The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaf - 3rd Attempt

gavinc's picture
gavinc

100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaf - 3rd Attempt

I have a quest to improve the rise and softness of a 100% Whole-Wheat Sandwich Bread. This is the third time baking this and I have been tweaking the formula with each attempt. There has been a gradual improvement with each bake and this time I got a good rise, soft crumb, and wonderful flavour. Debra Wink has graciously given her advice and ideas given that it is her recipe in Hamelman’s 3rd Edition of Bread.

The key for this bake was to raise the protein per cent of my whole-wheat flour. I can only buy 10.8% protein wholemeal flour here and DW is currently using WWF that is 16-17%. She suggested I try Vital Wheat Gluten to raise the protein per cent. I searched TFL for ideas and found alfanso’s June 2017 comment describing how to use a Pearson’s Square to calculate the amount of VWG to add.

Flour mixing - High gluten and pastry flour vs AP flour | The Fresh Loaf

I followed the instructions and set up a spreadsheet. I know that the protein in my WWF is 10.8%, the VWG is 75%, and the desired 16% protein flour. The calculation arrived at a baker’s per cent of WWF 91.9% and VWG 8.1%.

 

I mixed the dry flour ingredients thoroughly before adding in. I immediately noticed very good gluten development while mixing.  I was pleased that the dough behaved as DW described.

Comments

Dan_In_Sydney's picture
Dan_In_Sydney

That is a cracking loaf Gavin.

We are indeed a little hard done by here when it comes to flour but, interestingly, my current batch of Woolies flour (I use plain flour for my starter - he's not a fancy one) is 10.9%. Apparently. That's the highest I've ever seen and I currently have that fermenting away for a batch of baguettes to see how it compares to more specialised flours.

Notably, the plain flour currently at my local Coles was, I think, just a shade over 10%.

I aways have some gluten flour knocking about and tried adding some once or twice but think I went overboard. 8% does seem like a hell of a lot, but then calling for 16% protein flour is eye-opening as well!

If I made some simple assumptions:

  • Protein content of the bran scales with the protein content of the endosperm.
  • Considering Aussie flour is 10% and standard bags of bran are 16%, that would suggest a factor of 1.6x.
  • Wholemeal flour is endosperm @ 85% and bran at 15% (ignoring the germ).

Plugging that in for King Aurthur flour I see that if they turned their baking flour (12.7%) into wholemeal, the added bran should have a 20.3% protein level. Adding that in at 15% gives 13.84% final protein content, which is exactly what their wholemeal baking flour is.

Now, taking that as the flimnsiest of confirmations, that shows that the kind of flour needed for a 16% protein wholemeal flour would be ~14.7% when looking at the endosperm portion alone. The highest protein white flour I can find online in the US appears to be 14.2%, which implies somewhere around 15.5% protein for a wholemeal version.

But, to the point, it's only that white, endosperm portion contributing to the gluten - the protein in the bran portion is not gluten-forming.

So, if take all my ridiculous assumptions on faith, that would result in a 16% protein wholemeal flour containing 'only' 12.5% 'gluten-forming protein', contributed entirely by the endosperm at 85% of the total mass of flour.

In other words, it would seem that calculating the required gluten flour to add in order to reach 16% might actually be overshooting.

Or perhaps I need to put away the spreadsheets and make myself a drink.

 d

 

gavinc's picture
gavinc

Thanks, Dan_In_Sydney. I shop at Woolies where you will find the Laucke bakers flour (5 kg) is 11.5% protein and is the one I use for sourdough and baguettes and most of my baking. The Defiance bakers flour (5 kg) is 12.5% protein. I stone mill rye and wheat when mixing with bakers flour, but I have no idea of the whole grain protein levels. My first attempt at this 100% Whole-Wheat loaf I stone-milled all the wheat but I didn't get much rise and lightness of a sandwich loaf. I bought some White Wings wholemeal flour for this bake. It is only 10.8% protein. In the book, DW recommends 14% but at home, she has continued to tweak the formula and now used 16-17%. The addition of some VWG to this bake made a tremendous difference. I may back this off to 14% to test, taking into account that I may be overshooting as you indicate.

As for your more technical questions, I recommend a single malt whisky :)

Cheers,

Gavin

 

Dan_In_Sydney's picture
Dan_In_Sydney

I didn't realise the Defiance was up so high (for us!). I always assumed it was a lesser flour than the Lauke, which, like you, I have been using as my go-to. I suppose the number on the side of the bag doesn't tell you everything but 11.5 to 12.5 is not an insignificant jump.

I have rather a lot of flour to hand at the moment so, despite attempting to put out a baguette every day, it'll be some time before I need to replenish. When I do, however, I might just give that one a try - have you used it before?

(To clarify, when I said the 10.9% was the highest I'd seen, I meant the plain flours rather those labelled as baker's or bread.)

Regarding your suggestion, I have incoming from Nicks but, in the meantime, I'll see what I can do.



gavinc's picture
gavinc

Nice selection! Do you keep them in their boxes to stop evaporation? :)

 

Dan_In_Sydney's picture
Dan_In_Sydney

Ha!

The Balvenie is my "you say you don't like whisky" bottle, the 18 is the "Oh, so you do like whisky, now?" and the other two are the "but do you like my whisky?".

It was a moment of some mixed happiness when my partner, long an outsider, expressed not only interest in, but tacit enjoyment of the Ardbeg (my favourite easily procurable bottle).

The Balvenie's getting a little low, mind you and I think its replacement might be something even more reasonably priced (for us, anyway . . .) like an Auchentoshan or Cardhu. (Or perhaps even a decent blended as I have no whisky suitable for cocktails.) Ahh - as we speak I can hear the popping of a champange cork from the kitchen.

d.

Benito's picture
Benito

Gavin the crumb of the 100% WW sandwich loaves look perfect.  I haven’t tried making a 100% WW sandwich loaf yet.  I also didn’t realize that Debra Wink’s recipe for 100% WW sandwich bread is the one in the 3rd edition of Bread, is that correct?  That’s so cool.

gavinc's picture
gavinc

Thanks, Benny. Yes, it is DW's recipe in Hamelman's 3rd edition. She is very gracious and has been interested enough to guide me through baking her recipe. Well worth trying IMO.

Cheers,

Gavin

Benito's picture
Benito

Wow Gavin I didn’t realize that we have celebrity amongst us. Anyhow beautiful loaves. 
Benny

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

In case you are interested, here is an online calculator for adding vital gluten to achieve a certain amount of protein in your flour. 

http://flourmath.bradfordrobertson.com/

 

Makes life considerably easier. 😉

gavinc's picture
gavinc

Thanks. I did not see that one. There's a few out there.