Need help diagnosing crumb
Hey,
I am trying to get a better understanding of what I can do to get a more light and fluffy crumb.
I am actually comparitivly happy with this bread, but I feelit should probably be a lot more open if I compare it to other breads I see online.
I mainly using wheat flower with 12,8% protein.
My questions
1. Should I be able to get better crumb with the flour I am using?
2. Does this seem to be either over or underfermented?
3. Any other things that could be diagnosed from the crumb that I may be doing wrong / could improve?
The recipe I used:
- 230g wheat flour 12,8% protein
- 30g whole grain wheat flour
- 180g water
- 39g starter (15% because I am fermenting in a box at 26C = 78,8F)
- 5g salt
My starter doubled over night. Normally I use a stiff starter (1:2,5:5) but for this I used a normal liquid starter (1:5:5).
Steps:
- Mix all ingredients by hand
- Rest for 30 min at 26C (the dough is at 26C the entire time, I only take it out of the box to fold it and shape)
- 1st Coild fold & rest 30 min
- 2nd Coild fold & rest 30 min
- 3rd Coild fold & rest 30 min
- 4th Coild fold & rest 30 min
- 5th Coild fold & rest 30 min
- Move to other container and wait for 25% growth (I measure right after mixing, so it is 25% from when I mixed all ingredients)
- Final shape to batard and transfer to banneton (it immediatly passed the poke test meaning the indent raised back up in about 10 sec)
- Put int fridge at about 2C (35,6F) for 4h
- Bake
- Preheat oven to 230C / 446F with dutch oven for 30min
- Get bread out of frige, score and immediatly place in hot dutch oven in oven
- bake 25min with lid
- remove lid and bake about 15min longer
If anything is not clear or you need more information please let me know.
I'm thinking under-fermented, and also not degassed as well as it could be. I'd give it more time in both bulk and proof stages.
Hey, this is very interesting. Thank you for answering me. I thought the same, but when I fermented it longer it got flat (see below). I might have just gone overboard though.
I have a hard time being sure why it is underfermented. Could you tell me the signs you see to pin point it is underfermented so I can learn it?
Do you think it is just a bit underfermented or very underfermented?
Is the bread below overfermented or was there another issue why it went flat? The dough was very wobbly and airy with lots of bubbles on the side.
overfermented.jpg
Well, the crumb looks tight to me, aside from the large cavities. Also large cavities that look like that often show up with underfermented dough (especially dough that has not been completely degassed). You can end up with a dough as flat as that but with a much more open texture than yours (large cavities aside again).
And you mentioned ending bulk ferment after only a 25% rise. Most people would go for double (although some have made it work well with only 25%). OTOH, it's already had several hours before this during which time you did some S&Fs, which would have deflated it. The dough probably was very active at that point.
Springing back in 10 seconds from a poke right after shaping sounds unusual. The dough should be pretty elastic at that point, probably not even wanting to let you poke a distinct hole in it. Putting the shaped loaf right into refrigeration is pretty unusual. Usually I would wait at least until visible rising was under way.
At what point was the dough very wobbly and airy? At the end of bulk ferment? Before shaping? What did the dough feel like after the last S&F? What did it feel like during shaping? Was it very springy, or stretchy, or was it slack and lifeless?
The other possibility is that the dough has suffered protein attack or had very weak protein from the start, or possibly did not have enough gluten development during the S&Fs.
This is one of those times when if an experienced baker were there in person, seeing and feeling the dough and seeing how you handled it, the answer might be easy to spot. Trying to work remotely is harder!
Had similar looking loaves/crumbs in the past. I realized later that I was probably putting them in the fridge too soon when my overall timings were not quite right and, as a result, I had to move from bulk ferment to shaping and proving in the banneton in the fridge overnight for baking the day after.
I realized even later that it was not just an issue of only rushing the bulk ferment, but that the bulk ferment was taking longer than it should because I was not getting the levain strong enough before embarking on the BF, resulting in the BF appearing to be more advanced than it was because the gluten structure was getting degraded by the longer BF. So moved to a regime of 2-3 quick moderate feeds for an initial 1:1:1 levain (1 part SD starter, 1 part water, 1 part flour) before introducing the levain into the final dough mix.
Hey,
my current strategy is the following:
- the night before I bake, I refresh a new starter (either 1 SD : 5 flour : 5 water or 1 SD : 2.5 water : 5 flour)
- in the morning, I use this for my dough (and keep a rest to reuse next time I need to mix a new starter)
I do not do a specific levin since I am using the same flour as for the bread.
→ Is this not a good idea?
Also, you said:
Could you explain this in more detail?
