The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Wheat Germ and Hydration

Anonymous baker's picture
Anonymous baker (not verified)

Wheat Germ and Hydration

How does wheat germ affect the final hydration of a dough? Is it included or not? If it is included what would it's absorbance be like, bread flour or whole-wheat? 

Trying to get a feel of what a dough would be like before I attempt the recipe. Just to get an idea , be prepared and to be wary of any adjustments I'd likely have to make. 

Thank you.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

milled into whole wheat lour.  Treat it like whole wheat when it comes to hydration.  Make sure to keep your wheat germ in the freezer since it will go rancid very fast.

Happy New Yeart Abe

Make sure to toast it before adding into the mix - WG was oe of the original ingredients in Toadies.

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

First time using wheat germ. Just been reading up on it and I can see why it's used in the recipe. I'm attempting Chad Robertson's 60% khorasan sourdough. Having worked with khorasan before and learning that WG helps with the extensibility of the dough it makes sense. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'll be sure to keep it in the freezer. 

Should I toast it? Will that add anything to the recipe apart from flavour? Just looked up what toadies are. A type of Yorkshire pudding? Still not sure but looks similar. 

Happy New Year

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Toady Tom's Toasted Tidbits which are named after toad.de.b.... who's real name is Tom.  Wheat germ was one of the his ingredients in the toasted mix that also included bran and some sifted midlings.  I like to add sesame, flax and poppy seeds to the mix as well.  But, you can put anything in there, toast it up and add it to any bread to enhance its flavor!  Toadies are one of the greastest bread enhancers of all time!  They are way less useful and flavorful if nit toasted - and are not Toadies!

joc1954's picture
joc1954

as I could never get that stuff in our local stores. Instead I mill wheat grains and remove bran and hope that I don't remove all germ as well. This way I get high extraction flour - 85-86% extraction.

I had to lower the hydration of 60% khorasan dough as 85% was way too much. Just today I bought 2 kg of kamut grains and this one was produced in Canada so I expect that I could use 85% hydration for that recipe.

Happy baking Abe!

Joze

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

I can't find high extraction flour (we have bread flour or wholegrain) but I think a mix of 50:50 bread flour and wholegrain gives you high extraction. Well that's my plan anyway. So I think everything is in place now. Got everything so starter build tonight. 

Thanks for the warning about it being such high hydration. My plan is to hold some water back and add extra when incorporating the salt if needed.

Another idea is to keep it a lower hydration bread and make the high extraction flour 50:50 bread flour:whole spelt. 

Something to think about. 

Thank you Joze. 

joc1954's picture
joc1954

You can easily make high extraction flour just by sifting out the bran from wholegrain flour if you have the right sifter. The alternative is what you already planned 50:50 wholegrain and bread flour.

The hydration depends on how much water your kamut flour will be able to absorb. I have experienced a big difference between different flours I could buy so it is good to hold some water until you see that the dough actually needs more.

Generally speaking, all Tartine breads from second book are prepared with 85% hydration (without starter) what I found way too much for the flours I can get locally. I have seen many posts here on TFL when posters have experienced the same problem of sticky and runny dough which in consequence gave sub-optimal result.

Whenever I was using 85% hydration I had to coat the dough in flakes to prevent sticking to proofing basket, especially when I was retarding the dough for many hours. Now I am using flax fabric which works perfectly.

Happy baking Abe!

Joze