Indian Whole Wheat Flour PLS HELP
Hi
I bake a lot of sourdough, and regular breads with bread flour or all-purpose. I’ve recently been obsessed with making a 100% whole wheat bread. I’ve tried several formulas, but nothing seems to be working.
most recently (yesterday) I tried peter reinhart’s whole wheat sandwich bread from Artisan Breads.
it came out like bricks. Everyone has had so much luck with that same bread, not sure why mine were to terrible.
I live in India, and only have access to Indian flours. I used Ashirwad Select Atta (which we usually use to make chapathis). The protein content on the pack says 6%. Could that be the problem? The yeast I used was Fleischmann’s Rapid Rise, and I was sure to activate it before using.
please please help. Adding some photos to show you what the dough looked like after mixing, autolyse, 12-hour overnight rest. This was just before shaping.
it didn’t rise at all after shaping - I waited 2 hours and then just baked them anyway. And it came out like bricks. :(
why not post your formula on here. Also, in the US most whole wheat flours have 14% protein. Pastry flour has 10% protein. 6% protein is extremely low for gluten development. From the picture it looks like your dough didnt ferment I wish i could help you more but I am still a beginner baker. Hopefully others with more experience can shed light. but more information with pictures is always helpful. Best of luck :)
Hi, I have had success using stone ground Chakki Atta with a 12.9% protein level. Makes a nice moist and tasty 100% whole-wheat bread as well as using it 50/50 with white flour and a biga to make really good, robust loaf in a Dutch oven. Hope you can find Chakki Atta where you are.
Trying to find Chakki flour - difficult during the quarantine (more like impossible). So I’m doing research to see what to buy - have found some stone ground Chakki just now online - have written to them. Gonna try the Biga method too.
also do you have a specific recipe you use for your 100% ww loaf?
http://nutriattachakki.com/#
what do you think of this?
Ashirwad Select Atta's protein content is 10.1%, according to the website (6.2% for sugar).
I guess that the problem could be the starch damage in Indian flour. See this discussion.
I used some Aashirvaad Select Sharbati flour here in the U.S. It is a sweet flour that ferments quickly.
Are there web sites for loaf bread in India, with recipes for Indian ingredients?
No there are none - I’ve contacted several
local bakeries that say they get their wheat ground fresh or bulk import it. Neither of those are viable options for me.
I will try ashirvad select when the lockdown ceases. I’ve combed through hundreds of Indian blogs that have whole wheat bread and not one has mentioned the brand! So frustrating!
the picture in your post seems to me to show the dough a bit under-hydrated.
every brand and type of flour seems to have it's own optimum level of hydration. When working with whole wheat, the range of hydration that works seems to be narrow.
It was difficult for me at first with whole wheat, because I first had to get it " over wet" and sticky, and then give it time to absorb the water, and then it was not too wet.
So it was "trial and error" until finding the right amount of water, and then trusting it would all get absorbed.
To help prevent waste, during my experimentation/learning phase, if it was still too wet after letting it sit (autolyse), and it wasn't going to soak up any more water, then I would add _white flour_ (what you call maida), which would quickly absorb the excess water.
(If I added whole wheat, late, as an adjustment, it would not soak up water as well, and would not soften.)
Anyway, that's my experience.