- When do you do this levin?
- How long do you wait between feedings?
- Do you build up always using more flour and water and using all levin in the final dough? Otherwise how much do you use to reduce discard?
- How warm do you keep this to get the activity between feedings?
Thank you for helping out.
I guess levain is just another word for a SD preferment.
My SD starter is 100% hydration white wheat and the levain is also 100%. Easy to remember when calculating the final dough proportions.
For the levain, for a 400g of flour loaf, I take 10g of the SD starter and mix it with 10g of water and 10g of flour. Depending on what I want to bake it might be white wheat, or wholegrain rye or have also experimented with other flours too, but then to use wholegrain rye that gives a good fermentation activity.
I usually keep it in a glass jar (or even a water glass) so I can see bubbles etc in the inside and assess fermentation activity.
Once it has started to have bubbles inside and grow 50% or maybe a bit more, I then add 10g more of water and of flour, mix and then leave it till it bubbles and grows 75% at least and then repeat one more time with 10g of flour and water respectively. No strict timings, but going on the fermentation activity and rise as I see them.
Once the 3rd feed is nice and active it is ready to use for the final dough. It should be pretty vigorous by then.
The reason I started the small quick feeds was because I think, like with building a fire and not putting big logs on before it is burning well, it is better to feed the starter with small quantities more frequently than putting all the food in at once.
I tend to do everything at room temp, around 20C, but might put in the oven with just the light on if I am in a hurry, but it can get a little more acid then.
Found that this regime has been pretty good for me since I started it after having had some loaves that looked like yours.
Hope this helps.
The timings are good to stabilize if you can, according to your setup, but also following what you see rather than just the clock is good in the first instance.
I think if you get a nice and active preferment and then hold off from the fridge proving until the bulk ferment is active and growing well will get you to where you want to be with the crumb. The poke test is useful, but not foolproof. And since the temperature is warmish for SD (26C) the BF may be appearing more fermented than it is. I am also wondering whether the fridge temperature 2C? might be too low? Maybe stabilize a recipe without the fridge proving?
It's already not bad, but seems like it lacks a little softness/fluffiness.
Exactly, this is what I want to get!
I definitely would like to try the levain method. I just have three questions:
For the 3rd feeding I would say, the more the better! As long as it doesn't go too far.
No precise number for the levain. 20% 15% 17.5, all should be OK. Again I go with the 10g increments as it is easy to remember and seems to work!
If I start with the feeding at 9am in the morning, it will probably be ready to use for the BF by mid afternoon. The first feed tends to take longer than the 3rd to reach the desired level of activity.
Thinking about your process, I am increasingly thinking that the fridge might be a little too cold for the proving and the temperature for the BF might be too high. SD tends to like slow and cool rather than fast and warm, but also can stall if it is too cold or goes too early into the cold for proving.
I find that - as a rough rule of thumb - that dough will continue to ferment for about an hour after going into the chill. After that the dough will continue to ferment slowly, how slowly depending on the temperature.
As an example, if I expect a shaped loaf to ferment for two hours on the counter at room temperature (say 71 - 75 deg F), I would plan to put it into the refrigerator after an hour.
If you refrigerate the dough while it is still in the lag phase, it's going to be hard for it to get going in the cold.
TomP
Okay, but how is your process from then on? How long do you BF at what temperature? Do you do S&Fs? I assume you'd at some point move it to the fridge and bake the next morning?
Can you give me a rough timeline how you do this, I'd love to try it out.
Since I am fermenting in a box I could reduce the temperature. I can go as low as 23C.
As far as I understood the fridge is mainly for taste, is that correct? As it does not really grow when it gets to 4C.
Typically, when I mix the final dough (manually with a dough whisk), I will leave it for about 30min to strengthen and absorb the water etc and then do stretch and fold every 45min to an hour till it starts to puff-up and become more extendible (x3 usually), at which point I will do a laminate or two as a kind of pre-shape (flatten out with finger tips and stretching it out to a flat rectangle and then folding like a letter and rolling up), and then shape and put in the banneton. By this time it will be late evening. If it is looking too active, I might then stay up and get the oven warming and bake. If not, I'll put it in the fridge to go in the oven in the morning.
After my experiences with crumbs like yours, I would never put it in the fridge before being sure that it is growing in the banneton first. I found that it also grows in the fridge in my case, but mine is at 6C).
I would also not put it in the fridge if the proving has already gotten too active as I have found that it can become overproved in the fridge too. Its a balancing act.
As for the BF temp. maybe try with 23C and then proving it in the fridge later on in the fermentation and with a slightly higher fridge temp if possible and see how it goes. Or skip the fridge and try with 23C all the way through for a first try.
