Can Briess be substituted for diastatic malt powder in a starter?

BACKGROUND TO QUESTION: I am new to this relm of baking better homeade bread.  I have hand made bread for years, but never really used a soaker, starter, pre-ferment, poolish, etc...

I am trying to start my first starter.  "seed starter" it is called.  The recipe calls for some diastatic malt powder.  I have read lots about it's use.  However, there is none available locally, and I don't have time to wait for shipping as I am in charge of making the bread for an anniverary party.  The closest our local "brew shop" had was Briess, a barley based malt.  This particular batch is the amber extract.

Thanks for your imput!

Hi all,

I hope this topic hasn't been 'done to death' already, but I was wondering...Can any of you guys actually see (or taste? or feel?) a difference between bleached and unbleached wheat flours? My search of this topic on TFL yielded lots of cries for help that usually start: "My recipe calls for unbleached APF, but..." and the usual responses are to visit KAF online.

SOME BACKGROUND: I live in Japan and, last Xmas, I went to Australia, where I picked up a lot of groceries that are either completely unobtainable [or 'almost unobtainable'] here and shipped the stuff back to Japan. My 'stash' included 1kg of 'organic unbleached plain flour'. To be quite honest, I can't tell, by looking at it, that it's any different from the usual "Nisshin" brand of plain/regular flour that every supermarket sells here. We also have a 'specialty' baking store that sells a huge variety of goods, with a slant towards home bread-baking. However, I can't tell any difference in color among their flours—or between them and the regular flours that I can buy in the supermarket. I can't see any difference, either, between the specialty flours and the Aussie unbleached. Recently, a very good flour called "Kobe Flour" with 11.8% 'gluten' has appeared on supermarket shelves at a very good price—for me, that's a good 'bread flour'. I've been told (by a University Professor, who is also a home-baker and actually teaches baking techniques as a volunteer) that you can't get unbleached flour here. [I later found out she wasn't 100% correct—it's for sale online at about US$5 per pound from the "Foreign Buyers' Club" Japanese website.]

So, I'm wondering—what is all the fuss about? Japan has virtually the same rules as the EU for imported flours. Top of the list: NO BROMATED FLOUR is allowed to be imported. I don't know what bleaching, if any, IS permitted, however. Is it *just possible* that all of the US / Canadian flour we buy here is just your regular, non-organic, unbleached flour? If there's a visible difference, would someone please let me know what I'm missing? Thank you!

After much searching for a whole wheat sandwich bread that would be soft yet nutritious, my friend Ben shared this recipe with me. Ben and his mother have perfected over the years and given us some choices on substitutions for ingredients, which is so nice.

I think the texture and crumb are simply perfect. The dough can also be nicely worked up into individual soup rolls, though I have to say that I much prefer it as a sliced loaf. If you'd like a step-by-step show of this friend me on FB.

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Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

From Ben Chaffee

Makes 2 loaves (8-1/2" by 5-1/2")

1 package active dry yeast or 1 cake compressed yeast (2-1/2 tsp)

1/4 cup water

2-1/2 cups hot water

1/2 cup brown sugar (can interchange honey or molasses 1:1 for brown sugar)

3 tsp salt

1/4 cup shortening*

3 cups (374 g) stirred whole-wheat flour

5 cups (663 g) stirred all-purpose white flour           

1. Soften active dry yeast in 1/4 cup warm water (110°) or compressed yeast in 1/4 lukewarm water (85°). Combine hot water, sugar, salt, and shortening; cool to lukewarm.
2. Stir in whole-wheat flour, 1 cup of the white flour; beat well.
3. Stir in softened yeast. Add enough of remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough. Turn out on lightly floured surface; kneed till smooth and satiny (10 to 12 minutes).
4. Shape dough in a ball; place in lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface.
   
5. Cover; let rise in warm place till double (about 1-1/2 hours). Punch down (or fold). Cut in two portions; shape each in smooth ball. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.
6. Shape into loaves.† Place them in greased 8-1/2" by 5 2-1/2" loaf pans. Cover with a damp towel. Let rise till double (about 1-1/4 hours).
7. Bake 375° for 45 minutes. When tapped, the bottoms of the loaves should have an almost hollow sound. Cover with foil last 20 minutes, if necessary.

*Other fats, such as vegetable oil or butter, can be used 1:1 for the shortening.

†Place dough on counter. Press out large bubbles and gently form each dough ball into a rectangle. Ensure the shortest side of the rectangle is approximately the longest size of your loaf pan (8-1/2"). Roll up the dough. Pinch the seam closed. Tuck open sides down and under. Place in loaf pan.

Hi,

New to this forum, just wondering if anyone here knows where i could buy bulk wheat for home milling in Melbourne Australia?

Thanks

I am wondering if using a small amount of soft wheat berries in my current wheat bread recipe that calls for hard wheat, would make the bread a little lighter.  Might I need to alter any other ingredient as a result?  My 2 loaf recipe calls for approximately 7 cups of whole wheat fresh ground flour (I use Montana hard red) I'd like to swap out 2 cups of the hard wheat and use 2 cups of soft wheat. 

Do you think this will this work? I don't want to try and fail. 8-)

I actually put this together, meaning to for a while, after dmsnyder mentioned Suas's whole wheat. This is my first try at a truly 100% whole wheat bread and both Adam, my husband, and I think it's a keeper, but with one change: it needs more honey.

