Arva Flour - Anyone using this? Need some help/advice/feedback.
I've recently taken up the challenge to teach myself how to make a nice loaf of bread. Something I have attempted and failed at in the past. Thanks to The Fresh Loaf and all the amazing information it offers I've had some reasonable success.
The flour I have been using comes from a local mill in Arva, Ontario. I figured I should use the best flour I can get. What I was wondering is if anyone else had any experience with it? I've noticed that no matter what recipe I have used, my dough always seems way more slack than in the videos or photos. I do weigh everything and I have tried two different scales. I am not one to stray from a recipe when I am learning, so I have not tried to compensate by adding more flour or reducing the water too much yet. I have successfully made several boules, batards and boulots, but I have had to refrigerate them overnight in order to properly score them and I have to put them in the oven right after in order for them to retain their shape.
For example, I just finished the first stage of Richard Bertinet's White Bread (bulk fermenting now). Very simple recipe and techniques. I slapped and folded that dough so much my dog is still hiding under the bed! However, after 15-20 minutes the dough is still very sticky and slack! It's incredibly stretchy and passes the windowpane test without a problem.
So, I am just curious if any other Arva users have had this experience? or is it just my technique?
Thanks!
If wet, the dough will be slack and spread once unmolded and it is best to retard it to get it to hold its shape when unmolding slashing and baking - great for bigger holes too. For white bread a good beginning recipe is the 1:2:3: one where you make a poolish of 75 g each of flour and water with a pinch of yeast and let that sit on the counter for 8-12 hours or overnight until it is really active and bubbly then 2 parts water (300g) and 3 parts flour (450 g).. this will give you a hydration of 71.4 % not too wet. Do 3 sets of slap and folds 12 minutes apart of 6, 2 and 1 minute and 3 sets of stretch and folds pulling and folding from each of compass points once. Then shape, put in a rice floured basket and when it hits 85% proof unmold slash and bake at 450 F regular bake with steam for 15 minutes and about 15 minutes without steam at 425 F Convection until the inside hits 205 F
Should work fine.and Happy Baking
Thanks for the response. I've actually made bread from two different 1-2-3 bread recipes and had the same result. Eventually they turned out really nice, but as mentioned, I had to proof overnight in the fridge and bake immediately or the loaf would just collapse.
I live in Kilworth and use Arva flour for my general baking goods, I use KA Bread flour for any breads though.
In general they seem to mill a product similar to tipo 00 which generally requires less moisture to hydrate. Experiment with your hydration percentage and see what works for you.
I think I will try soaking the flour overnight or using a poolish as suggested (although, I have tried that, but maybe that was before I got my shaping under control) as well as reducing the water [which I will try first]. At least I have some videos/photos to compare what my dough should look like.
Where do you purchase your KA flour? Online from the USA?
Thanks!
Well, I just started a new batch of "Anis Bouabsa's" baguettes. I reduced the water by 20g, so the hydration will be 71% instead of 75%. The dough looks a lot better. It was still a sticky mess at the start, as it is supposed to be, but it worked into a nice dough ball unlike my prior experiences.
Also, Arva has five different flours that I know of. A whole wheat, strong bread, pastry and two spelt flours. I am using the strong flour, I don't think it's similar to type 00. The pastry flour might be, but even that is probably a bit higher in gluten. I actually bought some type 00 flour that is made in Italy that I plan on using for something. Just having used it yet. Probably use it for a go at some Banh Mi baguettes.
My baguettes were a mess.
Since then, I've tried Susan's Sourdough and Tartine Country Loaf. The doughs were incredibly slack and a miserable failure. The best I can describe it, so far every recipe I have followed it's almost like my hydration is 10% higher than it should be.
Today's batch looks the same, maybe even worse. I increased the number of stretch and folds, and am following the Tartine Book 3.0 recipe as well. My dough looks nothing like it's supposed to. The Tartine dough is very puffy and bubbly, but it cannot maintain any shape. The Susan dough is still in bulk ferment, but I can already tell it's too wet.
I think I am going to buy some different flour to try to see if it's me or my flour.
So, even with more slap and folds and "better" shaping, my two loaves from today were similar (albeit, slightly better) to yesterdays. Not much oven spring and they just didn't hold their shape when I took them out of the proofing bowls.
