Directions to tweak recipes for using half-wheat flour.
I' m folllowing recipes from J. Hamelmann, like the 'rustic bread'
Many recipes follow the same scheme like here below:
- Preferment (including salt), the evening before
- mixing, the following morning
- bulk fermentation (2-3 hours), during which we have 2 or 3 stretch and folds
- cutting and preshaping, with moderate rest (about 20 minutes)
- final shaping, with longer rest (about 1 hour)
- baking
Now: when I replace the white flour by a type2 flour (half-wheat, intermediate between white and whole wheat: type 2 I think is a bit less than 200 in strength) I am penalized, because the type 2 develops less gluten.
My objective is understanding the direction to move to have a compensation of this penalty, even if only a partial compensation. I don't pretend to reach the same result as white flour, but I would like to know in which area of the below list I can work and in which direction.
- increase or decrease the bulk fermentation time?
- increase or decrease the number of stretch and folds during the bulk fermentation?
- increase or decrease the mixing?
- increase or decrease the yeast (I use brewers yeast)?
- increase or decrease the rest time after the shaping?
- add autolyse? And in which way on the above scheme?
Any of the above helping me in compensating the usage of the type2 weaker flour?
Any way to come back to having holes in the bread, as with the white flour? Or at least improving a bit with one of the above?
Hopefully you will get lots of useful advice from the experts here.
To start the ball rolling here's one suggestion.
Go for a low hydration preferment (such as a Biga) as opposed to a standard 100% hydration mix. This should add more strength to the dough (all to do with the acidity levels).
Looking forward to hearing other views.
I would try to do an autolyse with the liquid and flour for at least 1 hour before mixing in your pre-ferment. You can also try increasing the overall hydration of the dough which will help with giving you a more open crumb.
I was not successfulnwith autolyse.
I tried it on a part of the remaining flour before adding the preferment and doing the final mixing.
The result was very wet and I was unable to mix it without adding extra flour.
A second way I tried was to put in autolyse for 1hour, half of the flour of the preferment. Then I complete the preferment with the other half of the flour. This works but I don't see advantage versus not using autolyse.
To summarize: autolyse in the preferment the night before: works but not significant advantage.
Autolyse the following morning before mixing the preferment: too wet.
I did another post on autolyse in the forum.
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For what is concerning adding water, this is a suggestion I always read, but I was never able to apply it.
Adding water I just get a very stich dough which in the end I'm not able to manage.
The best thing to do when you add whole wheat (or substitute) to a recipe is to realize that it may need extra water and it will definitely need additional time to absorb the water. The branny bits are like wood and it takes a long time for the water to penetrate. If you do NOT give it time, then what happens is that after the loaf is baked, the branny bits act like a sponge and continue to pull water from the crumb. About 24 hours after it is baked, you will have bread slices that tend to crumble and break.
I would add the whole wheat flour to the preferment. If it all doesn't fit there, then I would mix the dough (with WW) at the same time as the preferment WITHOUT the yeast or salt. Let the flour and water of the dough portion sit all night-just like the preferment. The next day, you may find you need to add extra liquid and at that time then I would add the yeast and salt. Proceed as usual.
The reason I would not add the salt to the dough portion is that it will allow a noticeable increase in the starch that is generated and that will help with the crumb. I believe the preferment has some salt in it to control yeast growth.
So anytime whole wheat, or most whole grains, are added-hydration and the time to absorb it are called for.
Let us know how it goes.