Pushing the hydration and some hydration clarifications
Hi, it's a newbie observation but it just struck me that not all flours can be used for all hydration levels. This happened while I was making my standard 80% hydration all whole wheat sourdough bread using a new WW flour. Even after 30mins of hand-kneading the dough was slacky and couldn't hold shape at all (end result - very dense crumb).
Correct me if I'm wrong but this actually means that every time I use a new WW flour (or any flour) I should make the same recipe with for e.g. 70, 75, 80, 85 and 90% of hydration and see what's the maximum water the flour can absorb and still be workable? Is this the correct way to determine the max hydration level of flour?
Regarding the "hydration pushing" part - is there a way I can use a e.g. 10,4g protein WW flour and push the hydration level up to to e.g. 90% (assuming that the max for this kind of flour with this amount of protein is around 75%) or is it necessary to use a higher protein flour?
Thanks,
Nikola