When adding flax seed to bread, is it better to grind it into a meal (using an electric coffee mill) OR soak it in water?

Which method makes the flax seed nutrients more bioavailable? Which method better reduces the tendency of flax to interfere with gluten development?

I've spent countless hours searching the web with no definitive answer. Here's the gist of what I've found...

> Recipes from professional bakers commonly recommend soaking flax. (However, this may be a result of their background - it is hardly cost effecient for a bakery to be grinding their own flax meal on a daily basis, it's much easier and less labor intensive to use a soaker.)

> Bloggers who are home bakers sometimes soak, sometimes grind. There's no concensus.

> Nutrition mavens tend to recommend grinding over soaking but never give any valid, verifiable, scientific reference(s) for their preference. If I can't find independent research that supports their claims, why should I trust them?

If you can enlighten me - especially if you can give me references to solid articles in peer-reviewed journals that I can access on the web - I'd love to hear from you. Thanks in advance.

This wonderful bread was one of the entries at the "Young Baker of The Year Contest" (2010) in Newcastle, by Andy's student Katie: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20318/young-baker-competition-half-term-home-baking

I scaled and adapted the formula and procedure a bit to fit my schedule and preferred technique: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/24935/stout-good-you-katie039s-stout-flaxseed-bread

STOUT BARM
125 g bread flour
125 g stout beer
1 g instant yeast (1/4 tsp.)
 
SOAKER
50 g flaxseeds
150 g water
 
FINAL DOUGH
all barm
all soaker
250 g bread flour
125 g whole wheat flour
100 g stout beer
9 g salt
3 g instant yeast

DAY 1 MORNING:

1. Prepare flaxseed soaker.
2. Mix ingredients for stout barm. Place in refrigerator until using.

EVENING:

3. Mix all dough ingredients at low speed for 1 - 2 minutes, until they come together. Let dough rest for 5 minutes.
4. Knead at medium-low speed for 2 minutes, dough should still be sticky. Continue kneading for another 4 minutes, dough should still be more sticky than tacky.
5. Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface. Stretch and fold. Tucking sides under to form a ball, place dough in a lightly oiled bowl. Let rest for 10 minutes. Repeat S & F for 3 more times, at 10 minute intervals. After last fold, place dough in oiled container with lid, and refrigerate overnight.

DAY 2:

6. Remove dough from refrigerator 2 hours before using.
7. Pre-heat oven to 410°F/210 C, including steam pan. Shape dough into boule, and let rise in banneton, seamside up, floured with whole wheat and semolina flour.
8. Proof at room temperature for ca. 1 hour, or until it has almost doubled in size. Score.
9. Bake for 15 minutes at 410ºF/210ºC, steaming with 1 cup of boiling water. Rotate bread, remove steam pan, and continue baking for another 20 minutes (internal temperature at least 200ºF/93ºC). Leave bread for another 10 minutes in switched-off oven with door slightly ajar.
10. Let cool on wire rack.

Thanks, Katie, you really would have deserved a price! And thanks, Andy, for posting this interesting formula.

Karin

A while ago, Andy (ananda) - always good for some pretty amazing loaves - posted about the entries of two of his baking students for the "Young Baker of the Year Contest" in Newcastle, England. Much as I love the goodness of a simple crusty white bread, my heart belongs to the complexity of mixed grains and nutty add-ins, therefore I copied those two right away into my recipe program.

Finalist Faye's entry, the Nettle Bread, I already baked - it is as unusual as tasty, and made it straight into my team of "Most Valuable Breads":

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21966/faye039s-award-winning-nettle-bread

Katie's, the other student's, bread, with it's content of stout beer and flaxseeds, appeared equally tempting, and was in the top ten of my to-do bread list. As a good German, I love beer (the real stuff, not the dish wash water labelled Bud Light), and flaxseed add a nice extra bit of crunch. And, who wouldn't agree - it's healthy, to0.

I always found truth in the old adage: "Guinness is good for you", and apply that piece of sage advice to it's American brethren, like our local Cadillac Mountain Stout, or one of the other great New England stout beers.

First I made the Stout and Linseed Bread, almost exactly following Katie's formula, and Andy's description of the procedure:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20318/young-baker-competition-half-term-home-baking

I only made some minor changes: fresh yeast is not easily available here, so I used instant yeast instead, and regular flaxseed instead of prettier looking (but the same tasting) golden flaxseed. And, of course, I couldn't lay hands on Allendale Stout, but I had Cadillac Mountain Stout as a worthy stand-in. I also scaled the recipe amounts down to a sixth: for one loaf.

