The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Malted Flour

beeman1's picture
beeman1

Malted Flour

I recently ordered some flour from my local health food store. What I ended up with was "unbleached malted all purpose flour". That was not what I really ordered, Is a malted flour suitable for bread? Any information anyone has would be appreciated. 

PaddyL's picture
PaddyL

You could make Hovis bread with that!  That's wonderful for bread, I'd kill for some malted flour.

beeman1's picture
beeman1

I'll look into the hovis bread. If it's any help it came from the central milling company. I looked at there website. I guess they don't deal directly with the public but you couls probably call them. I wonder if it is safe to feed it to my sourdough?

susanfnp's picture
susanfnp

Most white flour is malted. This means it has malted barley added to it to give it an appropriate falling number, which indicates how "enzymatically active" the flour is. Too much enzyme action will make the bread ferment too quickly (because the enzymes break down the starch into simple sugars which are metabolized by yeast), and vice versa.

Many organic white flours, however, are not malted. Central Milling has one of the few I've found that are, and it's my current flour for all types of bread baking. I also feed my starter with it. Use it!

Susanfnp

http://www.wildyeastblog.com

subfuscpersona's picture
subfuscpersona

In my experience, 100% whole wheat flour sold by US companies is not malted either.

I've used whole wheat flour sold by Bob's Red Mill and King Arthur and they were not malted.

beeman1's picture
beeman1

Thanks very much for that information. I didn't know that. I will sure give it a try.

PaddyL's picture
PaddyL

...I thought they also used malted flour.  I've tried duplicating the Hovis loaf with extra wheat germ and it just doesn't rise.  As far as I can tell, there's no malt in Canadian flour.

foolishpoolish's picture
foolishpoolish

As I understand it, the term granary (when applied to bread) has been trademarked by Hovis here in the UK.

That doesn't mean the type of bread or flour is exclusive to Hovis, just the brand name. I have a bag of similar 'malthouse' flour which is from the Dove's Farm organic range which I shall hopefully be trying soon. To me, 'Granary' means flour with a blend of grains (kibbled/flaked/malted) mixed in with it. I'm sure there are equivalents worldwide.

Malted flour, on the other hand, sounds like flour which simply has malt (of some description) added to it...I would imagine that this is done typically  to increase the amylase action when the flour is hydrated.

Hope that helps.

 

FP 

 

 

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

Some Costco stores are carrying Organic Red Winter White Whole Wheat Flour from Central Milling Co., Logan, Utah. It's an excellent flour and is comes in two, ten pound bags.  It contains a slight amount of malt flour which makes excellent sourdough bread.

Central Milling is now owned by a consortium made up of Wheatland seed, Giusto's Vitagrain and Bay Bread. The acquisition brought the business of organic milling to Central Milling. Hope your store carries it because the best part is the price...,

Wild-Yeast 

mikekilian1947's picture
mikekilian1947

When you say that wheat flour has some "malt" are you talking about malted barley? You can malt any grain, even corn. I was wondering if the malt in the flour is malted wheat? I think I understand the enzyme addition, but I'm unclear as to why. Interesting post.

 

Mike

beeman1's picture
beeman1

I really don't have any information on the flour I bought. The price was good and my sourdough is eating it up. I called the central milling company but the person I had to talk to wasn't in. I will call later in the week. 

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

The malt added is malted barley. The malt is rich in alpha and beta amylase enzymes which breakdown carbohydrates into fermentable sugars. This is especially helpful in retarded doughs which benefit from this action. Other grains produce these enzymes through the malting process but do not share barley malts availability and low cost due to its use in beer production.

Wild-Yeast

susanfnp's picture
susanfnp

"Malting" is essentially just allowing the grain to sprout. Sprouting grain is high in enzymes (amylases) because the nascent plant needs sugars for food, but the grain's energy is stored as starch in the endosperm. The enzymes, as Wild-Yeast said, break down the starch into sugars that the growing plant can use.

I just got back from Costco with 60 lb of Central Milling flour, and malted barley flour is listed on the label.

Susanfnp

http://www.wildyeastblog.com

Little German baker's picture
Little German baker

I was too searching for malt flour and found a few different types at a bakery distributor. Olympic wholesale in ajax sells Malt Flour,Carastan Malt Flour (still trying to figure out what that one is),Syrup Malt non diastatic and Dry Malt diastatic. For me, I am trying to make the dark German real pumpernickel rye bread.  I made it with molasses,  and it just about tastes like the real thing but you can taste the molasses just a bit too much. I would just like to know if I should buy the diastatic or non diastatic and what is better, the syrup or powder. The powder seems to have a longer shelf life. So Jane Dough,  you can get malted flour but you will need a business # to purchase from Olympic.