December 22, 2015 - 9:25am
Clear flour
There has been some discussion on Fresh Loaf about shifting whole wheat flour to "make" clear flour: that is, the resulting flour is said to be clear flour. But the discussions have not included mesh-size. (One milling company uses #70 mesh.) Be that as it may, what is the concensus about doing the reverse: adding wheat germ and wheat bran to a bread flour, say 1% or so each of germ/bran as a percentage of total flour weight to approximate clear flour...
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Do you mean whether or not it's a good idea? If so, I can't see how adding them could ever be a bad idea; if not, I don't understand the question.
Hi Jon: sure, both can be added to, say, bread flour but my question is really will the addition of both TEND TO REPLICATE clear flour. I don't remotely know the answer. As an aside: when I operated a restaurant (which had a bakery) we regularly purchased clear flour in 50# sacks; but later our vendor was not able to supply unless we committed to purchase a pallet--way too much for us. Clear flour purchased from internet vendors is very expensive given the added cost of shipping. So I'm seeking a reasonable replication at a reasonable price for clear flour.
It won't work. I mean you can add bran or sift flour to color/ash similar to clear, but you won't get the very particular flavor of clear flour. On the other hand, unless clear flour makes up the base of your bread's flavor it does not matter one bit.
As to the sifting, much depends on the grind of the flour - some are more amenable to sifting, some are less. In any case, I'd expect 70 mesh sieve to give you clean white flour.
First, let’s understand what clear flour is. It is white flour milled from the very outer layers of the endosperm. As such, it contains neither bran nor germ.
It has a higher ash content than patent flour (which is milled from the inner parts of the endosperm) and will have the highest protein content of any flour milled from that particular grain, but will have protein of a lower quality. (As an aside, this is why it is important to know both the protein and the ash content of your flour. Yes, the protein can be higher if the outer parts of the endosperm are included in the mix, but the baking performance might not be what one expects.)
Clear flour is an output of roller milling processes which can remove layers of the wheat berry with a great deal of precision and produce various streams, such as bran, germ, clear, and patent. In general, in the USA, the “clear” flour streams are not used in what we see in the stores as “all purpose” or “bread” flours. These are usually patent flours.
So combining anything with anything will not produce clear flour.
Clear flour is generally considered "inferior" to patent flour and found its way into traditional rye breads as they rye hid the somewhat darker color of the clear flour. I'm not sure exactly what you are seeking to get from your flour that requires clear flour. I know that many people have specific taste memories from bakeries of their youth. I don't have these and have been quite happy using regular patent flours in my rye breads.
Many people have gotten misleading information that clear flour is “high extraction” flour. It is not. High extraction flour has been sifted to remove some of the bran and germ and is simulated in many ways – one of which is combining whole wheat and white flours.
As for mesh sizes, I’ve documented what I use in some of my (very ancient) blogs and so has the late, great bwraith. The thing is, this is not a “one size fits all” sort of thing. It depends on how you are milling and how finely ground the bran and germ are ground vs. how finely the endosperm is ground. It takes a little experimentation to get the size just right. But no mesh size in the hands of a home miller (unless the lucky home miller has a roller mill) will produce clear flour.
Hope this helps.