September 1, 2007 - 10:43am
Too Soft
I've always used Stone-Buhr unbleached bread flour in all my bread baking. Our local Albertson's started carrying King Arthur all purpose flour so out of curiosity I bought a bag and made a loaf of french bread at 65% hydration. It was very soft. I made another at 60% hydration. It rose beautifully, got great oven spring and the crumb was gorgeous, but boy is this one soft loaf - Wonder Bread soft! Is this due to the softer all purpose flour or should I use even lower hydration level? I couldn't get bread this soft when I was trying.
Larry
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I imagine it's the switch from bread flour to AP flour. I just baked a loaf that I normally use KAF bread flour for. This time I used about half KAF all purpose and half KAF bread flour. It is a softer than usual, but it still tastes great. Too bad the WW loaf I baked next accidentally got extra salt and is pretty inedible. :(
Stone-Buhr's bread flour is extremely high protein, so I expect that is responsible for the change. I find I'm happiest with the results when I mix of Stone-Buhr's bread flour and some AP flour. All AP and I get too tight a crumb, all Stone Buhr Bread Flour and it is pretty tough. Somewhere in the middle: just right.
I appreciate the responses (great minds think alike) and looking forward to trying a combination of KA and S-B flour. I've always wished that my sourdough bread wasn't quite so chewy; maybe this will be the solution.