What you might find useful in terms of knowing what stage the fermentation is at, is to keep aside a small amount of the BF dough as soon as you mix it. Put it in a very small glass jar (I have one of those the give you jam in hotels in), squash it down to the bottom of the jar so it is flat and then put a mark on the jar where the dough is. Then keep it in the same environment as the BF and then the proving so you can have an idea how much the dough has actually grown and at what stage in the fermentation it is at. That's how I troubleshot the similar problems I was having.
Hey, I actually use a container with a scale after I am done with my coil folds.
Today I waited for it to increase from just under 400ml to 600ml so a 50% increase. Below you see a picture just before I shaped it.
PXL_20240226_171531760.jpg
This is the top view in case it helps.
CleanShot 2024-02-26 at 22.58.33@2x.png
This is how it looked when taking it out.
CleanShot 2024-02-26 at 23.01.25@2x.png
I let it grow in the banneton (outside) afterwards, but it only grew a bit.
The result was flat. :(
It also has a bit of a gummy part, but it is in a fold, so this may have been a shaping issue.
My question:
Is this bread now overfermented? Or is it purely flat due to bad shaping technique?
Also should I preshape it even if I only have one loaf to give it more structure?
PXL_20240226_203017292.jpg
It's not overfermented, but the dough is excessively slack and extensible. I can tell that from the way it pulled out of the Pyrex fermenting container. Either you didn't develop much strength during bulk fermentation, or this is weak, slack dough probably because of the flour.
Either way dough like this would need heroic shaping measures, or to baked in a loaf pan that would support it so it couldn't plump sideways.
To try to develop more elasticity during shaping, shower the dough with a lot of flour as you round it into a smooth mass, then stretch it out a long way into a large rectangle. Fold the rectangle in thirds, then in thirds again at right angles to the first folds. Then roll up the dough into a cylinder. If it's still not holding its shape, roll it up again along the axis of the cylinder you made previously. If you want a boule shape, use lots of flour and round this cylinder into a ball.
If all this doesn't get you a loaf that seems to hold its shape, then use a loaf pan and change something for next time. This might be using less whole grain or ancient wheat flour, doing more effective stretch and folds next time, lowering hydration, sifting out the bran, things like that.
TomP
Hey,
This is great. How do you know this? (I am trying to learn how to tell, but somehow information on the internet is sometimes contradicing or not clear, would love to understand how you can tell on my bread, as this is what I am working with, so it would be perfect for me to learn).
So, it should not stick like this?
For this dough I actually tried to use a hand mixer in the very begining, I was thinking if this may introduce better dough strength. I did have the feeling I got a better window pane. But now I am thinking, is it possible that with the coild folds and the longer fermantation afterwards this was too much and it was like "overkneading"? Is this possible?
So you are saying I should shape it into a boule and than laminate and afterwards do the batard? All in one step or do you suggest to have it rest in between the steps?
Is pre-shaping into a boule generally adviced, even if I never split the BF?
This is great so I have some more options if this does not work. Thanks.
What is needed is to stretch the dough as much as possible to develop strength and elasticity. Of course you don't want to damage the dough by overdoing it and tearing the strands, but from the look of the dough after bulk ferment there's not much chance of that.
You round it into a single mass after it comes out of the bowl just to have something coherent to work with. Showering the mass with flour would make it easier to handle and smooth down sticky shreds, and help it hold its shape. It gives you a good starting point. For a less sticky, more elastic dough the flour shower wouldn't needed and could work against you, but your case is different.
To get the most strength out of this extensible, sticky dough you need to stretch it, and the lamination is an effective way to start. Folding it and then rolling it - and stretching it out as you roll it - also helps with that. There are other methods such as "stitching", and you can use any of them or make up your own. The details aren't important. What counts is stretching and working the dough until it tightens up, develops elasticity, and becomes able to hold its shape.
Don't give it rest because the rest will allow the dough to relax and become extensible again. If your dough should become so taut that you can't work it out into the shape you want, that's the time to give it a rest. I don't think that dough like your photo will get to that point, but if it does, go ahead and give it a little rest.
What I've been doing, though, is to roll the shape up into a short fat stubby cylinder. It will elongate somewhat during proof.
The main point is to be guided by the dough itself and what it feels and looks like. You can read a thousand posts on shaping, and you can watch a hundred videos. They all work because anything that stretches the dough and helps it stick together will work; the ones in the videos suit that video's dough and how they like to handle the dough. None of them are the "right" way, but you can take ideas from any of them and adapt them to see how well they work for you.
