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Flour (in the Netherlands) has become weaker??

breadmad's picture
breadmad

Flour (in the Netherlands) has become weaker??

Hi everyone!

I have been baking sourdough since 2018 and I have always used supermarket flour to provide the bulk of the flour in my doughs. Partially because of financial reasons and partially because I actually really like the flavour of flours that are lower in protein. The flour tends to be finely ground white flour with a protein content varying between 10g protein/100g flour and 12g/protein/100g flour. For the people in the Netherlands that have access to the same flour, the ones I use are the patentbloem from Aldi (10g protein/100g) or the patentbloem from the Jumbo (their homebrand, 12g protein/100g). Usually I can push the hydration of the Aldi flour to a maximum of 72% hydration and the Jumbo flour to 75~78% hydration with great results; great oven spring and a very soft crumb. However in the last few months the flours seem to be weaker than ever and it seems to be the same for other flours found in the supermarkets. Even when I go as low as a 65% hydration or lower, most of them struggle to hold themselves together, are all very sticky and the dough becomes slack in no time. 

I was wondering if anyone else has noticed the same thing? I initially though it had something to do with my sourdough starter, but even with regular instant yeast and low hydrations, the doughs are generally slack and don't want to brown as easily as they used to. So has anyone noticed the same thing happening to them or does someone know more about it? 

 

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

Possibly they used to source the wheat from Ukraine and had to find other producers this year...

mariana's picture
mariana

Ilya, only 0.5% of all wheat imported by the Netherlands came from Ukraine.

They mostly import from France, Germany, and Belgium. 90% of all wheat imported by the Netherlands comes from these three countries.

breadmad's picture
breadmad

My initial though was that it was because the companies are not being able to import from Ukraine or Russia, and my second guess was that it was because of the drought we had last summer in Europe. I guess the latter is most likely if most of the wheat that is imported from those three countries. Thank you for you information!

JonJ's picture
JonJ

Have you thought about adding VWG? A little goes a long way!

 

breadmad's picture
breadmad

It hadn't crossed my mind, to be honest. I have never tried VWG because I was slightly suspicious of it, for no other reason than that it seemed unnecessary before. However I might give it a try if the flours keep on being so impossible to work with! How much would you add per gram of flour?

suave's picture
suave

It's perfectly normal for wheat coming from the same field have variations in gluten content and quality from harvest to harvest.  Millers know how to account for that and can produce identical-behaving flour regardless of what they mill.  However, if the European drought this year was as widespread and severe as reported it just could be beyond their ability to adjust.

Ability of flour to absorb water is not defined by the gluten content alone.

Here, in the US, generic supermarket flours are often the same, that is store brand A, and store brand B, and store brand C all come from the same mill, just the packaging is different.  Somewhere I have a photo of several different brands of flour with identical packing line codes.  The same could be the case over there, and then going from one flour to another won't give you any improvement.

breadmad's picture
breadmad

My initial thought was that it was because companies couldn't import from Ukraine or Russia or that it was because of the widespread drought in Western Europe. Or maybe a combination of both. In the sense that maybe they couldn't adjust for the lesser quality flour from drought struck Europe by the lack of access to stronger wheat from Ukraine.

I did check and the flours are from different producers, so I guess it is more of a widespread problem than just one producer struggling to produce a consistent flour. 

semolina_man's picture
semolina_man

My understanding is that discount grocers like Aldi do not sell the same product, in the sense that the product is always identical to past versions.  They might sell a product in the same package, but the contents are not strictly identical.  This is how they offer the lowest prices to consumers - they buy the lowest cost available to them, package it and resell it to consumers. 

The suggestion here is that you are not in fact getting the same product, but rather whatever Aldi happens to put in the bag, acknowledging that it must meet the stated characteristics printed on the bag. 

breadmad's picture
breadmad

It always surprises me that the numbers on the bag sometimes means so little when it comes to how a flour performs.  Because the numbers haven't changed, yet the performance has changed dramatically. I guess I have to see how things will develop and otherwise I might start a search for other brands of flour. 

JonJ's picture
JonJ

The bread flours I find in the shops here are typically around 11.5% protein, and my vital wheat gluten is about 75% protein.

Food Geek has a calculator to determine how much to use here: https://foodgeek.dk/en/vital-wheat-gluten-calculator/

I aim for a target of 13.5% protein, which means for a loaf with 480g of flour I'd add 15g of VWG.

It is important to mix it very well in the dry flour before adding water as otherwise you'll get little bouncy balls of gluten in your dough!

Even Benny with the lovely strong Canadian wholewheat flours might add some VWG to give his Hokkaido style breads some lift, like he did in this recipe - https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/69651/100-whole-wheat-sourdough-hokkaido-milk-bread

If you can't find VWG, it might also be sold as "seitan powder".

-Jon

breadmad's picture
breadmad

Thank you so much for your information! This is going to be very useful to me in the future!

yozzause's picture
yozzause

Hi Breadmad  you might find this article interesting

https://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/news/european-drought-the-impact-on-wheat-crops.html

regards Derek

breadmad's picture
breadmad

It is interesting indeed! Thank you very much! I guess I am just seeing the effects on millers trying to adjust for drought struck wheat. 

TonyBakes's picture
TonyBakes

Fellow Dutchy here, I have good results with denotenshop. They have wholesale prices which makes them quite competitive. I usually order the 25KG bags which get me going for a couple of months. I personally prefer the Bio one they have from koopmans, its German flour and has yielded great results for me. 

If you want absolute amazing results, you gotta go with French flour. I have found that French flour is just next level stuff. At least the ones I have tried. I usually do buy them in France though when on holidays and then when I run out I switch back to the German ones.

You can order smaller volumes, to try the German one, and see how it goes. Hope this helps.

breadmad's picture
breadmad

Thank you for the tip! I had never heard of denotenshop before and their prices are rather good! These sort of tips are always welcome. :D So thank you very much, I will for sure buy some from there (probably in bulk as I go through a lot).
I did already buy different types of flour (French and Italian flours are generally my favourites when it comes it European flour/wheat) and I even grind my own flour since I also like to buy grains from nearby farms. My "problem" was more that  I noticed an overall drop of quality in the more generic supermarket stuff and was curious to know if other people had also noticed the same effect in their flour or maybe even had some intel on what was precisely going on :) Nevertheless, thank you very much for the tips and the information! :D