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mixing flours for desired overall protein level

emkay's picture
emkay

mixing flours for desired overall protein level

The croissant with poolish recipe from Suas' ABAP calls for low protein bread flour. SFBI defines 'low protein bread flour' as a flour with 12-12.5% protein level. I have two flours in my pantry. WF 365 Organic Unbleached AP Flour (which I believe is Central Milling Beehive Malted AP) which has a protein level of 10.5% and KA Unbleached Bread Flour which has a protein level of 12.7%.

#1. Generally speaking, can I mix these two flours in the correct proportions so that I get a flour with my desired overall protein level (in this case 12-12.5%)? For example, 300 g 10.5% flour + 700 g 12.7% flour = 1000 g flour with a 12.04% protein level.

(0.30 * 10.5) + (0.70 * 12.7) = 12.04

#2. Instead of mixing the two flours, can I use the 10.5% flour in the poolish and the 12.7% flour in the detrempe for the croissants?


poolishcroissant

For example, 160.9 g flour in poolish + 367.8 g flour in detrempe = 528.7 g total amount of flour used in the recipe.

poolish: 160.9/528.7 = 30.4%

detrempe: 367.8/528.7 = 69.6%

(0.304 * 10.5) + (0.696 * 12.7) = 3.19 + 8.84 = 12.04

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

or you can add VWG to the lower protein bread flour to get what you want.

Happy baking

mcs's picture
mcs

...for my puff pastry dough to create a flour with an overall lower protein content.  Although I've never used method #2 for laminated doughs, it seems like a sound method I don't see why you couldn't do it.

-Mark

greyoldchief's picture
greyoldchief

You can use alligation math to figure out the correct proportions.  Instead of buying bread flour, AP flour, and high gluten flour, I only buy AP and High Gluten and then I make my own bread flour.  Here's a link:

http://www.pharmaccy-tech-study.com/alligations.html

 

Good Luck

greyoldchief's picture
greyoldchief

You can use alligation math to figure out the correct proportions.  Instead of buying bread flour, AP flour, and high gluten flour, I only buy AP and High Gluten and then I make my own bread flour.  Here's a link:

http://www.pharmacy-tech-study.com/alligations.html

 

Good Luck

DavidEF's picture
DavidEF

Thanks, greyoldchief! I've never heard of alligation math, but it makes perfect sense. I'm going to be using that a lot from now on.

emkay's picture
emkay

for the math I was doing. Thanks!