One time I didn't like the way a loaf was slumping during proof and I took that dough, degassed it, reshaped it, and rerolled it into a new loaf. That loaf proofed nicely without slumping and baked up into a very good loaf of bread. So don't be afraid to work with the dough!
TomP
About your dough not being overfermented:
It's hard to really overproof dough if you've got decent flour. Maybe that's because so many people are afraid they will that they end up underfermenting. Dough that is overfermented will have collapsed or started to, it will lose cohesion, attempts to shape a loaf will end up with something resembling a pancake, and the final crumb will generally be very tight and dense. The dough will feel lifeless, like warm taffy, when pulled and handled. Stretching will not improve it and develop elasticity.
The dough in your pictures is sticking together well as it comes out of the bowl, and the crumb though not open still seems basically OK, and the cross-section of the loaf doesn't look as if it had collapsed into a puddle. That's why I think it's not over-fermented.
Stickiness is usually about the kind of flour and the hydration level. In itself it doesn't indicate a problem. Handle sticky dough using a good amount of flour, or if it's really sticky, avoid working in too much more flour by handling it with wet hands.
With TomP.
It looks more like when I was first trying to make loaves with white spelt and couldn't get it to work because of its extensibility.
What I would suggest:
Check your flour and it's strength. You need a flour that resists long fermentation.
Reduce overall hydration. Go with what feels easy to work with and holds it's shape better, not by a preselected %.
Get your preferment really active before incorporating into the main dough. If necessary do more of the small feeds I suggested. It needs to be growing very vigorously by the time you use it. You want to get as much of the activity into the preferment so that the bf spends less time fermenting and thus keeps the gluten structure from degrading.
Do the kind of stretch and folds and laminations TomP suggests.
Maybe do the BF in a bowl with a wider opening so you can get it in and out without stretching excessively and can stretch and fold even in the bowl.
Let the bf go longer and then use generous quantities of flour when doing the laminations and also final preshaping and shaping. Might mean that you then cut the proving time and bake it quite quickly after final shaping.
That's the best I can come up with... :-/
Oh, yes, and if you have not been including the salt during the initial mixing, do so. Withholding the salt until later promotes extensibility which looks like the last thing you need with this dough.
TomP
Hello,
these loafs look a lot like many breads I have baked before and I think in general the one in your post looks great.
After reading the comments I am pretty sure this is not mainly a question of fermenting or shaping, but rather about the flour you use. Do I guess correctly that you (like me) live outside of the US? You write you use wheat flour with 12,8% protein but to me it seems your flour might actually be a lot different than the bread flour used in most American recipes. Can you tell us the exact name and type of your flour? (and region you live in?) I was frustrated by a lot of my loafs but at a certain point I realized my flour was a lot different than those used in those images with a huge open crumb.
Hey, you guessed correct. 😉
Normally I used organic wheat flour 550 from Rewe (german supermarket) or another brand. Both of those have only 9,8% or 10,2% protein.
For the breads above I used a flour from Edeka (another supermarket) which is called "Backstark" as it has 12,8% protein.
Are you suggesting that an open crumb like on many us based pictures is not possible even when using higher protein flours like 12,8%? Is there another difference in the flour?
I'd be very interested in your experience with no-us flour.
I would suggest going for a flour that is specifically for bread, not all-purpose flour.
The protein % needs to be used with caution. White spelt has 15% protein, but much of it is gliadin not glutenin, which is why it is so extensible and makes loaves like the ones you have baked.
You need what here in the UK they call a 'strong' flour. If you want to be technical, that type has a high W number, which means the gluten produced when mixed with water will last for a long fermentation as is usual with SD, and not degrade half way through.
I put Backstark into an AI search (yes, I know, large pinch of salt needed) and this is what came back. I highlighted a passage because it shows that even if it is high protein Backstark, the high protein % could be due to spelt flour being included, which would make it extensible in the way your dough is.
Checking some German websites, it seems to me you would need either 812 or 1050 type flour? Maybe you can do a 50/50 loaf with what you have and one of those types and see if it is any better.
>>>
Backstark is a term related to baking and flour. It refers to the strength of flour in terms of its ability to create a stable dough structure during the bread-making process.
Definition of Backstarkes Mehl (Backstrong Flour):
Backstarkes Mehl (German for “backstrong flour”) is primarily defined by its gluten content. The higher the gluten content, the stronger the flour is for baking.
Backstärke (backstrength) describes the flour’s ability to absorb water and maintain a stable dough structure over an extended fermentation period.
This property is especially desirable for airy and porous baked goods, where volume expansion is crucial.
