Advice on chestnut/spelt/manitoba experiment
I love chestnut flour and partially inspired by this blog post
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/37750/multigrain-yw-rye-levain-and-chestnut-flour,
I tried a chestnut flour bread.
Similar to trail runner's measurements, I did 1/3 chestnut flour, 1/3 spelt wholegrain and (to try to help make up for the weaker flours), 1/3 white manitoba flour. The manitoba is W320-350, which I know is a very strong flour.
I used a starter at 15% innoculation. My hydration was around 60%. I mixed it and worked it by hand and then put it in the fridge for 24 hours. The next morning not much has happened, so I left it at room temp (19C) for most of the day, cooking in the evening at 230C for 15 minutes, then 190C for 35 minutes. I'd stretched and folded it a few times, but could see it was delicate.
It has an amazing taste. The chestnut flour is seriously good. But I'd have liked a little more rise (trail runner's seems to have!) and thought the manitoba would help with this. I don't really want to reduce the chestnut % or change the spelt wholegrain. Does anyone have advice for working with manitoba? Would making it wetter be a way to go? Or perhaps upping my % innoculation. Or should I be happy with what i got ;-)
A couple differences that probably really influenced your outcome. One is the amazing quality of Durum flour. It really adds gluten development to any dough. Also yeast water is something that causes the bread to really rise. I use my apple YW in just about everything even if I am using my sourdough starter as well. You used spelt which is a difficult flour at least for me. I'm glad you like your bread combination. Believe it or not I STILL have some of the chestnut flour in the sealed vacuum bags and so far it is still wonderfully fresh. Good luck and start a fruit yeast water and see how you like it as well as using Durum flour. good luck .c
This is really helpful. I see in your post you actually fed the starter with the apple yeast water. I will try that. Also I'll get some durum. Chestnut flour is soo good - it's the new season here (I'm in Italy) and I feel very lucky! Have you tried Castagnaccio?
I have seen the recipe for castagnaccio but haven’t made it. I expect it’s delicious with the fresh flour.
I haven’t been to Italy since the 1970’s! We lived in Holland in the late ‘80’s and we did a lengthy bicycle ride from Vienna to Nantes in 2014. But we haven’t made it back to Italy.
please do try the yeast water. It really makes the breads lighter and very flavorful! Post back if you need anymore suggestions and I’ll try to help. c
It's still nice here :-)
I like Holland. I have spent some time with good friends in Zutphen.
I am moving house in 2 weeks. The yeast water will wait till after the move, I think. But I will get to it and will certainly contact you if I need help. I have distant plans for putting some pancetta cubes in with the chestnut flour (the taste is crying out for it in my book) and fashioning some sort of tear and share bread. Thanks for your help.
I don't know how thirsty chestnut flour is, but with 1/3 whole spelt flour, I would imagine that at least 70 to maybe 80% hydration would be needed for a good rise.
Spelt does not seem to produce a good rising type of gluten, at least not for me. And I suppose chestnut flour has no gluten, So maybe adding some "vital wheat gluten" might help it develop structure for a good rise.
How do you define "innoculation"? Is that the same as "percent prefermented flour"? or some other ratio?
Also, does chestnut flour break down like wheat into basic sugars to feed the yeast? If not, then you might need to add something to help feed the yeast, such as malt sugar, or maybe add diastatic malt powder to break down more of the spelt and wheat flour into yeast food.
I think you are right about higher hydration. I'll up it for my next try.
I generally get a better rise than this on my 100% wholegrain spelt loaves and had thought the strong manitoba would help make up for the non gluten chestnut. Not the case here though.
You also raise interesting questions about chestnut flour. I know it's about 50% carb, but I don't know how it breaks down. I do have whole barley malt grains at home. I wonder if I ground those into a powder, whether they'd do a similar thing to diastatic malt powder - do you know?
By innoculation I mean weight in total of my starter as a percentage of my total flour weight.