March 24, 2024 - 9:08pm
Struggling with Whole Wheat
What's happening people.
I've been making my kids this milk bread for about a year now. They can't get enough of it. Lately I've been attempting to sneak in a certain percentage of whole wheat. Suddenly the dough seems temperamental, that and the way the loaves turn out after the oven spring is... well... disastrous. I do make a lot of bread but really I'm a novice. I'm looking for a solution, or maybe I'm just wondering what I should be doing differently now that I'm mixing roughly 20% whole wheat flour in. Maybe less yeast and a longer rise? Maybe an overnight in the fridge?
For God's sake someone help me!... I can't stand these ugly loaves (even thought the bread is still delicious).
Ciao.
-- Deej
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Hi, Deej. Replacing 20% of the white flour with whole wheat flour shouldn't make a big difference in the dough handling or loaf rise. You might need a little more liquid, since WWF is more absorbent, but you would base that purely on how the dough feels compared to what you're used to.
Can you provide a few more details about how the dough is temperamental, or how the oven spring is turning out? Are you maintaining the exact same schedule as with white bread, or are you proceeding when the dough has reached the same stage?
Photos, please, or at least more description. "disastrous" in what ways? Temperamental how? Are these proofed and baked free-standing? Are they baked in a Dutch oven, a loaf pan, how? What type of flour do you use? How much flour and water is in the recipe?
When one adds WW to a previously all-white flour recipe, the first thing that is usually noticed (at least by me) is some stickiness to the dough. As a larger percentage of WW is added, the stickiness increases and the dough may seem as if it hasn't developed its gluten enough.
The easiest thing to do here is to sift out the bran. There will still be extra nutrition and flavor in the flour. If you really want to include the bran, then in a small container pour hot water over it and let it sit for several hours or overnight. This will also improve the flavor of the bread (which your children may not be used to yet). You have to reduce the water in your recipe because there will be some in this soaker (also called a "scald" if you used boiling water).
If the dough is just too sticky or extensible for you to handle, you can reduce the amount of hydration.
If the dough collapses as it bakes, then most likely either it was over-proofed or the gluten wasn't developed enough or both. The bran in the WW would make that more likely, though at only 20% WW I wouldn't expect that kind of problem.
TomP
Kudos to you making your family some wholesome bread! I do have some ideas for you but they are very general concepts as there is no recipe specifics or method talked about. BUT, I think generalities is a good place to start.
WW, even at 20%, can affect the texture and behavior of a loaf-esp an enriched loaf (I assume a milk bread is enriched with butter or oil). WW also has different handling requuirements in order to get the best outcome. I assume you want to have a soft, pliable slice that doesn't crack or crumble when you bite into it. That is definitely do-able.
1.Sneaking in WW. Use white whole wheat (available at many markets) rather than the regular red WW which leaves the dough brown or with brown speckles. White WW gives a little more golden color to the crumb.
2. WW not only needs a little more liquid than AP flour, AND it also needs time to absorb it. You need to build in some form of a soaking time. Add a little extra liquid and then give it a minimum of 30 min to allow the moisture to penetrate the branny bits. Otherwise the moisture will be absorbed from the rest of the dough during baking and afterwards and produce a dry,crumbly crumb-even at only 20%. There are numerous ways to do this. Just pick the way that seems to fit your style and time frame. Use a preferment method, biga, retard, cold retard, even a tangzhong (my favorite for a moist crumb). Look any/all these methods up on google or in the search box here.
LINKS:
Tangzhong:
My Tangzhong Roux FAQ | The Fresh Loaf
Milk Bread recipe using tangzhong from Floyd (our host) His recipes usually work well
Hokkaido Milk Bread with Tangzhong | The Fresh Loaf
White bread basic recipe converted to Tang ZXhong- Look halfway down at Anon 2 post:
Formulas for basic white bread using Tangzhong? (Only 4 ingredients) | The Fresh Loaf
So while "tangzhong" sounds exotic, it is SO easy. Essentially a portion of the flour (use most/all of the WW for this), cook into a custard, cool and mix in to dough. My Mom used to incorporate leftover breakfast oatmeal or other cooked cereal. Nothing new or foreign about this.
Posting a recipe and method will generate more specific recomendations. Pictures are also helpful-the crust but esp the crumb. Bake some deliciousness and get back to us.
A generous response, friend. And indeed, generalities are right at my level for the time being. Though to elaborate a bit more on my plight I would say the main thing is the dough seems weaker, or more fragile if you will, even after significant knead. In short, it doesn't stand up to something like the window pane test, and it would seem no amount of kneading could accomplish this. In turn, when it comes time to bake, the loaf is unable to handle the oven spring (this would be my admittedly novice assessment) and ultimately blows out, sometimes quite spectacularly.
In short I've gone from silky smooth loaves with seemingly infinite elasticity to loaves very much the opposite. Meanwhile the taste and the moisture of the crumb remain excellent, as I employ the ever-reliable Tangzhong method.
I'll be taking your comments and those of the others to heart, particularly the note on building in soaking time. My sense, based on recent outcomes and your generous commentary, is that the addition of some percentage of WW calls for a bit more patience and care. This has typically been a bread I'm able to crank out in the late evening so the kids can have it for breakfast. I suppose an earlier start and some of these tips will help immensely.
I'll be sure to let you know.
PS: thanks for the tip on white WW. I not much a fan of the brown speckles.
Just from your description it sounds as if not only time but a little more moisture is needed. Add more liquid but then wait at least 30 min after it is incorporated to see if you've achieved the texture you are used to or need more. It may take some experimenting time but may well be worth it. Lovely to have fresh bread for breakfast. What a nice parent!
Excellent advice already by all the other posters. Agree with all. The sifting the bran out and then adding it as a soaker is a great way to make the bread more moist and less crumbly.
In my experience, baking with wholegrain wheat requires more gradual fermentation and not so much kneading, if any, but more gentle stretch and folds, or even better, laminations (flatten out like a rectangular pizza or flatbread and then fold over like a letter (1/3 of the rectangle each fold) and then roll-up the resulting long rectangle.