Sprouted 6 Grain 6 Starter Half Whole Grain Bread – Version 2 with AP and VWG
The first version had King Arthur and Winco Hi Gluten flours, 50/50, for the half of the flour that wasn’t whole and sprouted whole grain flour. That bread turned out very well, open, soft, moist crumb, good spring and bloom with a well browned, thin chewy crust at a bit under 80% hydration. The best part is that the 6 whole and sprouted grains really pumped up the flavor.
Normally Lucy and I don’t make bread with expensive bread and hi gluten flour and have always made bread with inexpensive AP flour with our favorite being LaFama at 11.2% protein. This is higher than store bought Pillsbury, Gold Medal or even store brand AP at 10% protein. Normally we don’t put VWG in the mix finding that LaFama performs perfectly well without the added gluten but, you never know what you are missing until you try something new.
Se we are doing a test to see if AP with added vital wheat gluten, to equal the protein of the bread and high gluten flour, makes as good a bread as the more expensive version. Last week’s bake came in at about $1.50 and this week’s loaf came in at a buck - about 33% less – quite a savings but last week’s bread was one of our all time favorites too – a truly outstanding bread.
Adding VWG to AP can’t really match expensive higher gluten flours even if the protein levels are the same. What makes these flours expensive is the red spring wheat that contain the most of the two proteins that form gluten in the presence of water. My VWG is made from less expensive and much more plentiful red winter wheat that contains less of these two gluten forming proteins. So no matter what the taste will be different because there is different base flour in the mix.
This week's stir fry, this time over home made rice noodles.
In this case, the amount of VWG necessary to get the LaFama AP roughly to the same amount of protein and the higher gluten flours we added 13 g of VWG assuming the VWG was 60% gluten. Since it was homemade, we don’t know for sure how much gluten was in there but the average for commercial VWG is 55 to 65% so we used 60% and we needed 8 g of protein total and 60% of 13 is 8 g.
Right off the bat the first thing we noticed was that this week’s mix was slacker than last week’s when we did the slap and folds and stretch and folds. This would make one think that there just wasn’t the same out of gluten forming protein in the mix even though we tried to compensate with VWG. What it really means is that the LaFama just can’t take up as much water as the KA bread and Winco high gluten.
This week’s dough did feel just like it normally does at near 80% hydration and 50% while grains with half of it being sprouted which we make often enough to know. The dough also spread more when it was unmolded and slashed. The 3rd difference is that this was baked in a new GE Profile Electric oven. The good news is that this bread bloomed, sprang and browned just like always and when I checked the temperature at the end of 33 minutes of total baking under steam and convection – the internal temperature came out at exactly the same as last week’s bake – 208 F
We will have to wait on the crumb shot. Since last week’s bake didn’t spread when unmolded and slashed and it sprang better as a result, I would expect this week’s crumb to not be as open as the previous bake’s crumb which was exceptional for a bread of this type. So far the nod goes to the non VWG version 1. The crumb cam out almost identical to the previouus bake and the it is just as delicious. I think If I would have adjusted the hydration by adding some more flour to this one it wouldn't have spread as much and would have been just as lofty.
The new Mega Steam is 2 pans, half full of water with lava rocks. We did a test and Sylvia's steaming towels only put out half the steam of the lava rocks. Lucy says it works best when you have two colors of lava rocks too.
So pick your poison and remember to keep the hydration a bit less if using AP and VWG instead of the high gluten, higher protein flour options. Either method will make a fine bread. One will save you time and be less of a hassle while the other will save you some bucks.
If you want to know the method and recipe for this bread check out last week’s post here
Sprouted 6 Grain 6 Starter Sprouted Half Whole Grain Bread
Lucy say's not to forget that salad.
