The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Question about milk and milk powder

ws.hicks's picture
ws.hicks

Question about milk and milk powder

Hi,

I'm planning to make txfarmer's recipe of Sourdough Sandwich Bread back from 2010 but I don't plan to by a whole package of milk powder and would rather replace it with UHT milk I already have on hand; I'm wondering how much should I use and how much water I'd have to cut out? From Google, milk is 87% water on average, so I assume that would determine the amount of water to be cut out, but should I base the amount of milk to use on total milk solid (avg. 13%) or should I deduct fat (avg 4%) from that also (so, 9%). Say I'd need 10g milk powder for my batch, do I use 77g or 111g of milk?

Another question, yesterday I made pancake and I put starter into it. What caught my attention were white lumps which started to foam up on top when milk was added into the mixture of butter, sugar, egg, and starter. At first I thought it might be the grains of butter clumping up some how, but when I came back to think of it, I suspected they might be milk protein clumping up because of acidic starter? In the end, my pancake turned out fine after it was mixed with flour, but I was a bit concerned if it would be okay if it was a bread dough? I normally mix starter with liquid to break apart and disperse the starter before mixing with flour and (sort of) autolyse so I'm  a bit concerned if milk would clump up in that process and if clumped up milk would make the dough lumpy? I've never use milk in sourdough before.

wally's picture
wally

According to Hamelman, 4oz of milk powder will produce a quart of milk when water is added. The recipe you’re using calls for only 14 gr milk powder - 1/2 oz or 1/8 of the amount necessary for a qt of milk. Thus, the 14 gr of milk power could produce 4 oz of milk if water were added - 113 gr. So I would use 113 gr of milk and then 37 of water to replace the 150 gr of water called for in the recipe. 

As for your pancakes I have no clue. I’ve never had a starter ‘sour’ milk.

Good luck!

semolina_man's picture
semolina_man

Wally's comment is consistent with 87% water weight in milk.  ws.hicks you are on the right track. 

ws.hicks's picture
ws.hicks

Thank you both Wally and Semolina Man.

I will have to scale txfarmer recipe a bit due to different pan size so I'm trying to work for percentage here; from what I can work out from your suggestion, it seems I have to base the amount of milk from the 13% milk solid including fat?

But back to your suggested amount of 113gr milk, am I correct to think there are only 99gr of water in it since 14gr of those are milk solid that we account for milk powder and so I should use 51gr more water to fulfill the 150gr of water required by recipe?