Commonly used backstrong flours include light flours like wheat or spelt flours.
Understanding the W-Value:
The W-value is less known in Germany but is essential for understanding flour strength.
It indicates how much a dough can rise without collapsing. Higher W-values correspond to higher gluten content.
Flour with a high W-value is suitable for long fermentation processes, resulting in robust gluten structures and better crumb texture and flavor.
W-Value Ranges:
Here’s an overview of W-values:
Up to W 170: Low backstrength (absorbs 50% of its weight in water) – used for cookies, waffles, and thickening sauces.
W 180 to W 280: Medium backstrength (absorbs 65-70% of its weight in water) – suitable for baguettes, rolls, pizza, and egg pasta.
W 280 to W 350: High backstrength (absorbs 65-70% of its weight in water) – ideal for bread, pizza, egg pasta, and brioche.
W 350 and above: Very high backstrength (absorbs 90% of its weight in water) – used for panettone or as an additive to increase other flour types’ W-values.
Protein Content and Backstrength:
A flour is considered backstrong when its protein content exceeds 13g.
Classic backstrong flours include “Bread flour” (common in North America) and Italian flours like Tipo 00 or Tipo 0.
Manitoba flours with high protein content are also comparable.
In summary, backstrong flours are essential for achieving excellent bread and other baked goods. They contribute to volume, texture, and flavor.
This is very interesting. I always assumed you should not use to much of high W number flour. So when it was suggested that I should sif our brans from the flower, this is about the large particlesthat damage the structure of the network not about the content itself? As to my understanding a higher W number means the flower is less refined and has more bran parts in it, correct?
I think this would have to be decalred in germany. Maybe I am mistaken, but it would surprise me if you can put spelt into a product called wheat flour without declaring it in germany, the land of declarations and rules. :-)
This is an interesting idea. I will do this, I got 1050 at home, so I am going to do a 50/50 version wiht 550 and 1050 next.
Thank you for all the information and ideas.
W number needs a bit of explanation. One of the tests for grading flours is called an alveographic test. In effect, it is a machine the blows a bubble in a disk of test dough, a little like when you blow a bubble using bubblegum. They measure the size of the bubble (L) vs. the pressure of air being applied (P), and it gives you a graph of pressure vs. length (of extension). Some flours (extensible) might stretch a lot without bursting but with little pressure applied (spelt) or be very resistant (needing strong pressure to expand) but not extend as much (semola rimacinata flour). W is the area under the graph (pressure (P) x extensibility (L)). The bigger W, the more the flour will make a dough that is both able to deal with pressure but also extend without ripping. I think your flour has a big L number but a small P and a relatively low (W).
Each country has different classifications of flour types, but the W number depends only on the way the gluten behaves, so is not necessarily related to other parameters of the flour such as ash content, which seems to be the system of classification in Germany. From what I read online 1050 and 812 are the flours with the highest W number, regardless of ash content, but only going but what I read not from any expert knowledge on German flours.
You do not need US bread flour to produce a good rise and crumb. US all-purpose flour can do that. Remember that most standard US white flours include a little diastatic malt or alpha-amylase enzyme, whereas typical German flours do not (as I understand it). This can make a real difference.
Also, a certain protein percentage reported in Germany for a given flour would have been reported in the US as a lower value, because the US values are based on wheat having a 14% moisture level but the German ones are calculate on a no-moisture basis. So a German 12.5% protein level would correspond to a US 11% value.
As for W values, they are not generally available for US flours, sad to say. In compensation, the large manufacturers try to adjust their blends and enzyme levels to achieve consistent baking performance across time and harvests.
Interesting, I did not know this. In Germany I think this is called "aktives Malz". Are you suggesting to add this, to get an open crumb like folks from the states do? Or in what way does it make a difference?
Sadly, I have neither US bread flour, nor US all-purpose flour. So I am wondering how open a crumb I can expect with german flour. I think, if the flour is the limiting factor, I am fine. However, I am pretty sure that at the moment there is a lot of mistakes and missing skills on my end, that are between me and the best possible outcome with german flours. :-)
Okay, wow I was not aware of this at all. This does make quite a difference if you compare flours. Thank you for this information.
Here's a thread on TFL that seems directly on point:
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/64318/german-bread-flours-please-help
Read especially MiniOven's posts in the thread.
This page might be interesting too -
https://www.noordinaryhomestead.com/flour-in-germany-not-as-easy-as-it-seems/
The diastatic malt I mentioned earlier can help the fermentation by providing enzymes that convert more starches to sugar, which the yeast uses. If too much is used it can produce a gummy crumb or even cause premature breakdown of the dough. Probably most US bakers don't even know or remember their white flours have malt, and don't realize that flours in other countries may not have it.