Comments
dabrownman, I see that you use what seem to be just normal bread baskets to proof your bread in. Can you say something about that? Do you ever have issues with sticking? The dough "leaking" out of the holes? Do you bag the baskets and proof them in the fridge? Where do you buy them, etc
And to be clear, I like it! I think it's a cool look : )
at Goodwill. For the price of one half a brotform, I got a dozen various sizes and shapes of baskets, some with cloth liners. How long they last in comparison is another story but, as a result, my breads don't look like anyone else's either:-)
Nothing ever sticks to the baskets as they have been lined with a light dusting of rice flour for a couple of years now, Even this one, with the dough poking through the holes, wasn't much of an issue an issue at all - since it was still very cold. You learn to be gentle, yet firm and ,if the dough isn't too badly over proofed - no worries. This one was getting to the point of being over proofed but it still had a bit iof spring and bloom left in it.
I always either; cover the dough with the bowl for the dough is on the counter, cover it with plastic wrap if in the bowl or bag it in a trash can liner if in the basket. I like the look of the pattern on my bread too and do not like a white flour appearance on my finished loaves. I want to see the crust as it is and not hidden under a pile of flour that is stuck to it with the exception of breads that are supposed to be that way like ciabatta and stollen.
Glad you like the bread. It is a very good one that hits all the right buttons for me.
Happy baking Zach.
Yeh, about the baskets... I tried a plastic version to proof my loaf in and it had the tiniest slits in it and our doughs are kinda wet and it came through gaps and I had to pry it out to put it in the oven. How long does it stay in there? Or is it same day sourdough?
Great bread btw :)
in the fridge so it was cold when un-molded which helped get it out of the holes in the basket. The basket was a little small for this amonnt of dough and I have and identical basket one size larger. This basket has been used so many times and rice floured over and over again that nothing can stick to it for lang. Gravity usually does the trick no problem.
Glad you liked the bread - we do too!
Happy baking
We ended up buying traditional bannetons and we love them! Just brilliant they are :) wouldnt change them for the world :)
That is a good looking loaf and an interesting experiment with the flours. Be curious to compare the crumbs. The 50% whole grain seems to hit the sweet spot in our household especially with a mixture of grains and sprouting but I'm not giving up the occasional 100%. Well done.
Stu
Can you tell the difference? It is pretty hard with the latest VWG one on the right
It it pretty much a toss up but the non VWG did have better height and it didn't spread. Taking this one down to 77.5% hydration would have been closer to its sweet spot.
I just noticed the new oven doesn't brown the bottom as well as the old one. It does heat up about 10 minutes faster and maybe that made the bottom stone to not be as hot as it got in the old oven when the dough goes in. That also might have affected the spring too.
I'm with you all the way. I have to make a white bread now and again for the girls at 25% whole and sprouted grains but I much prefer this one at 50% as my white bread preference. But 80-100% whole grain breads are my favorites by a wide margin.
Glad you liked it STU and happy baking
The difference could be chalked up to just being different days. I've had that much variation on loaves baked side by side. Looks like you can just pick whichever flour you nave on hand.
Hey, TBM:
I've been wondering who Lucy is, now I see...How old is she, if she doesn't mind me asking?
Nice bake, and mouth-watering food again; thanks for sharing.
old and salty - sort of like me. She is in pretty good shape, unlike me, and good for quite a few more baking years. She might make Baking Apprentice 1st Class one day before it is all over. Glad you liked the bread an food - We don't go for wanting when it comes to food around here.
Happy Baking Yippee Ki Oh KI Aye. Sorry couldn't resist. Old Cowboys never die they just fade............
TBM:
Just curious, are you sharing your food with Lucy?
2nd Class is that you are automatically the Master's Official Taste Tester . Can't have the Master poisoning himself with his own food now can we? She gets a bite and that is it otherwise she is an Alpo dog.
Love this one too! I have a hard time spotting differences except for those larger holes in the VWG loaf. Here, AP and BF have the same costs, just more than a dollar for a kilogram. Don't ask about whole grain flours, they cost $5-6 per pound!
How do you make your VWG? Do you just sun dry the gluten obtained? What do you do with the wheat starch?
I'm also curious how you made those rice noodles, lot of ways to make them; some are steamed over a cloth while others are dropped over boiling water.
