From: dadams@cray.com (David Adams)
Subject: Re: home made unbleached white flour
Reply-To: dadams@cray.com
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 6 Oct 92 15:18:42 CDT

fsf@hpic006.mentorg.com (Rick Farnbach) writes:

|>>>>> On 5 Oct 92 18:15:12 GMT, dadams@cray.com (David Adams) said:
|
|	David> When I was done I had 5 cups of flour and about 4.75 cups of bran.
|
|Experiment and see if you end up with a different distribution by milling the
|wheat finer.  I suspect you filtered out a lot of the endosperm with the bran.
|Try making a dough out of the bran.  If it clings together *at all* then you
|have a lot of flour in your bran.

The texture of the stuff that was left was much like grits.  It would 
absorb warm water and form a slush.

My concern about milling it finer is that the small pieces of bran will
pass through the sifting material.


|
|	David> I used the flour so made to make a loaf of bread.  I could tell
|	David> just as soon as I began kneading that I had never had any flour
|	David> with as high a gluten content.  The dough became satiny almost
|	David> immediately.  Where I normally would have kneaded 600 strokes
|	David> this dough nearly passed the "stretch test" after 100 strokes.
|	David> It clearly passed it after 200.  I kept going just because it was
|	David> fun and after 600 strokes I could stretch this dough thin like 
|	David> when you blow bubbles with bubble gum!  
|
|Gluten content doesn't have much effect on how quickly the flour is
|assimilated into a dough.  I suspect that the fine sifting and relatively
|moist nature of your starting product was more to "blame".  Freshly ground
|flour would have more moisture content than store bought flour.
|
|Golden-86 is definitely a high-patent flour, but not extraordinarily so.  A
|typical baker's flour is made from wheat with 16% protein (gluten) content.
|Golden-86 is between 16% and 18% gluten content.  There's no guarantee that
|your batch of wheat was more than 16% gluten.

It seems I had been told that Golden-86 was 18% protein.  The same company
claimed the hard red spring wheat they grew was at 19%.

|
|	David> I used the Russian culture, and I let it raise at night in the cold room
|	David> while I was asleap.   I let it fise 5 hours and then I baked it.
|	David> It came out a little rubbery.  I had been hoping for a light dinner 
|	David> loaf, but this was to glued or rubbery.  It made a nice sandwich 
|	David> bread.  I attribute some of the glueyness to the long cold rise.
|	David> I suspect that a quicker rise at a warm temperature would have 
|	David> lifted the dough much more and made a lighter loaf.
|
|Could be.  It could also be the admittedly heavy hand you used in kneading.  I
|made a loaf of bread that was "gluey" using baker's flour (16% gluten).  The
|problem was that I had (deliberately) over kneaded.  I also added a dough
|conditioner to see just how high a patent I could get.  Overall, it was rather
|interesting.  I had essentially made balloon bread, but the texture was not as
|soft as balloon bread, and the air pockets were not as fine.  I'm not
|advocating balloon bread, by the way, I've just always been amazed at how far
|they can stretch a pound of bread.

Well, I didn't really knead it any differently than I do any other loaf I
make.  

BTW, what is ballon bread?

|
|Don't throw it away, at least don't make a habit of throwing it away.  The
|whole reason white flour must be enriched is because serious nutritional
|deficiencies were observed some time back.  (I believe the study was done in
|the South, around the turn of the century.)  If you shifted a lot of your diet
|to your homemade white flour, and threw away the bran, you may end up with
|vitamin deficiencies.  I find it interesting that the only places left where
|you can buy unhealthy, unenriched white flour are "health" food stores.

I mixed a few table spoons in a bowl of chili to thicken it.  I mentioned
using it for breakfast.  It doesn't go nearly as fast as when you just
eat whole wheat bread.  ;^)


|
|The white wheat is so mild in flavor I think there is little reason to sift
|out the bran in general.  Even my white-bread-only wife loves to eat the
|white-wheat bread.  The K-Tec (style) mill grinds the flour fine enough that
|the bran texture is hardly noticeable, even in pastries.  (Anybody know of a
|source of *soft* white wheat?)  I know, I know.  You were just playing, etc.
|I just don't think there's much reason to make a habit of this sifting stuff.

Right.  This was an experiment soley for the sake of experimentation.   I
think it would probably be ok to do some sifting if the main stay of your
diet were still whole wheat.  

|
|Rick
|
|P.S.  I'm still looking for Portland, OR. people to go in with me in buying a
|full lot of wheat direct from Montana Farms.

Look up the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the phone book.
Call the bishop for the closest address and see if you can get in contact 
with people who are interested in food storage.  If they do not already have 
a food co-op going you can probably get one going with some of them.  That
is how I bought 100 lbs of Golden-86.

How much wheat did Montana Farms ask you to buy?  I think that we only had
to buy 500 lbs. but we didn't go direct.


---
--David C. Adams  Statistician  Cray Research Inc.  dadams@cray.com
___________________________________________________________________
       Old Sourdoughs never die.  They just ferment away.



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