eat it I made myself some dense sandwiches.
I think I will dip my toes back in the water by trying the sandwich bread again, but milling the 33% the day before and autolysing overnight in the fridge with some salt, as per idavindy's instructions.