From: N51L5201@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu (David Auerbach)
Subject: Re: home made unbleached white flour
Organization: North Carolina State University
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 22:55:46 GMT

In article <FSF.92Oct6121655@hpic006.mentorg.com>
fsf@hpic006.mentorg.com (Rick Farnbach) writes:
 
>>>>>> On 5 Oct 92 18:15:12 GMT, dadams@cray.com (David Adams) said:
>
>	[White flour sifting procedure deleted]
>
>Thanks for the info.  Seems like something fun to try some time.
>
>	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.
>
>	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.
>
>	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.
>
>	David> Now I need recipes for bran so I can use up all that bran.  This
>	David> morning I made a mush by boiling 4 cups of water with 1 t salt.
>	David> I added 1 1/3 cup of this bran and let it cool as I mixed it.
>	David> It came out creamy and smooth.  It was ugly light brown.  I told
>	David> my kids it was a cream-of-wheat and I put some sugar and canned milk
>	David> on it and served it to them for breakfast.  They ate it up and said
>	David> it was good.  Well I still have 3+ cups of bran left and most of
>	David> this mornings breakfast cerial.  It makes you apreciate whole wheat
>	David> 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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
 
What you get as flour is incrredibly sensitive to a) the original milling and
b) the sifting.   I order flour from a mill in upstate New York (Tuthilltown
Grist Mill  aka Smith Enterprises) and I used to mimic my favorite French
style loaves (round country boules made from either starters (i.e. biga or
leftover dough but nonetheless commercial yeast) or true sourdoughs) by adding
either some whole wheat flour or untoasted wheat germ (note: not BRAN).  Then
I noticed that my supplier carried something called Middlings, said name arisin
from the fact that it was a byproduct of the sifting process.  I imagine that
it is the finest part of the germ.  In any case, remembering that when I hung
out in French artisanal bakeries (ones that don't use pre-made dough, get
good flour and use wood-fired ovens--all very and unfortuantely rare these days
even in good old France) the flour was veering toward beige and the books I
read suggested that the French and Germans milled and sifted differently (i.e.
the mesh sizes were different) I tried hard wheat flour mixed with 5% of the
middlings: incredible.  Much more like the French breads I love; that light
beige color and wheaty taste and it takes a stunningly little amount of the
middling to accomplish it.
Bran in my bread I can do without.