Very cool economizing!
than making other kinds of noodles. I get everything i need at Lee Lee's Chinese Market including the wheat starch and the non glutenous rice flour I have also made them with corn starch in place of wheat starch but they don't turn out as good. http://thewoksoflife.com/2015/01/cheung-fun-homemade-rice-noodles/
For the VWG I do this https://eatingrules.com/how-to-make-seitan/
the starch from the WW doigh ball is washed down the drain.
When you get it to this stage on the left
Then I dry it in the dehydrator and when dry I grind it in a spice mill to flour consistency.
You are right the AP might have few larger holes but the bread flour one rose higher I'm thinking half bread and half AP would be the best for the white portion to get the best of both worlds.Wow the costs fro whole grains is 4 times the cost of whole wheat berries at the most expensive grocery in the USA - Whole Foods or What some call Whole Paycheck - where they cost twice as much as anywhere else. Your VWG will cost you a lot since it required WW flour.
Glad you like the post and happy baking Pal.
Is it just a matter of figuring you at least get some nutrition mixed in or have you found it works better using WW as the source? I've been meaning to try this but I was going to use the cheapest AP I could find. I figured since most everything else was literally washed down the drain, why use anything better?
I'm guessing you won't get as much VWG in the end since you are starting with 10% protein flour. The recipe I used was for WW so I grind my own from whole berries which isn't really WW but whole grain wheat where everything is included. WW flour they separate out the germ and bran and then add back some of the bran so it isn't whole grain.
With her ribbons :-) They really do suit her.
A very nice loaf of bread (as was last week's - I've had a gander at that too). Side by side experiments like that can be quite enlightening. Or not... LOL...
I think (and this is how I feel for my own baking) is that go with what tastes best. If you're baking at low volume and only for yourself, then those few pennies (or cents) aren't going to matter so much. No point denying yourself... ;-) Ultimately, eating fabulous food is one of life's sybaritic little pleasures - or so the girls tell me.
Nothing too entertaining going on here on the baking front, just the usual. It's still pretty cold here, with snow, sleet and hailstones the size of peas coming in horizontally on the wind. I love your salads, but they make me feel the cold - gonna fire up the slow cooker tomorrow to make a chicken casserole packed with veggies and flavoured with tarragon and white wine :-)
I remember making gluten - or rather, isolating - in home ec lessons at school way back when, making a dough and then running it under the tap until you got to the stretchy, almost putty-like stage.
10% protein flour here in the UK is sold as "plain flour" and is meant for making pastry and cakes. Flour sold for bread seems to be around 12% minimum - just pulled a few bags out of my cupboard for a gander; my bog-standard white which is £2 for 3kg (Allinsons) is 12%, my posher organic white at £1.79 for 1.5 kg (Duchy Organic) is 13.4% while my cheap (but surprisingly good) supermarket own brand stone ground wholemeal at £1.10 for 1.5kg is 14%. Unless you get the very cheap plain flour from supermarket value ranges, there isn't so much difference between the price of plain and bread flours over here - unless you go organic or are looking for the flours labelled "very strong" which have a protein content greater than 14%. I think the bread flour averages around 15p more expensive on a 1.5 kg bag.
Your AP flour seems to be hovering between the two - the jack of all trades of flour...
would be 1.49 pounds sterling at you local Hispanic Market. Not that much cheaper than your 12% bog standard Allinson's at 2 pounds. I agree completely with paying a bit mire for quality - it it is there. The thing is that KA Bread flour costs 3 times as much at the store and I don't get 3 times the performance or taste out if it. In fact, the crumb is better with the AP in almost every bread I make - even without VWG. Most of my breads have a lot of whole and sprouted grains in them and you can't taste anything from the 25-50% white part - at least I can't and the crumb is more open, soft and not as chewy. I do keep the bread flour and hi gluten around for bagels though where the extra chew and texture is a must.
