June 9, 2020 - 12:29pm
Using All Wheat vs a Mix of Flours
New to bread making and want to know how bread would turn out if I made it with all whole wheat or all AP or all rye flour?
The recipe I've been using calls for 500g AP, 273g bread flour and 175g whole wheat.
If I were to not use any AP, how would the bread turn out? How would this affect fermentation and shaping/proofing stages?
I'd also be curious to know how adding other ingredients like, cinnamon and sugar, would effect the bread. At what stage should something like this be added? I know there are recipes for cinnamon bread but they call for butter, milk and other ingredients I believe. I'd just like to take my plain sourdough starter and make some sourdough with a couple extra ingredients, is this possible?
Thanks!!
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It depends on what you are looking for as far as taste, crumb, etc. Whole wheat and rye will make the dough more dense and the bran will impact gluten development, but it provides nice flavor. The other additions you mention will also impact crumb structure and can affect rise times. I would say slowly increase the amount of additions you want to your basic recipe and see how it goes. There are numerous recipes for rye and whole wheat sourdough breads on this site to provide some inspiration.
Instead of reinventing a mixed white flour formula, just start with a pre-existing 100% (or whatever percent you want) whole wheat formula/recipe.
There are plenty on this web site. The Search Box will bring them up.
There is more to it than substitution: procedures, times, water ratio, yeast (or starter/levain) all change.
--- Different flour is not interchangeable. --- Any given recipe is designed for the ingredients in it. If you change the flour, you just plain need a new recipe.
Before you try to invent your own recipe, you will learn faster if you follow pre-existing tried-and-true recipes that are advertised to make what you want to end up with.
it's a big adventure, even when you use existing recipes. So why make it hard on yourself by blazing a new trail, and reinventing the wheel?
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100% whole wheat is a challenge. So... many people start at 1/3rd or 1/2 whole wheat and work up.
And, most people just don't like 100% whole wheat anyway. I have friends who don't want anything more than 50% whole wheat.
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Welcome to the whole grain baking club! Good luck, and bon appétit!
I agree with what's being said; if you're new to bread baking, you should probably stick to recipes specifically designed for whole grain/rye/enriched breads rather than trying to alter a pre-existing recipe. Get the feel for many different types of doughs and THEN play around with recipes once you know what you're looking for.
Nevertheless, the effects of different flours and enrichments on dough are still interesting and handy tidbits to know for the future.
- AP flour: The terms "all-purpose" or "bread" flour really aren't that useful since the protein content varies wildly from brand to brand of flour. White Lily all-purpose contains 9% protein while King Arthur all-purpose has a whopping 11.7% protein. Bread flour tends to be a little more consistent with most national brands being between 12-13%, but I've seen smaller, local flour businesses produce bread flour with >14% protein content. This is why it's important to watch your dough and be willing to alter time, temperature, hydration, etc. as needed since the author's flour might be different from your's. Higher protein flour tends to absorb more water and require less effort for proper strength development. Lower protein flour can still be made into great bread, but it can't handle as much water and might need some extra help to ensure a strong dough (longer kneading, more stretch-and-folds, autolyse, etc.).
-Whole wheat: Signifigantly, whole grain flour contains the sharpy, heavy, thirsty bran that weighs down the dough and cuts into the gluten matrix, weakening it. Thus, whole wheat flour requires more water and the final crumb will be denser. Improperly fermented whole grain breads also tend to taste bitter, which is a shame considering how amazing the earthy, nutty flavors of the grain can be when done right. Many whole grain recipes call for pre-hydrating the flour in an autolyse, "soaker" (often used for unmilled grains but sometimes flour too), or simply by letting the dough rest before kneading. This not only allows the gluten to strengthen a bit without kneading (extensive kneading usually isn't great for ww breads) but it also softens the bran and kickstarts enzyme activity to unleash those sweet, grainy flavors.
- Butter/egg/oil/milk/fat: Fat and dairy weaken the gluten structure and produce a softer, tighter crumb. Unless the dough contains only a tiny amount of enrichment, fatty doughs aren't typically hearth-baked at high temperatures (>425) since the dough burns more easily and plus you're not really going for a hard crust. Plenty of recipes will add all of the enrichments in the initial mixing but a few might call for adding the fat after mixing the main dough so that the gluten can be well developed before the fat is encorporated (ex: because brioche dough contains so much fat, gluten must be developed by mixing up all ingredients EXCEPT butter into stiff, strong dough before gradually adding in the butter).