This oft repeated titbit is mostly misunderstood. It's true that the analysis standards are different between US and Europe meaning that European countries countries report protein and other specs on a dry matter basis while the US and countries that use AACC standards, they report the protein figure on a 14% moisture basis.
However it depends which protein value is being discussed. Unless it is sought out consumers don't usually see the technical specifications or analysis of the flour where this distinction applies.
The typical assay done to measure protein is the Kjeldhal Method. This test extracts in gas form and measures Nitrogen by burning a sample which is then used to calculate and infer protein content. And so it is referred to as Crude Protein.
In Europe, protein content on consumer labelling listed under nutritional values is not on a dry basis. It is on a variable "as is" basis. And European laws state that the protein value is always reported as N (Nitrogen) x 6.25 as a standard. This applies to all food and beverage products unless otherwise decreed.
AACC standards used by USA and Canada report protein as Nx5.7 (Nitrogen x 5.7) on a 14% moisture basis. This figure is then used as a basis for reporting protein under nutritional information but is typically recalculated as a "per serving" value.
Looking at the Spec sheet of a European flour product there will be likely be two different protein values listed. The analysis standard Nx5.7 dmb. (dry matter basis) and Protein under Nutritional values Nx6.25 (variable as is moisture basis).
Every flour I have bought in Germany has only one protein number on the packaging. How in your opinion, does that relate to the U.S.-American measure? That's the relevant question here.
It's better to consider these numbers as just rough guides, anyway. There's measurement variation, lot-to-lot variation, protein quality, round-off errors, and more factors in play. Among US flours, the nutritional label protein values for Gold Medal and King Arthur App-Purpose flours are 3g and 4g per 30g serving respectively yet to me they bake just the same. Durum flours have high protein numbers but bake as if their protein is much lower.
The last time I was in Italy I was very pleased to see that more than half the flours on the supermarket shelf had W numbers on their packets, which helps deal with many of the problems highlighted in these posts.
My so far unanswered question is the difference between total protein content as measured by the Kjeldahl method and gluten-forming protein. There are actual tests for this and I believe for some flours, the values would not the same as the nutritional value. I have inquired with King Arthur about their test method as their packages report gluten-forming protein in addition to the nutritional value. I have not yet received a satisfactory answer on this topic.
I suppose if you had a flour sample you could try it directly. Weight an amount of flour. Then mix it with water to make a stiff dough and then wash the starch out under running water. I tried this once - without weighing - and ended up with a tight rubbery mass. I suppose you would have to bake it to drive off retained water. That *might* give you the actual fraction of the flour that could become gluten.
There are two gluten test methods described by the Cereal and Grains Assoc (AACCI). The manual washing method you mentioned is described in Official Method 38-10.01. There is also an automatic method (Official Method 38-12.02) that uses the appropriately named Glutomatic instrument. I don't have a desire to determine the gluten content myself, plus I'm sure my accuracy would not be very good without the proper equipment.
https://www.uswheat.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Wheat-and-Flour-Testing-Methods-Book.pdf
My mild frustration is that if a company advertises the gluten-forming content of its flours, the test method for determining it could be disclosed when asked. I'm familiar with spec sheets in the chemical industry and the better vendors will list the test method used for determining the specifications.
Also, because the gluten content is not the same as total protein, the nutritional label is not very useful for comparing flours. Generally, it would be helpful to know how other millers determine the gluten content of their flours so that we can compare flours across the industry.
I think the wording gluten-forming protein used by King Arthur on their products is a marketing choice more than anything else. Is this wording used on whole wheat flour?
No doubt the labelling is regulated and so the protein value reported adheres to a specified method. I am confident that use of the Kjeldahl method (or variations of) is still a staple of protein analysis.
A quick search brought me to this:
21 CFR 137.105(c)(2)
The AOAC Standard as used by European mills for flour analysis. The plot thickens!
Ha! I remember noticing that reference in the CFR but didn't register the correction for moisture content. If the European standards make use of the same method, perhaps the US and Euro reported values are on the same basis after all.
Though when all is said and done, we're hearing over and over that European flours in many countries are not baking up like USS/Canadian flours do.
The only European flour (I'm in the US) I can get readily is Anna Type 00, which is imported from Italy. The nutritional label says it has 4g protein per 30g flour. The label also says it is made from "soft wheat flour", which sounds like a contradiction. The label does not say there is any added malt or enzymes. I haven't been using it for bread, but it works wonderfully well in biscuits/scones, which normally are considered best with soft flour, and I've seen a lot of posts by pizza-people who say it's great for pizza.