At this first trial, my dough appeared to be very wet, therefore I decided to bake the bread in a Dutch oven, like RonRay's Apple Yeast Bread, not as a free standing loaf (at 450 F, reducing the temperature after 20 minutes to 425 F). Though it had a good oven spring, it didn't rise as high, but spread quite a bit. The crust was very nice, though, and the taste as good as expected.

Stout Flaxseed Bread - 1. Bake

I was wondering whether the somewhat complicated procedure couldn't be a bit streamlined, instead of 15 minutes long, slow kneading, using Peter Reinhart's shorter knead and S & F technique. I also wanted to adapt the process to my preferred overnight cold bulk fermentation, in order to bake the bread earlier in the morning.

So I mixed soaker and stout barm in the morning, placing the barm in the refrigerator to ferment - I don't really see the necessity of keeping the flaxseed soaker, too, in a cool place - I always leave my soakers at room temperature on the countertop for one day: without any ill effect. In the evening I prepared the final dough: 2 minutes slow mixing, until all came together - 5 minutes rest - 6 minutes kneading at medium-low speed, then 4 times S & F, with 10 minute intervals, on the counter.

This time, without changing the hydration, the dough felt more manageable, very nice and supple. It rose well overnight in the refrigerator, shaping was no problem, and I baked it as free standing hearth bread.

Stout Flaxseed 2. Bake

This time no sideways escape, the bread behaved, and rose upward. The taste was the same - simply great! Another winner for my "Bread Hall of Fame".

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/24936/katie039s-stout-amp-flaxseed-bread

SOAKER
115 g whole rye flour, or medium rye
120 g whole wheat flour
30 g flaxseeds
30 g millet
4 g salt
210 g water

FINAL DOUGH
all soaker and starter
105 g bread flour
6 g salt
60 g dried soybeans
40 g water, or more as needed

DAY 1

Mix together all ingredients for starter. Cover, and let sit at room temperature for 14-18 hours.

MIx together all ingredients for soaker. Cover and let sit at room temperature.

DAY 2

Pour boiling water over soybeans and let soak for 15 minutes. Drain, let cool, and chop coarsely. Dry on kitchen paper towel, and toast slightly at 170 C/325 F for ca. 20 min. Let cool.

Combine all dough ingredients, mix on low speed for 1-2 minutes, until ingredients come together, then 4 minutes on medium-low speed. Let rest for 5 minutes, then continue kneading for another 1 minute.

Ferment sough for 3-4 hours, or until it has grown 1 1/2 times its original size.

Shape dough into boule, place into banneton, seamside down, and proof for ca. 2 hours, or until it has grown 1 1/2 times. (Preheat oven after 1 hour.)

Preheat oven to 250 C/500 F, including steam pan.

Bake bread at 240 C/475 F for 10 minutes, steaming with 1 cup of boiling water. Reduce heat to 220 C/425 F, and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove steam pan and rotate loaf 180 degrees. Continue baking for ca 20 minutes more (internal temperature at least 93 C/200 F). Bread should sound hollow when thumped on bottom.

Let cool on wire rack.

The recipe was adapted from Nils Schöner: "Brot - Bread Notes From A Floury German Kitchen".

Baked 2 different breads, taking up the Hamelman's challenge, one quite successful and the other,  just had too many mistakes.  You will understand what I mean when you look at the pictures.

Cheese Bread with quite a bit of modification to the recipe.  Great oven spring, still learning to score to get the ears.  Not enough cheese,  quite an open crumb,  thin crust,  and 100% sourdough only.   check out the details here.

Flaxseed Bread - too many mistakes here,  and this didn't turn out well at all.  Taste was ok, but it was dense and it didn't have much oven spring.  

Well,  I still have  a lot to learn. 

I found this site a few months ago and have really enjoyed all the great information here. I finally decided today to join and post something. I consider myself a novice and am still learning and have begun experimenting a bit with recipes I have gathered online or through various sourdough cookbooks. Some breads I have baked have turned out excellent and some not, but I am having fun.

Last summer I took a class on baking sourdough bread and fell in love with it! My family thinks I am obsessed but they have been happily eating all of my bread this past year. A year ago I was one who never baked except the occasional pie or cake for a holiday. The only flour I ever bought was all purpose flour. Now I have in my kitchen: unbleached bread flour, as well as whole wheat, rye, rice, spelt, and pastry flours. I now not only know what diastatic malt is, I have some in my freezer. I have several different sized loaf pans and 3 different kinds of bannetons.

Today I baked two different breads. One was a rosemary-olive oil loaf which turned out pretty good. The other one is a recipe I had and made some modifications to. It is the oatmeal, apple, flaxseed sourdough sandwich loaf which I will try to post a picture of. I made it in 2 small loaf pans but it would work out in one large one just as well. Here is my recipe:

Wednesday evening - 1st preferment build:

Starter - 10 g (The starter I used is made with unbleached bread flour but next time I will probably use my rye starter instead. I keep both going all the time.)

