The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Smoking flour

Dan001's picture
Dan001

Smoking flour

I own a polyscience smoking gun. I was wondering if anyone has experiement on smoking flours. Would i get a good smoke flavor or it would be too strong? Should i leave the flour expose to smoke a certain amount of time such as 1 hour or 10 minutes would be sufficient. As a side note, i tried to smoke my dough as it was resting/ rising and could not tell the difference at the end after having cooked the bread; so i was wondering if i actually smoke the flour if it would worked. I was also thinking to see if i could also smoked my salt to accentuate the smoked flavor Any advise would be appreciated Tks Dan Montreal

LindyD's picture
LindyD

The PolyScience blog notes a few minutes is all that's needed.   One of the posters notes he smokes his salt.

If you're after a smoke flavor in your breads, I think adding liquid smoke to the dough might work better than trying to smoke the flour.  On the other hand, give it a try.  It might taste okay - or horrid - or not at all.

Smoke-flavored bread doesn't sound too palatable to my taste buds, although some nice smoked cheese on top of the bread sure would taste good.

Janknitz's picture
Janknitz

imagining a guy smoking a hand rolled cigarette filled with salt.  :o)

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

A bare hint of smoke is best added by baking in a wood fired oven.

Smoke is a flavor enhancer that is used to increase appetitie in the food industry.

Liquid smoke may work [never tried it] but I have used smoked sea salt. It works well.  I've found that it's best if the smoke amount is barely detectable. 

Guess which hamburger chain uses it in their "secret sauce"...,

 

Best, Wild-Yeast

Dan001's picture
Dan001

  • I Agee the ultimate smoked flavor bread is made in wood oven. In fact i ordered mine and will get it in the spring.
  • in the mean time i am playing with different options to see how i can alter the flavor of my flour and other ingredient and have different kind of bread.
  • I like experimenting.
Ruralidle's picture
Ruralidle

There is a mill in the UK that produces smoked flour.  I have not used it personally but have read that it gives a very subtle smoked flavour.  Clearly, because it is a commercial undertaking, they don't publicise the detail of their technique, but I suspect it will include cold smoking.

http://www.bacheldremill.co.uk/shop/details/?q=57

Ruralidle

 

kat.'s picture
kat.

Don't know anything about a poyscience smoking gun, but I've smoked unbleached a-p flour in a Traeger smoker grill.

As it was an experiment, I only smoked a couple of cups of it - spread out in a 9x13 metal pan and left in the grill, on smoke, for about 3 hours, stirring it every 30 minutes. Color darkened slightly and it had a lovely smoke scent to it.

When I used it in bread, most of the smoke flavor went away, but just enough stayed to scent the bread when it was toasted. Didn't notice any change to the flavor of the bread.

I think I needed to let it smoke for longer to get a stonger flavor. When grilling season rolls around again, going to try again, with more flour and longer smoke time (if I can get my DH to give up grid space...g)

 

kat.

JeremyCherfas's picture
JeremyCherfas

Anyone here at TFL ever heard of or used grano arso? Traditionally  it was made in Puglia, in Italy, from wheat scorched by the stationery threshing machines they used. You can still buy it, and I'm trying to discover two things.

Is the modern stuff smoked flour, or flour made from burned wheat?

And was it ever used in Italy for bread?

Jeremy

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

From the Chrome translation of this site: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canosa_di_Puglia


The gastronomic tradition Canosa is strongly linked to rural tradition and Mediterranean.

"One of the most characteristic is the burnt wheat flour (in the Apulian dialect IARs gren ), a dark meal of humble origins, in fact, was obtained from the grain recovered after the burning of stubble after harvest, from which it was produced just after the meal the characteristic dark color. This recovery was done by people who could not afford the meal "normal", then the landowners allow this subsequent gleaning. The original and most popular products that are obtained by mixing equal parts of white flour and wheat flour are burned dragged (in dialectstrasc-net ) and orecchiette special bread ham (in dialect ppen prusutt a ) a dark patchwork of white bread ."

Wheat stubble burn-off smoked wheat berries? 

 

Wild-Yeast

 

JeremyCherfas's picture
JeremyCherfas

Thanks for the pointer to the Italian wikipedia. We have a wonderful little Pugliese grocery store just around the corner, which as it happens sells the most astonishingly good smoked mozarella. The woman knows of my interest in baking, so I'm going to ask her if she can get me some of the genuine article from Puglia. They get deliveries almost every day. 

Jeremy