From: fsf@hpic006.mentorg.com (Rick Farnbach)
Subject: Re: home made unbleached white flour
Date: 6 Oct 92 12:16:55
Organization: Mentor Graphics Corp. Wilsonville, OR

>>>>> 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.
Newsgroups: rec.food.sourdough