Spelt flour - 19 g

Water - 13 g

Thursday morning - 2nd preferment build:

Add to the 1st build: 69 g spelt flour and 48 g water

Thursday evening - mix up the dough:

I poured 100 g of boiling water over 80 g of rolled oats and let it soak for a few minutes.

I dissolved the preferment with 140 g of water and measured out 500 g of bread flour which I added along with 240 g of grated tart apples, 35 g of ground flaxseed, 30 g of unprocessed wheat bran, and the oats. I mixed it all up just enough to combine everything and then let it sit for 20 minutes before adding 8 g of salt. This dough is pretty sticky so I used my KitchenAid mixer to knead it for a few minutes. Then the dough went in an oiled bowl, sprayed top of dough with oil and covered it in plastic and put it into the fridge overnight.

Friday morning:

I took it out of the fridge and folded it once and returned it to the fridge.

Friday evening:

Took dough out of fridge and let it sit out on the counter for the next 4 1/2 to 5 hours. Every hour I gently stretched and folded the dough once and put the plastic cover over it to keep it from drying out. When it was ready for shaping, I divided the dough into 2 parts and put into my small loaf pans (but you could use one large pan instead or put it into a cane banneton). I let the dough rise for an hour or so and then put it back into the fridge overnight. Make sure it is covered well so it doesn't dry out. If you use a banneton, it would be a good idea to put the whole thing in a plastic bag.

Saturday morning:

Took the dough out of the fridge and set on counter for an hour or so. Then I turned on my oven and set it to 500 degrees and let it heat up for 45 minutes. I keep my baking stone in the oven all the time. On the bottom shelf of the oven, I put a small cast iron skillet which I poured boiling water in right after I put the loafs in the oven to provide steam. After about 10 minutes, I turned down the temp to 400 degrees and baked for about 30 minutes more until the bread reached 205 degrees internally.

Hello there. I am venturing into whole grain baking, particularly because of the lower glycemic load of this kind of bread (I love my bread and refuse to give up entirely). I'd like to try PR's Wholegrain Struan recipe with a few modifications. I have some flaxseed meal, and I've read that you can substitute up to 1/4 cup of flour for flaxseed meal in most recipes. I'm wondering if this is a good idea, or if I should start with a smaller amount? Also, I've read that flaxseed absorbs TONS of water. Because of this, should I add the flaxseed meal to the soaker? Soak it separately in water? Or just add more water by eye when the dough comes together?

I also plan to use 1//2 cup quinoa and 1 cup of bulgur for my grains. I'm clearly going for a high protein, slow-carb bread.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

My bread rises all gnarly-looking, and I'm stumped. Here are the ingredients, which I am careful to add in the correct order, at room temperature:

1/2 cup water; 3/4 cup evaporated milk; 2 tbsp. unsalted butter; 2 tbsp. honey; 1-1/2 tsps. salt; 1/3 cup oatmeal; 2 cups bread flour; 1 cup whole-wheat flour; 2-1/4 tsps. dry yeast; 1/2 cup flaxseed.

I have tried to solve the problem in all of the following ways:

Tried a different bread machine, plugged into a different electrical outlet;

Added flax at different times during the baking cycle--in initial mix, during first knead, during second knead, when machine beeps;

Tried fresh, organic flaxseed and boxed flaxseed;

Tried different brands of flour;

Tried fresher yeast from the organic grocery and packet yeast from the store;

Selected different bread settings on the breadmachine;

I'm convinced the problem is with the flaxseed, although my neighbor, an expert breadmaker, says this does not make sense.

ANY IDEAS?

For anyone interested, I describe my baking of a multigrain bread here:

http://www.breadcetera.com/?p=198

SteveB

www.breadcetera.com

Hi, there!

I've been watching all this great content about bread making and have long wanted to participate in the discussions. I have been interested in baking bread for a long time and had taken some commercial bread making classes back in the Philippines, as well as some personal lessons from my old aunt who is a nun. It has best remained as a hobby for me till I got to Singapore where I wet my feet again. The Fresh Loaf site is quite inspiring and I have shared your site with some of my officemates. And yes, they get surprised that a guy like me is into baking.

Artisan flours are a bit hard to come by here except for some Gold Medal and Bob's Red Mill varieties and an occasional Waitrose strong bread flour from Down Under. The locally-milled flours do not perform as well specially with the extremely hot weather here.  

I've been trying out recipes from Reinhart, Bertinet and Berenbaum. Here are a few of my recent attempts - Bertinet's Guinness Loaf (w/o the Aniseed), Berenbaum's Flaxseed and White Sandwich Bread. I hope you enjoy these photos.

Cheers