I think we've heard and read enough by now to know that there isn't any such thing as a "European" flour, that they all differ by country, that protein content reported values are only rough guides, and that recipes using US flours don't work very well for bakers in at least some non-US countries.
Yeah, generalizing European flour is a mistake. There is a stark contrast between Norhtern and Southern European wheat flours due to the weather. It gets worse the more you go to the North / the less sun is available. Italian and French flours most often have a great protein content which is why they are the birthplace of bread like Baguette and Ciabatta, while Northern European countries don't have such great Wheat flours and are generally more known for their rye bread. So the Italian flour you get is definitely much better for open Crumb compared to German flour.
It's not clear in the CFR that it's specifically referring to the nutritional labelling. At least that I could see. More research is required.
I am confident that flour analysis done by US mills are using AACC standards. I've seen evidence of this on some spec sheets.
Protein AACC - Nx5.7 14% mb.
North American grown wheat is generally richer in protein compared to European grown wheat. No doubt about that. The expansive plains, less exhausted soils and warm climate make ideal conditions for growing high protein wheat.
The distinction of hard and soft wheat you know in North America (NA) is different to Italy where all Triticum aestivum (common wheat) is classed as soft wheat and Triticum durum is hard wheat. In NA soft and hard wheats are classes within the common wheat group.
It's often noted that US and Canadian flour absorbs more water. This isn't just a result of protein differences. Level of starch damage will be a significant factor also. The harder the wheat, the more starch damage will be incurred to reach the same level of granulometry.
More starch damage = more water absorption. Farinographic tests demonstrate this.
Certainly I agree that comparing protein alone is not all that helpful especially between countries.
I've learned that, and I wonder if I misled myself because the label looks like it was made for export to the US and it didn't occur to me that it might be using the Italian sense of the adjective "soft" rather than the US sense.
Michael, would you say that the W index is a better indication of a flour's baking performance in terms of gluten quality?
If so, then why don't millers make this figure freely available? Surely they are doing a disservice to home bakers and should be taken to task! (Not sure by whom, though)
Lance
Certainly I would say that Lance. Knowing the W and P/L measurements are highly valuable to any baker. W is the deformation energy, so it really does provide a sense of strength and the P/L ratio qualifies that strength in terms of elasticity (resistance vs extensibility).
I guess it really depends on the mill in question but indeed it seems that spec sheets and analysis data can be difficult to acquire. Depending on how big the mill is, they may do little testing and might not employ any rheological testing at all, such as the Alveograph. And of course there is a financial cost to employing these tests.
In the US, the AACC have a standardised method for Alveograph testing but very few US mills actually use it. It just hasn't caught on and some commentary from the AACC has said that Alveograph testing is not so suited to US bread flour which is very tenacious. And it can be argued that because of the higher absorbency, the fixed 50% hydration used in Alveograph testing provides a distortedly less accurate assessment of NA hard (bread) wheat flour. Some US mills are bucking the trend however, possibly due, simply to demand!
In the UK I imagine most testing of this nature is done in plant bakeries where the need for consistency is higher. I was glad to see however that Shipton Mill does now use the Alveograph, they may even be the only independent mill in the UK that does! W values for several flours are listed on their website. Quite a different story from tens years ago!
Michael
Thank Michael and interesting what you say about Shipton Mill; I have a spec sheet for No.4 which I personally requested in 2016 and it is very sparse!
Lance
All the King Arthur wheat flours (AP, bread, whole wheat, and white whole wheat) I have purchased list the the gluten-forming protein content on the label (but not as part of the nutrition label). I have no doubt that King Arthur's listing this on its flour packaging is part of the marketing of its product.
However, it is possible to measure actual gluten content of flour distinct from total protein. There is an instrument designed just for that analysis:
https://resources.perkinelmer.com/lab-solutions/resources/docs/BRO-PertenGlutomaticMethod-and-Application.pdf
I have posed the question to King Arthur's customer care concerning the gluten-forming protein. I will report back with any information I receive.
I was interested to learn if there is a disparity between the nutritional protein value and the percent of gluten forming protein on the whole wheat, since there is no way that all the protein in whole wheat flour can be all gluten forming. It's a shame that US nutritional labelling is per serving and not per 100 grams!
Nevertheless, I have found there is disparity, did anyone notice the protein level change on KA whole wheat from 14% to 13.2% (gluten forming) on the packaging?
Packaging variations:
-
Spec sheet info:
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14% protein (14% moisture basis) spec and 14g (per 100g) on the nutritional values. This indicates that protein listed under nutritional values is, as per the AACC standard (Nx5.7 14%mb.). Despite what is written in the CFR.
