June 22, 2009 - 7:19am
Baking with freshly milled flour
I am a scratch baker, I purchase grains and use them in my bread recipes. I have to make conversions from traditional flours to my fresh flour, has anyone else ran into this? I have came up with several tricks, but always looking for more suggestions, along with other peoples creations with their fresh flour.
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I just substitute it and add more water to offset absorbtion. Are there other things you do? I would love to hear them.
Hopefully, you'll get other comments.
I add Barley malt, and Ascorbic acid to each loaf, this helps with the texture and it also slows down the spoliage. Those are the ingredients that use to be in "bread flour" in the store till they switched to chemical subs.
Some people soak their flour in water overnight. Others, including me, let the flour and water autolyse (rest) for 20 minutes after an initial mix of 1 or 2 minutes so that the flour has a chance to absorb the water.
--Pamela
I find some days because of the weather that I have more difficulty. I wish I could get that figured out better.
I tend to use my freshly ground flour just like any other flour. I do work at 72-75% hydration with fresh ground as opposed to a more modest 65-68% (for lean doughs with levain preferments) if I am using all purpose flour, but other than that, I give it no special treatment.
I routinely use an 80-85% extraction flour - so it is not, strictly speaking, "whole wheat."
I've baked with flour fresh from the mill, 24 hours old, a week old, two weeks old and a month old. They all were similar in baking performance - although taste varied quite a bit...
Hope this helps.