The Fresh Loaf

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Reducing oxidization in fresh milled flour

Daniel's picture
Daniel

Reducing oxidization in fresh milled flour

Hello everyone!

I'm new here and I'm really enjoying gleaning all your wisdom and experience!

I have recently move to Paraguay from Australia, and the flour here is all 'enriched'. I brought my dried starter that I had been baking with in Australia over and started baking again. But the flour is so enriched here, it almost doesn't seem like real flour anymore! I have decided to mill my own wheat berries. I have read a lot about the health benefits of freshly ground wheat, and the rapid degradation of those benefits due to oxidization. I want to keep as many of those goodies as I can, but I usually prefer a fairly long, cool proof.

I have one main question: does oxidization continue occurring if the flour is hydrated and in the dough? 

 

If the flour is loosing nutrients over time, will that continue through a long proof, say 24-48 hours or so?

 

Thanks!

pmccool's picture
pmccool

Simple answer to your question: Yes.

A more nuanced response: All flours oxidize throughout the dough-making process.  Any freshly-milled flour will deliver the highest nutrient content of whatever flours you select for a particular bread.  Unless you have an extremely sophisticated laboratory in your kitchen, you won’t be able to measure the minuscule shifts in nutrient chemistry that naturally occur throughout the various steps of making your dough.

Enjoy your bread in peace, knowing that it is better for you than any bread that you are apt to find at a store.  

Paul

Daniel's picture
Daniel

Could I pick your brain please? 

If I compare 2 loaves.

Loaf 1. Ground the flour, left it in a bowl on the counter for 8 hours, made a dough and baked it in 6 hours.

Loaf 2. Ground the flour, immediately mixed all ingredients, it ferments and proofs (somewhere cool) and bake it in 14 hours.

 

Same grind time, same bake time.

Would loaf 2 have reduced oxidization because it has been wet and exposed to less oxygen?

pmccool's picture
pmccool

The only time that you are likely to see the effects of oxidation in a dough is if you employ an intensive mix while using a mixer, which would require an extended mixing period at high speed.  

Any effects of oxidation in the two scenarios you posit will be so small as to be unnoticeable.  And they will be insignificant, too. 

Paul

Daniel's picture
Daniel

Ok, thanks for the information. 

Once I have managed to find some wheat berries in Paraguay, (which at this rate will take me months!), I will be sure to post a picture of how it goes. 

I'll read that thread too.

Cheers!

yozzause's picture
yozzause

 Another thing to consider is that commercial flour is often aged using chemicals and there are some very good flours that are aged the old fashioned way  of increased storage time before being released from the mill  here is an interesting link on flour aging https://bakerpedia.com/processes/aged-flour/

We were told when apprentices 50 years ago to be wary of early new season flours as they could be quite un predictable. Now a days there is much better storage  of wheat and grains  and flour quality is far more consistant . i guess we need to know the age of the grains we obtain for home milling as that seems to be quite important in the end product.