It cooled off here to upper 70's yesterday so I immediately thought about that classic French Lettuce Soup you reminded me about the other day but, at the last minute switched to onion, sweet potato, carrot, turnip, Swiss Chard and butternut squash soup with some smoked sausage and chicken cubes floating around inside - it was seasoned with lemon grass, fresh ginger, garlic and S&P Love the orange color and it made for a fine dinner with a salad. Oddly, we are doing a slow root veg and chicken braise for tonight's dinner too with the very secret chipotle, minneola marmalade dollop to go with the thyme, basil and rosemary added to the sauce. I don't even let Lucy know about my little secret ingredients - next thing you know it will be all over the Internet:-) We have to take advantage of the cold spell before it gets too hot to make soups and braises.
We love bread experiments even if we don't learn a thing - especially when you are retired and not expecting to learn much of anything anyway:-). Glad you liked the bread - both weeks. We are going dark this week with 500 g of rye and 100 g of wheat sprouting and a like amount of the same whole grains ready to be ground to make some kind of huge pumpernickel with a baked scald, red malt and chocolate stout. Lucy hasn't told me what she is planning for the add ins, but you can bet they will be dark, ominous and possibly even dangerous!
Happy baking Reynard and Lucy hopes you can stay out of the cold
That we all stayed indoors today as it was 46 degrees and raining sideways... Made a big pot of leek and potato soup to cheer myself up.
The chicken and vegetable casserole was lovely, but as I cooked the chicken on the bone, I could turn the leftovers out of the pan and bounce them on the floor LOL. Not tried marmalade and chilli with chicken, but as my mum makes a killer tangerine and lime marmalade, it's an excuse to crack a jar open at some point. I can see where it would make a nice sticky glaze packed with flavour :-)
I know what you mean about using the cheaper flour for dark sourdough breads - I do exactly the same tbh. When you're packing in flavour from whole grains and stuff, then you don't really notice so much. Same for sweet, enriched, fruited bakes. But on the other hand, when I'm making crusty french-style lean white or nearly white breads (< 20 % wholegrain), then yes, I do swing for the more expensive white flour as then you can appreciate the better flavour.
This week's bake will probably be 3:2:1 30% wholegrain sourdough, though undecided whether to go wheat or rye for that component. But will be making a loaf for a very dear friend who is coming to judge at a cat show I'm involved with organizing on Saturday.
in 2 T . Something about the orange and sweet that goes so well with chilies and curry. Your mom's should work too. I do like my orange mango chutney in it too but I';m a little low right now and trying to save it for another week before making another batch.
Good luck with the cat show! Lucy would love to be there to cause a tremendous commotion or maybe 3:-)
Happy Baking
Lucy looks so pretty with her colorful bow. Lexi wants to know why she doesn't have a pretty bow like Lucy's and I told her it's because she doesn't stop sumo wrestling with Max :>
Interesting experiment even though you didn't see much difference it's always fun to try. Both loaves look fantastic with a perfect crumb.
I have to catch up with my posting but the last few weeks between traveling for work and other engagments including having to rebuild my computer I've fallen behind. Spring is almost here and we're supposed to get up to 68 degrees today! Have so much work to do around the house including cleaning up the half of a tree that fell down a few weeks ago and almost took my roof with it!
Look forward to your next bake...Lexi, Max and the gang say hi to their West Coast sister!
most of the time, she doesn't fit the bow bill very well. The groomer puts it on her and, when she is clean, I post a picture of killer:-) I can see your two wrestling around the place They must have all kinds of fun.
This weeks bake is a whole grain, 80% rye, half sprouted, dark one. Lucy wants to pumpernickel it as usual.......but after the last one came out like a hard brick, I'm thinking of just making it as a rye instead. Lucy got out the last of the Shaker Chocolate Porter, prunes walnuts and sunflower seeds. She hasn't gotten around to the aromatics yet. The bran levain just started its 36 hour retard this morning.
I've got lots of weeds and the citrus needs to be stripped since they are blooming right now but I choose not to do any of it. I'm thinking we might hit 100 F in March. The earliest I have seen 100 F is March 18th but this year is hot and it already hit 90 F a couple of weeks ago.
Can't wait to see your next bake and Lucy sends her best to buddies so far away. Happy baking Ian
Thanks. Next time I see some on sale I'll try it.