The Fresh Loaf

News & Information for Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts

Help with Reinhart's multigrain bread recipes

October 20, 2007 - 11:42am
nztrills's picture
nztrills

Help with Reinhart's multigrain bread recipes

I absolutely love Peter Reinhart's new book on bread making, but I've got one question that I've been unable to find the answer to. When making breads with wholegrains that require cooking first (e.g., wheat berries), I'm unsure as to whether the grain is measured before or after cooking. In other words, if the recipe calls for 100gm of wholegrain, do I take 100gm of wheat berries, cook them, then add them? Or do I cook enough of them to result in 100gm of cooked berries. I don't want to throw off the fluid balance of the bread - I know I could add more flour, but then other ingredients like the salt get thrown off too. Thanks for any insights.

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subfuscpersona's picture
subfuscpersona
Oct 20 2007 - 12:16pm

Quote:
When making breads with wholegrains that require cooking first (e.g., wheat berries), I'm unsure as to whether the grain is measured before or after cooking.
My interpretation would be that the weight is for the *uncooked* grain measured *before* cooking. Even PR can't tell you exactly how much water your wheat berries will absorb during cooking and therefore what the final weight of your *cooked* wheat berries will be.

For example, when you say...

Quote:
if the recipe calls for 100gm of wholegrain, do I take 100gm of wheat berries, cook them, then add them? Or do I cook enough of them to result in 100gm of cooked berries
...you would weigh 100 gm whole wheat berries and then cook them and add them.

CAVEAT: I have not read PR's most recent book. Others who have the book please weigh in (is that a pun?).

 

Rosalie's picture
Rosalie
Oct 20 2007 - 1:57pm

If the recipe called for 100 grams of cooked berries, then you'd need to cook them before weighing.  But your 100 grams of cooked berries would be different from mine because I have a different sense of what "cooked" means when it comes to wheat berries.

The recipe tells you to start with 100 grams and then cook them, right?  So I'd take the recipe literally and start with dry grains.

Rosalie