Questions about baking with sprouted flour
Hello everyone,
If you bake with sprouted flour and have some tricks to share, I would greatly appreciate it. I made my first bread with sprouted flour today, Multigrain Struan from Reinhardt's Whole Grain Baking. It is a recipe that uses biga and a soaker, and proceeds to combine the two with other ingredients (flour, yeast, honey, oil, salt) during the final dough mixing. then bulk fermentation, dividing the dough and final rising. The loaves start out in 425F oven with normal steam, but once the loaves are placed there, the temperature is lowered to 350F. Loaves bake about 40 min and are rotated half-way through the bake. I followed the recipe and baked on quarry tiles. I made two loaves (one batard in La Cloche and one loaf in a loaf pan) with organic stone-ground whole wheat and two with organic sprouted (also one batard in La Cloche and one loaf in a loaf pan) for comparison.
Sprouted flour loaves of either shape did not rise much in the oven, and the scored area sort of sank in. Stone-ground flour loaves of both shapes had great oven spring and the scoring worked out fine as well. Now, the taste... Sprouted loaves were chewy and a bit "wet" to the taste, a bit sweeter than the stone-ground ones, with a more pronounced nutty flavor. Yummy and delicous is the only word to describe them! Now if I could only make them more visually attractive. So, if you have secrets to share, I am eager to learn! Thank you so much in advance.
Kroha
I believe that Peter Reinhart says in Whole Grain Breads that the sprouting process reduces the amount of gluten available, as some of it is converted into other things during the sprouting process. That's why he lists such a large amount of vital wheat gluten as an optional addition to his sprouted wheat loaf. I think that adding gluten to your multigrain struan dough would probably be the best way to increase rise.
What is sprouted flour? This is somethiing I a have never heard of before and never seen at the bulk foods establishments I purchase flour from.
Why would one use sprouted flour? What are its properties?
Thanks.
There is a lot of information about sprouted flour on my website www.organicwheatproducts.com
I have used sprouted flour in my standard wheat bread recipe with great results. It actually rose higher than regular whole wheat flour. Maybe it is the technique that is causing the problem. As sprouted flour is already soaked when it is made then maybe you wouldn't have to soak it again. Just a thought.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/11950/look-mom-amp-dad-it039s-sprouted-flour
and another
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/11817/looking-dry-sprouted-wheat-grain-it039s-whole-form
The falling numbers test is done to determine the quality of the grains and storage ability. Our organic grains have very high falling numbers and are of very high quailty and high protein. Our grains are triple cleaned and also sifted before sprouting, rinsed with filtered water multiple times during the sprouting process and also tested for vomitoxin as are ANY grains that are suitable to be sold to a commercial grain mill. These are standard tests done at all mills that take in grains commercially and not just done for sprouting. We also grow what we sprout so we know how the seeds were handled and grown from the planting stage to the final product. We also process custom orders to insure freshness.
www.organicwheatproducts.com