So I’ve been baking for a few months now and thought it’s time to join the forum. Its been a great source of help so far.
At the moment I’m trying to nail Chad Robertson’s Country Loaf before moving on to more adventurous things but I had one question. Chad says to use 50/50 bread and whole wheat flour in the starter and the dough also calls for a proportion of whole wheat as well. This leaves my starter and loaves a kind of sandy colour, with flecks of whole wheat visible.
However all the You Tube videos I see of Chad’s starter and doughs show a much paler white colour, which don’t seem to have any obvious whole wheat visible. This is really what I’m after as I prefer a lighter coloured loaf, at least on the inside.
I’m in the UK so I’m not sure if our whole wheat flour is different but from what I can tell, it tends to be American whole wheat flours using red wheat that are darker in colour as the UK uses white wheat as standard.
Just wondered if anyone could shed any light on what the difference could be?
thanks
It could be the bread flour. Our UK bread flour is not as white as American bread flour. It's more off-white.
But Chad's starter being 50:50 should still show signs of having wholegrain. Your starter isn't confusing. Chad's is.
Ha! that makes me feel better, thanks Lechem.
Other thing I thought is maybe the whole wheat in America is more finely milled so not as visible but i would have thought that would still make the dough/starter darker than Chad's seems to be.
Chad ran out of Whole Wheat and might have added in extra bread flour. But i'll take a look.
good example towards the end of this clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCeK4Fn7-y0
for a 50:50 however the video isn't the clearest and he also says he maintains one and builds others from it with different ingredients.
The 'mother culture' could be all white flour (as mine usually is, though I sometimes feed it with a bit of whole wheat just for more nutrition), while the 'levain' (the build that is used to make the loaf of bread) is made with the 50:50 blend of white and whole wheat. Also, some whole wheat flour has added bran, which makes bigger brown flecks in the resulting dough. Most whole wheat bread flour is milled from hard red wheat but some recipes use softer white whole wheat flour. They usually specify this though.
Yeah, I think the starter (mother culture) he uses in that video must be all white. In Tartine both his mother culture and leaven for the country loaf say 50/50 white/ww but his final dough always looks much whiter in mine.
Ive sieved the whole wheat flour I'm going to use next and that has got rid of some big flecks. Will see if this makes a difference.
also Ive heard that the mother culture should contain the same flours as the final dough. Have you found this to make much difference?
You might find that the big bits actually make your starter healthier and more vigorous (better food for the beasties). Sometimes I sift out these bits and use them to make the levain for the bread, then use the sifted flour in the bread dough itself. If it's a high-bran whole wheat flour (rather than the whole milled flour I make myself) then I might soak the bran bits first before putting them into the loaf, or I might just leave them out (though not often). Those little flecks are good for you!
I use my wheat starter for nearly everything, though I might use it to build, say, a rye levain for a deli rye over a couple of stages. I even use it for my 100% whole spelt sourdough as there is so little white wheat flour that ends up in the finished bread.
I have whole wheat flour that is stonemilled and is consistently putty coloured. I also have whole wheat flour that appears creamy white with pieces of bran in it. They are very different in appearance - both organic and both 100%. I wonder if that could account for the difference.
That is probably applicable to both Canada and the US.