So no doubt they are providing this gluten forming protein value by way of another assay but it begs the question is it reported on a dry matter basis or 14% mb.! I'd be interested to hear what KA say about this.
I'm impressed that 94% of the proteins in the flour are gluten-forming varieties. I wouldn't have guessed that the percentage would be that high, especially in a whole-grain flour.
Paul
Indeed, I'm dubious Paul.
Albumins and globulins are the non gluten forming proteins present in wheat. I'm having a look now at wheat kernel composition of theses proteins...
Initial find:
Mapping and proteomic analysis of albumin and globulin proteins in hexaploid wheat kernels (Triticum aestivum L.) | Theoretical and Applied Genetics (springer.com)
Michael
I'm not going to rush to any conclusions like that. We just don't know the reasons behind these differences. For one thing, label and packaging design would be controlled by marketing, and spec sheets either by engineers or contracting people. For all we know, there could have been a change in the test method by the mill, and the labeling people just haven't caught up yet.
We also don't know what the error value of the protein means. It's listed as 14% +/- 0.3%. That could mean:
1. Standard error of the mean (se);
2. Sample standard deviation (sd) - that is, typical sample-to-sample variation;
3. Two se;
4. Two sd;
5. Median estimated test error;
... and there are other possibilities.
#1 is probably the most likely. As a consumer of flour, I'd rather know it was #2. In that case, any individual bag of flour would be likely to have a protein value in a range (13.4 - 14.6). For #1, individual bags would fall into a much wider range.
How civil. If they mean what they say; gluten forming protein then it cannot be equal to total protein. That conclusion is sound if they are stating fact. Otherwise its an un truth, a liable one, unless they can claim the wording doesn't mean what we are interpreting it to mean.
It's a spec sheet, not actual data and so the specs listed are subject to tolerances. It means the actual measurements recorded in a analysis fall within that range.
Yes, of course the tolerances. The question of interest is what those tolerances are telling us about the bagged product that you or I may buy.
Ostensibly, what the tolerances tell us is that every bag will have between 13.7% and 14.3% protein, or else it's out of spec.
Maybe, maybe not. The tolerance could be a cutoff like that; it could also be a standard deviation, or something else. No way to know without more information. Since the flour is processed, blended, and enhanced with an enzyme to give consistent baking results, the exact variability of the protein amount probably isn't of much practical importance in this case.
I work in the food industry, specifically in the bakery sector. I know how ingredient specs are written. I don't want to seem overly blunt about this, but I'm telling you there's no ambiguity here. As Michael said, a spec is not a report of some samples that they took with a margin of error/confidence interval. It's a requirement for quality control. If King Arthur has good quality control - and I have to assume they do - then every lot of flour will be tested and only released for sale if it falls within the range of the specification, because that's what a specification is.
Good, thanks for your actual knowledge! I'm fairly sure that KA orders large enough quantities that their producers want to keep them happy with good QA.
TomP
So I am from Germany myself, but I have no final answer for you as I am not quite happy with my own crumb. But what I know is that with German flours you might need to lower your goals a little bit and be satisfied with less.
I currently bake with a Demeter 550 with 11,8% protein which I also bought at Edeka and instead of whole wheat I use some Weizenruchmehl 1600 which I ordered sometime from the Adler Mühle in Bahlingen which is a dark flour with better baking capabilities than a whole wheat flour. But still my crumb is not quite open so I keep experimenting.
I think using a "Backstark" flour should also be a good choice and be adequate for bread. I do not think a less refined flour such as 812 or 1050 will yield good results. 812 is still okay, but since you have more of the grain it's not ideal for open crumb so I think sticking to a Backstark Mehl or trying some other high protein 550 will be a much better choice than trying a 1050 as you said you wanna try in a different comment.
So all in all I think we need to keep experimenting whats best for our flour. What I found impressive is this 50% Wholewheat recipe which was done with a low protein Slovenian flour. In the comments he streses that cough handling needs to be adapted to the flour and different autolyse times might be needed depending on the encymatic activity in the flour. But I think a longer autolyse without the levain could also be helpful for your recipe since your recipe is quite fast due to the high temperature and the flour doesn't have as much time to bond with the water and build a good gluten structure.
No real answer but hope it helps anyways
The Bread Code (HENDRIK KLEINWÄCHTER) has a write up on German flours, which may be useful.
I would say that if you want to try a stronger flour than T550 then adding a percentage of Manitoba flour would be the best way forward in Germany. You may need to buy it online from somewhere like https://bongu.de
Lance