The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

flour fineness

heyitsmebobbyd's picture
heyitsmebobbyd

flour fineness

I recently produced a stone flour mill.  can someone tell me, does finer flour produce lighter loafs, how fine is too fine?

Dan001's picture
Dan001

What flour mill did you buy? 

What grain are you milling? 

Generally Yes a finer flour will produce a lighter loaf but their is also the possibilty to use technique such as a poolish with wheat or rye and get a light loaf.

Dan

 

 

BBQinMaineiac's picture
BBQinMaineiac

I can't directly answer your question, but I use a burr mill and grind my whole grain 3x. I have no problems with the bran destroying the gluten network (I did have problems with a 1x grind). I also add ascorbic acid (Vit' C). Once I did both of those things, the fine grinding and the addition of Vit' C, all of my gluten problems disappeared. I also add lecithin, but for other reasons.

Can your stone mill grind flour to an ultra fine consistency? I have heard of some that can only grind once to a certain consistency and that's it. Running the first grind through again does something negative to the stone. I don't need an answer, it's just something for you to find out about your mill.

barryvabeach's picture
barryvabeach

Steve,  I have been grinding at home for a year or two. Your post was the most reasoned explanation of why to add vitamin C,  so I did it today for the first time using Hamelman's baguette with 33 % poolish.  I made two identical loaves, with vitamin C added to the final loaf of one of the two.  Over the 3 hour bulk fermentation, I did not see much difference, and didn't see a difference in the final proof. However there was a better oven spring with the vitamin C loaf and it came out taller . Thanks for the post.