The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Calvel malt extract and ascorbic - with malted American flours?

Gadjowheaty's picture
Gadjowheaty

Calvel malt extract and ascorbic - with malted American flours?

I don't like to sub in a recipe when I'm trying t.o learn what the baker wanted with the recipe taken as is.  For Calvel, with many of his doughs, this can mean added malt extract and/or ascorbic acid.

I have to admit my reticence in adding either - "additive" connotations to a good flour such as the Central Milling Baker's Choice Plus (malted).

I understand this flour already comes malted, so for 1000 g flour, won't be adding in 2.5 grams malt extract.

This flour is 11.7% protein and stronger than the typical T55 (I believe - probably their Beehive comes closest).  Are these Calvel recipes written assuming the weaker French flours, so adding in ascorbic is reasonable, but if using something like the Baker's Choice Plus, one should probably forego the ascorbic as well as the malt? (it comes in at 15 grams, for 1.5% baker's percentage).

Appreciate the thoughts.

 

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

Just FYI, malt extract is not the same as diastatic malt, it's just a sweetener and source of sugar, not an enzyme that converts starch to sugar. So wouldn't hurt to add both. But I am not familiar with Calvel's recipes or flour choices.

Gadjowheaty's picture
Gadjowheaty

Thanks for the pickup, I did miss that, Ilya.  I actually maintain stocks of sterilized malt extract as I use(d) it in lab applications for yeast strain propagation and maintenance. Just wouldn't have thought for it here.

mariana's picture
mariana

Hi!

Calvel's recipes are for unmalted type 55 flour without ascorbic acid added by the miller. European wheats are very different from our North American wheat. They actually don't need ascorbic acid or malt, those improvers are added only as insurance. North American flours always need malt, but rarely require ascorbic acid. Normally, both of those improvers are added, it's a standard practice, every miler and baker use them together. They normalize flour.

Your flour is already malted and will neither benefit from nor be damaged by ascorbic acid. So you can add it or not, it's up to you. Their pictures next to the flour description on their website show perfect baguettes without ascorbic acid.

In Canada, flours as strong as CM Baker's Craft always have ascorbic acid added by millers, just as insurance. It does no damage to flour, dough or bread and is fully decomposed during baking.

Should you find your flour too strong, way stronger than authentic European T55, you can add a little more diastatic malt, powder or syrup, to make it weaker, softer, more extensible.

Please, never add 15 grams of ascorbic acid per 1000g flour. Never. 15g is a gigantic amount more appropriate for a ton or a hundred tons of flour! It's not grams but ppm, parts per million. 15 grams per million grams of flour. Just skip it. 

Gadjowheaty's picture
Gadjowheaty

Thanks Mariana.  I don't know how close Central's "Beehive" comes to a true T55, though it is at 10.7% protein I don't know much else about it.  I used it originally but moved quickly on to the Baker's Choice Plus.

So to be clear - the "malt" in the Central Milling's Baker's Choice plus - this actually is diastatic malt and not malt extract, correct?  Looking to aid glycogen hydrolysis, and not add in mere available sugars and organoleptic qualities, as with extract - yes?

"Always need malt," as in, very low in native amylases?

PPM v. grams - lol.  Thanks.  You're being kind.  Wouldn't have been pretty...!

 

mariana's picture
mariana

Yes, malt added to flour is diastatic malt. It affects both flour proteins and starch. Non-diastatic malt and dry and liquid malt extracts could be added by bakers when mixing dough if they are part of the recipe or as improvers (as a type of sugar or flavoring). 

"Always need malt", as in very low in sugar and native amylase. If you look at sugar content of North American flours it is nearly zero if not zero, whereas normally it 'should be' in 2-3% range for white wheat flour and 4-5% or higher for whole grain flours. Without such sugar fermentation won't proceed normally. So, malt is added to aid fermentation, to provide sugars and to reduce flour strength at the same time a little bit. 

Glycogen is sugar that is only found in animal bodies and in fungi. There is no glycogen in wheat or rye flour. Malt enzymes hydrolyze starches and proteins in flour. 

Gadjowheaty's picture
Gadjowheaty

Yes, it's particularly interesting to me as I'm an experienced brewer with decent malt, hop, micro etc. science and so forth, and given the big brewers use a 6 row malt that is high in protein and diastatic enzyme (to make something drinkable using cheap adjuncts with no diastatic power on their own), seeing some of these things play out in this world too, piqued my interest.

On malt v. malt extract, thanks.  Just trying to confirm what Calvel means in his formulas, and what you were talking about regarding "malted" and your descriptions of American varieties.