The Fresh Loaf

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Durum semolina and pistacchio

Abelbreadgallery's picture
Abelbreadgallery

Durum semolina and pistacchio

I enjoy testing flours and ingredients. These days I have been baking with Durum Semolina. I like the sweetness and the crustiness of the bread you can make with this flour.

This time we followed this formula:

Sourdough: 1% starter 10% stoneground flour (Caputo Tipo1) 10% water. 12-14 hours at room temperature.

Final dough: 60% durum semolina (Caputo Semola Rimacinatta), 30% bread flour 65% water 2.2% salt, 10% pistacchio.

 

 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Now you've done it Abel!  Made me write up another BBGA spreadsheet for this bread.  You must have known that one of my favorite grains is semloa rimacinata.  I still have a kilo or two of the Tritordeum "T150"  that we bought at Handsel & Grenel.  I will use that for the levain instead of the Caputo Tipo 1, and adjust the AP flour and semola.

Benito's picture
Benito

Oh this interests me as well.  I’d love to see how your baguettes turn out Alan.  Abel’s bread looks great.

I can get Semola at Eataly here in Toronto, would I use that where you have T 150 listed?  Then for the Durum, is that the finely ground Durum Semolina?

alfanso's picture
alfanso

a type of "stone ground" AP flour - the Caputo Type 1.  I'll swap that out for the "T150" and since tritordeum is a semolina hybrid, I adjusted the total flour amounts from his 30/10/60 to 40/10/50 in an effort to keep the balance between white flour and semolina(-ish) flours the same.

And what makes you so sure I'll be making baguettes out of these? ;-)

Benito's picture
Benito

Just an educated guess, I’m glad to be proven wrong. ?

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

At only 10%, it likely doesn't matter what you swap it with.

http://www.mulinocaputo.it/en/flour/la-linea-professionale/tipo-1

says it is a light brown flour, 13% protein.

According to  http://theartisan.net/Flours_One.htm

Tipo 1 is .80% ash, or roughly T80 in the French system.

The bran in it likely helps the levain develop. 

Abelbreadgallery's picture
Abelbreadgallery

That's right, italian Tipo1 is more or less the same than french T80. Not white not dark.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

didn't really have any designation from the bin where I bought it, and the owner's daughter was minding the store during the time we were there, and she couldn't tell us.  But it seems to be about what a whole wheat might be, so I call it that.

The remaining semolina is the semola rimacinata, as in Abel's picture.  Apologies for not answering this yesterday.

Here is the near completion of the third build with the "T150".  Looks. lot different than 100% hydration AP levain.  From the top and side.

 

Side by side comparison of the two grains.

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Thanks for the explanation and accompanying photos, that is very helpful Alan.

Abelbreadgallery's picture
Abelbreadgallery

You will succeed.

wintermute's picture
wintermute

I've never used much semolina in bread baking.  Those loaves look so good I may give this a shot.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Wow!  Look so good I'm chewing on my iPad!  (not enough flavour but getting a little crunch) 

Benito's picture
Benito

I just got back from a walk and went to a grocery store several kilometers away from home so seldom go there. Lo and behold I found this at much less than what Eataly charges so picked it up. Never worked with this before would you say it is similar to working with Kamut?

Abelbreadgallery's picture
Abelbreadgallery

Kamut and durum belong both to the same family, so you can substitute. 

When you make bread with Durum Semolina, you must pay attention to the % of protein. Caputo semolina is 13gr so it's perfect for making bread. There are some semolinas with lower protein (around 9gr) which are good for making pasta or for dusting pizza, but not for making bread.

Benito's picture
Benito

This Semola has 14% protein apparently so it should be good, thanks for your response Abel.

Abelbreadgallery's picture
Abelbreadgallery

Excellent. Maybe you can include some extra water in your recipe. 

I will explain you a story. When I lived in Spain, we didn't have access to strong enough flour to make a long long fermentation (16 to 48 hours). So in the bakery, the solution was adding some Semolina flour to our flours mix (around 10%). You know flours in Europe are not so strong as here in the Americas. So semolina was the solution to increase the proteines in our basic flour.

 

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

Benny, here is La Molisana's line up of semolina flours:

https://www.lamolisana.it/en/the-semolina-and-flours/

They don't give specs, not even on the Italian language page. I'm guessing it is a high extraction flour because it is stone ground (decorticata a pietra).  But it is not whole grain because they have a separate semola that they call "integrale."

You can likely  confirm by comparing the nutrional fiber to that of regular roller-milled semola or semola rimacinata, which is germless/branless. (assuming they both use 100g sample size.)

Benito's picture
Benito

Dave, as usual you seem to be correct.  I’ve never seen the Integrale version of semolina in Toronto so this will have to do.  I hope it works out well.  Abel didn’t specify from what I could tell if the Semola he used was Integrale or not.

Anyways, I plan to make this for the end of next week assuming I get the pistachios in time.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

I get roasted unsalted pistachios from Aldi or Hofer.  Have to free them of their shells.  Not sure what the recipe calls for, unsalted or salted?  Unsalted are pretty bland.  Abel?

Abelbreadgallery's picture
Abelbreadgallery

You can toast (not very much, pistacchio can get burn very easy) and season with some salt (just few grams).

mwilson's picture
mwilson

Hi Dave.

Italian milled semolina is legally defined, farina di grano duro labelled as "semola" which would also include rimacinata, have a maximum ash content of 0.90%.

I would expect this to be similar to most any other rimacinata in terms of extraction.

I know what you mean but I am a little uncomfortable with those absolute terms "branless" and "germless" because even very refined flours will include traces of those grain parts. I mean, I can see with the naked eye tiny bran pieces even in my type 00 flour (0.55% max).

PS. See more on my blog about Italian flour designations.

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

Thanks. I thought standard semola was the normal .55%