Red Fife?

Gadjowheaty,

I recently purchased whole grain Red Fife (and Yecora Rojo) flours from Breadtopia. I first used the Red Fife flour in Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich recipe. In case you are not familiar with the method, the instructions are creating an overnight biga with half the flour at 75% hydration and another half of the flour in a soaker with milk and salt at 87% hydration. The final dough is assembled with more yeast, oil, sweetener, and additional flour. Final hydration target is 72%.

I have been using this biga/soaker method for several months with good success. However, I found the hydration to be too high when using the Red Fife flour compared to the King Arthur whole wheat or white whole wheat flours I had been using. The dough was very slack (but had a proper windowpane) and I needed to add a significant amount of extra flour to get a somewhat workable dough; final hydration was ≈63%.

The flour had been milled at Breadtopia a few days before I had used it. Two weeks later, I baked another loaf using a lower starting hydration. The dough was more workable and the final hydration was ≈58%.

I posted a question about the hydration here and on Breadtopia’s forum. I received two responses at Breadtopia (none here at TFL) and my observation of the hydration difference was confirmed by the respondents. I suggest starting at a lower hydration than you might otherwise use or expect to use more flour.

With respect to flavor, I was not “wowed” like I thought I would be. Part of that may be due to diminished taste buds with age or maybe my expectations were too high for the flavor of the flour. I may revisit this flour in the future, but I am baking more rye loaves by gradually working through The Rye Baker recipes. I hope this helps!

Paul, I've worked a lot with 100% whole red fife just recently with a series of bakes.  If you look at my blog you'll find them from a couple of months ago.  Long and short of it is that it doesn't need as my hydration as I would have expected.  I suspect based on my bakes that 76-78% hydration might be ideal for it.  I also found that it isn't very fermentation tolerant, it suffers gluten breakdown seemingly faster than other flours I've worked with.  I suspect that it has higher levels of protease enzymes that other flours so once the pH starts dropping below 4.5 those proteases get working quickly and then your loaf overproofs and loses structure.

I am planning on doing more 100% whole red fife loaves because I do like the flavour, it has none of the bitterness I associate with whole wheat.  But I am planning on doing so only after I receive a new pH meter that I have on backorder so that I can watch the pH to avoid gluten breakdown.

Benny

Really helpful info, as I am also getting ready to experiment with red fife. I have an order of red fife berries (along with a couple of others) arriving from Breadtopia today. I remembered some of Benny's struggles with it, but the additional info on this thread (thanks Alcophile!) is also helpful. I hope to be baking with some of it in the next week or so, will post results afterwards.

Thanks Paul!

Mary

About heritage wheats...

I took delivery on some Red Fife and Turkey Red berries from Breadtopia a few months ago.  I thought it was time to experience the presumed flavor benefit of heritage wheats.  What I learned is that these old land races not only differ (albeit subtly) from modern varieties in the flavor of goods baked with them, but also in the physical characteristics of the doughs and the ultimate products.  Whereas the flavor benefit is on the tongue of the beholder, it has not, in the opinion of this beholder, compensated for the frustrating challenges they present in dough and bread crumb quality.  Red Fife makes weak doughs.  Perhaps it ferments startlingly fast or its gluten composition differs significantly from what we're used to.  Certainly a master baker can recognize these properties and compensate in her/his process.  I'm not and therefore couldn't/wouldn't.  Our Red Fife got used up in cookies and pastries less reliant on gluten and fermentation.

Bottom line is don't expect to be able to experience that expected special heritage wheat flavor without having to struggle to create a dough and loaf with the structure you're probably accustomed to.  All that said, I'm the guy who bakes the same bread week in and week out.  If you're accustomed to greater variation, perhaps you can roll with Red Fife's punches more gracefully than I.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Tom