July 30, 2018 - 2:25pm
Fine vs Coarse Ground Flour
If baking the same hearth loaf with the same flour but one loaf uses a super-fine grind while the other uses a relatively more coarse grind, the former will soak up more moisture over a shorter amount of time. Is gluten network development affected? Is the fine-grind likely to have a more open crumb and be less chewy? What about rise height?
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Why not do a side by side comparison, with pictures, and post it here?
I know very good professional bakers who claim that granulation makes a big difference in getting nice crumb structure in whole grain breads...and my experience supports that, but I have yet to do a well designed comparison.
I’ve often wondered about this so I just posted to be sure to see the responses to this.
Bump. Who's the expert here?
are damaged during milling ( the finer the flour) the easier and more completely the enzymes will act on it to either help break down the starch into sugars and or break the protein bonds in gluten strands to make the dough more elastic, allowing it to expand under proofing and break cell walls allowing for a more open crumb.
Rye meal is often an ingredient in rye breads because rye breads do not use gluten for their crumb structure and too much amylase action will break down the crumb structure in rye breads so you want less of it. Rye meal means less amylase action because it is a large grind and amylase has a harder time in getting to the starches of the larger grind. So a better crumb structure happens with rye meal in rye breads results.
For white breads or other whole grain ones the large grind makes for a heavier bread than can be less sweet and kave loess residual sugars and big chunks get in the way and cut gluten strands making for a less open crumb.
Hope this helps.
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There is an article here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229188497_The_effect_of_particle_size_of_wheat_bran_fractions_on_bread_quality_-_Evidence_for_fibre-protein_i...
it is mostly over my head, but it seems to say loaf volume decreases, the finer the bran is ground.
Thanks for posting this, barryvabeach. What a counter-intuitive finding, that the smaller the fibre particles the more adverse the effect on the gluten network. I'm going to grind my berries less fine next time.The trade-off being that the flour from the endosperm will be more coarse but the bran (and germ?) will be more coarse. I don't plan to double grind the flour after sifting--or even sifting. Will be interesting to note the changes if detectable.
-Tom
Tom, let you know what you find. I noticed a difference in texture with the finished loaves ( and I did not do any sifting ) but I find volume to be so variable from loaf to loaf, that I did not reach any firm conclusions, and assumed that the amount of time in bulk ferment and final proofing probably had more of an impact due to my lack of skills, than the size of the grind.
creating 4 times as many gluten cutting particles, I would assume that they would damage the gluten 4 times as much:-) This is why you want to get the bran particles as big as possible, tempering helps, and then do everything you can to soften the bran and break it down. You will be rewarded with the best crumb you can get . Put all the bran in the levain and autolyse it for 4 hours first. After a 12 hour levain build where you drop the pH as low as possible, then retard it for as long as possible - 48 hours is a nice round number. Next thing you know the bran is nice and soft and the acid has broken it down even further. So there you go. Lucy's guide for levain of Whole grain breads. Now it you sprout the whole grains first, then Wow! You have taken the crumb to whole new level not often seen by humans - if you believe Lucy:-) This is why we need robot pets and baking apprentices!
the dough since it is so acidic? Any tearing of the dough when shaping it?
or tearing either.
So if I mill less fine to sift for bigger bran, I either have to do a second mill of the main/endosperm flour, or see how the loaf turns out with bigger particles in general. Hmm
and then mill fine one time. I don't bother to temper. I do everything I can to make sure the bran isn't a factor in cutting the gluten instead. One of the tings you will notice if you sprout grains is that you will get more and larger bran off of them after drying and milling because you have effectively tempered the grain.