Soaker

• 200g whole wheat flour
• 115g white whole wheat flour
• 35g gluten flour
• 260g milk

Biga

• 200g whole wheat flour
• 150g water
• 5g instant yeast

Final Dough

• all of the soaker
• all of the biga
• 50g butter
• 55g honey (we think that 80g would have been better)
• 12g salt
• 25g milk

Method:

Put soaker ingredients together in a bowl and thoroughly combine. Set aside. Put biga ingredients together in a bowl and thoroughly combine. Place plastic wrap over both bowls and let alone for an hour or so. Mine went for a little over since I was feeding Alexander at the time.

To mix the final dough, break both the soaker and biga up into small pieces and place into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add all other ingredients and mix on low until everything is incorporated into the dough, then medium-low for 3-4 minutes until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl. Place in a bowl for bulk ferment.

During bulk ferment I did 2 letter stretch and folds. I don't really think I needed to as the dough seemed to be very elastic, but I wanted to be sure. Allow to double after the second stretch and fold if you decide to do it. Overall, the dough got a 2 hour ferment.

Cut into two pieces and shape into loaves. This worked for 1 loaf sandwich bread and about 4 rolls. Baked at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, then went down to 325 for 10 minutes. I took the rolls out before turning the temperature down.

This is soft, light, and perfect for sandwiches. Both my husband and I like the fact that it isn't too heavy, yet it's 100% whole wheat. Considering the fact that none of my projects have been going completely right lately, this success (and one other that I'll mention on my other blog once I've figured it out *without* it being a slight accident) makes me feel good again.

Now I think I can tackle David's San Joaquin Sourdough. ;)

Can you guys tell me if this is the same fabled Golden Buffalo flour that Heartland Mills sells? I can get it in 5 pound bags through a (almost) local grocery store and I'm curious. I figure $5 isn't too much to pay to see how it is.

Hi from Homer!

I've recently lived on a sailboat and expect to do so again. This means I NEED to be a bread baker. My husband bakes lovely bread in the galley oven. I started last winter and have really been enjoying it, though I've thus far limited myself to a wheat bread recipe that we love and prefer for our standard toast and sandwich bread (it's supposedly the Pepperidge Farm recipe). I plan to experiment more with vital wheat gluten and the recipes in a recent Mother Earth News. My goal is to develop a repertoire of a half dozen great breads that:

1) create low mess,

2) require minimal kitchenware and counter space,

3) don't require any refrigerated ingredients,

4) will be resilient enough to proof in a somewhat chillier-than-normal environment and

5) bake in a kerosene oven with no thermostat.

Before I ask my question of the moment, I'll just say that this wheat recipe has turned out fabulous every time, even with my confusion: The recipe makes three loaves and calls for 4 cups each of white and wheat flour. After mixing, it says "When the dough begins to leave the sides of the bowl, turn it out onto a lightly floured board (about 1 Tbsp per cup of flour in the recipe). Turn the dough several times to make it easier to handle. Cover with a cloth and let rest for 10-15 min before kneading."

Here's my problem. Following the recipe exactly, the dough is far too wet and sticky to handle much at all while kneading. The instructions indicate that I knead on a surface with appx 8 Tbsp of flour. HA! I must heavily flour-and-knead, flour-and-knead, for ages while I incorporate (probably) another TWO CUPS of flour, and all the rolly bits from my hands and fingers, before the dough becomes "smooth and elastic" prior to the first proof. Am I doing something wrong? Is there any reason why I can't just add one more cup to the recipe so the dough isn't so unwieldy?

Thanks, and looking forward to learning from all of you...

-s

ps: also interested in your pressure cooker bread recipes and/or easy flatbreads, chappattis and naans that I can make in a cast-iron skillet.

I just purchased the book by Jeff and Zoe and love the ease in which to make bread. I would highly recommend it for those that don't have a lot of time for baking or that just need a quick way to make bread, definitely a book with great explanantions and healthy information.

There are two things though with the Master Recipe:

(1) With the omission of honey and oil, it seems to lack the flavor of PR's Whole Grain book. But again, PR's bread can be somewhat time consuming and with the ease of "5 minutes" it is extremely inviting to bake more often so I understand the trade off.

(2) My bread is turning out very chewy. The holes in the 3 day old ferment are nice and the oven spring is good. I have also measured the temp to make sure oven is accurate but I am still getting very chewy bread.

It's probably something I'm doing; I just don't know what. Thanks for your suggestions.

I know there are a number of excellent mills for different applications, so I hope I get this detailed enough to really pinpoint which will work best for me. Thanks in advance for your advice!

I'm looking for a mill that can accomplish the following;

can mill coarse or very fine flours (dry grains) for baking, pasta, hot cereal, pastries, gravies, cakes, breads, etc.

does not heat the flour (over 120 farenheit)

can sift the milled flour to make white cake flours (meaning that it's capable of not crushing the outer layer into the flour making it too difficult to sift out to get a white flour)

can mill for a large family (meaning does not heat up or mess up with heavy use)

does not need to be cleaned

does not throw flour dust everywhere

has electrical and hand mill capability

lasts for 30 years+

does not need to be babysat (won't catch on fire or break with a distracted operator)

does not have quarks with getting odd sized or shaped grains stuck and cracks, or constantly needing to be taken apart to fix

low maintenance

less than $1000

can be purchased in or shipped to the U.S. without incredible waits, fees, or bribes, and with the knowledge that defective or damaged products will be fully replaced in a timely manner without uneccesary inconvenience

Any thoughts?