Central Milling High Mountain Flour (Hi-Protein)
Hello,
I bought a 50-pound bag of Central Milling's Organic High Mountain Hi-Protein flour (blend of hard red spring wheat, 13%), thinking it would produce the same wonderful bagels that I was getting with King Arthur Bread Flour.
At first go, I was pretty disappointed by the lack of flavor and bounce of the bagels I made with the flour. I've made less finicky yeast breads (such as pretzels), and the flour was fine for that. I did buy the flour, however, with the primary purpose of making bagels. Now I have a large bag of flour that I'm afraid will either go bad or will not be used for its original purpose.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong. The protein percentage is roughly the same as King Arthur's. Why is it giving me such drastically different results?
Is there a way I can salvage this flour for my purposes? Might blending it with another flour help?
If not, I'm happy to give away 30-plus pounds of this flour to anyone living in the Los Angeles area!
Central Milling is highly regarded so I'm somewhat at a loss to explain it not coming through on your bagels. At 13% it should make rather stout bagel dough. Do you still have the bags date coding? I'd call Central and find out if they've had any issues with the lot that it's from - it does happen from time to time.
The lesson is to never, never, never expect a new flour to perform identically to the old. Always sample and test several times before ordering in any quantity.
I've had the same experiences with non-organic unbleached red winter wheat that made bland tasting sourdough - the vier fusszeile was given a slice and in a continuous motion whipped her head around in one of the most amazing bread flings I've ever seen. She's really a great quality control department - she has a nose for it...,
Wild-Yeast
It is deffinately less strong than more standard hi protein flours. by a good 1+% which doesn't sound much but it shows. I never used for bagels but it did great for some multi grain pan breads and blended with rye/wheat. I love the color and preferred its flavor to regular hp we used. You may just need to decrease hydration to account for decreased gluten. if that doesn't work use for some pan or blended loaves.
happy baking
josh