The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

High Phosphorous / Protein Wheat

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

High Phosphorous / Protein Wheat

I'm looking for a little help on a project I have been working on regarding high phosphorous content wheat. I noticed that high protein wheat also has a high phosphorous content - approximately equal to dark rye.

The hunch is that the phosphorous content plays into the heterofermentative pathway - supplying an excess of phosphates for acetic and lactic acid production. 

On the road to Tang...,

Wild-Yeast

Debra Wink's Lactic Acid Entry

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

Please jump-in, even if you feel you have no honest reason too.  Help is needed!...,

Wild-Yeast

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Rye is much higher in fiber than wheat.

The word "phosphates" makes me think of soap.  Something that cuts water surface tension.  

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

Hin Mini,

Actually it's high in phosphorous occuring in the form [I presume] of phosphates.  A good place to explore this is here. It's the USDA Food Nutrient List that breaks down nutritional value by food item.  Nice bookmark for anyone interested in food stuff. Take a look - it's addicting...,

Wild-Yeast

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

:)  and I know that phosporous bonds with calcium (no matter where they get it from) which has a buffering effect on acids. ??? Don't know if that is relevant for you.  

Hard water high in calcium might be a factor combined with grains high in phosphorous.   Might be interesting to compare areas that have naturally occuring soft water and their bakery goods.  

 

breadforfun's picture
breadforfun

...called the Nutrition Almanac published by McGraw-Hill in 1975.  In the back is a table of ingredients that lists the nutrients they contain.  Assuming the science behind the measurements is still accurate, here are some numbers that may be of interest:

Soy flour: 715 mg P/cup

Whole wheat: 446 mg P/cup

All Purpose wheat: 96 mg P/cup

Medium Rye flour: 288 mg P/cup

Pearled Barley, uncooked: 423 mg P/cup

From the comparison between WW and AP flours, it would appear that the phosphorus is concentrated mostly in the outer layers of the grain.  If you are interested in attempting to see if phosphorus could contribute to tang in a starter, you may want to try some soy flour, although some people regard flours from legumes detrimental to breads.  Looking through some of the other tables, it appears that nuts and seeds have (relatively) a very high amount of phosphorus.  Pumpkin seeds: 2631 mg/cup and sesame seeds 1361 mg/cup are the highest, and peanuts around 950 mg/cup.  Powdered skim milk has 1280 mg/cup.

I've posted a scan from the page with flours here.  It is a little hard to read, but phosphorus is the second column from the right.  Hope this helps -- good luck.

-Brad

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

SD baker's I have noticed that the SD tang is increased with the more preferment used between 30 and 50% of total weight gives more tang.  More than 50% levain and the bread can become goo.  DmSnyder posted a link to SFBI that did a test on how much leain to use to get the most sour.

We have also noticed that the more whole grains freshly milled used, the more the SD tang.  This also works up to about 50% of the flour in the recipe - then the tang levels off after that.   This may be becausee the outer portions of the grain and germ contain the  stuff the sour producers like or maybe it is phosphorus too or some combination.

We also have noticed that if you refrigerate the fully active levain for 12 hours before using it the sour taste is improved.  This must have something to so with the low temperatures I would think but maybe it likes being in the dark and cold too :-)

Retarding the dough in the fridge after fermentation also helps the sour tang.

We a currently playing with mixing 1/8 tsp of cumin with 1 tsp of milk (ala Joe Ortiz) and adding this to the SD starter at the beginning of the 12 hour ambient levain build and seeing how it differs in sour after the built levain is refrigerated for 12 hours too. 

For rye sours, we also put coarsely chopped onions into the SD build to bring out the sour.

If I want sour these are the things I do but don't know why they work from a scientific point of view or if phosphorus has anythong to do with it.