Today I tried some grocery store unbleached AP flourusing the Tartine country loaf recipe. It was a world of difference compared to my bread flour. I also soaked my bread flour with just the water overnight and added the levain this morning. It was a goopy mess. The consistency wasn't too far from my starter!
The grocery shelf AP flour behaved a lot like what I've seen in various videos. The end shaping was the best I've been able to do yet. Was a beautiful piece of dough. My bread flour "batch" I ended up adding more flour to get the consistency close to the AP flour. It was still more slack though.
Now they are in the fridge proofing until tomorrow....
I think I will test to see how much water my bread flour can absorb in a given period of time and compare that to some other flours.
I didn't really investigate much into how one performs a test to determine the water absorption/retention of a flour, so I made up my own crude method to do so. I imagine there is a real method to do this though. What I did was take 100g of flour and added 200g of water (I wanted the flour to be saturated). Let it sit for 1 hour at RT and then sieved the mixture for 1 hour at RT using a coffee filter. I weighed both the dough mass and the expelled water. Unfortunately, there is plenty of error associated with this method, but if I do it again I will make some improvements.
Anyway, I compared four flours. My bread flour and three different unbleached AP flours (that's all I could find). My flour most definitely does not absorb water like the other flours. Based on my crude experiment it absorbs 25% to 35% less water, relatively. I have to do some more experimenting, because my approach didn't quite work out as well as it did in my head, but even just looking at the dough water it was obvious my bread flour was far more liquid.
I also baked two loaves of bread this morning and the AP flour loaf mentioned above turned out quite nice. Not perfect, but it had acceptable oven spring, but lacked ears and any of the "internal dough" exploding out of the scoring. Regardless, it was a monumental improvement.
Thus, my bread flour was the main culprit of my problems (or, more accurately, my lack of experience regarding how a dough should look and feel; and being able to adjust for these differences).
Hi Yeasty, Just read your comments and for your information, I'm having the exact same problems you had with hydration levels, wet loaves not keeping their shape etc. I am still doing tests with different flours and the same recipes to verify the problem. Thanks for your comments.
Glad to help. I still have a 40lb bag of that flour "resting". I doubt it will improve though. I made some 1-2-3 sourdough with it [it's only in my starter] not too long ago and found even with the lower percent it still had a negative impact on my bread.
I've basically switched over to various supermarket brands of organic unbleached flour with at least 12% protein content [most have 13%] and no ascorbic acid. Works great so far, as long as I don't screw up somewhere else along the way =)
I've been using the last of my Arva hard white flour with better results. I have found that the commercial flour brands I use are about 145 g per cup. Arva is 120 g or less per cup. I now use the appropriate amount by weight of the Arva flour and instead of reducing hydration, I simply add more of the whole wheat or white flour until it becomes the correct consistency. Arva does make beautiful bread and rolls. I just correct by look and feel. Thank you for your investigative research.
I've also come to a similar conclusion. I am a trained scientist, so my brain is wired to follow procedures exactly as written. Obviously, this is not always a good idea, especially when it comes to making bread. There is just far too much "feel" involved. I was always worried about adding too much additional flour because I wanted a high hydration bread. Of course, I now realize that the flour itself most likely already has a higher level of natural hydration so adding more flour shouldn't be detrimental.
It's funny that you replied here today, because I just bought a bag of whole wheat flour from Arva last Friday. I haven't been there in at least a year.
Yes! I switched to Arva's Daisy flour a couple weeks ago and in the process have learned loads about the importance of really understanding one's baking ingredients. Before this I used to blindly follow recipes as written but with ALL the problems I've had with this flour I now appreciate the work that goes into baking well. (this flour needs much less hydration than most - as much as 15% less - maybe even more. It's nice to use locally produced flour so I plan on continue working with it - Hopefully I can get some control again of my dough.)
Wow - this thread is a revelation. I've had a hard time finding good whole wheat flour that isn't Robin Hood and only able to find Arva.
I've really struggled with it, noticing my best bakes have been with Bob's Red Mill Artisan and several different Caputo Flours. My experiences with Arva are very similar to those described here - goopy messes that seem to get worse with trying to build structure in the dough and very frustrating extensibility.
This just cleared up one hugely aggravating variable.