Whole Wheat & Long Autolyse
After baking a number of Approachable loaves for the Community Bake, I am starting to question the use of extremely long (2 hours or more) autolyse with doughs containing large percentages of Whole Wheat.
I know that it is important to saturate the whole wheat, especially the thirsty bran. But it is also apparent that long autolyse contribute to extensibility of the dough. Couple that with the goal to mix whole wheat on the wet side (for moist crumb) which also makes for an extensible dough, should we rethink the extended autolyse?
My wet WW doughs have been giggly and fragile when it comes time to score. Is the long autolyse exacerbating the issue? Should we consider a shorter autolyse or is there something else that can be done to produce a stronger WW high hydration dough without an extended autolyse?
I am interested in your opinions.
Danny
My quite unscientific opinion says that any autolyse done at room ambient temperature of more than one hour is too long.
There are several issues here I would like to address.
To begin with, “whole wheat flour” is an umbrella name for an endless number of products that are produced from different varieties and batches of wheat and are usually a re-mix of different proportions of streams coming from the roller mill. Each such flour has different, usually proprietary, proportions of endosperm, bran and germ and therefore absorb a different amount of water. I am using two whole wheat flours, one works best at 85% hydration and that other with 75%. Therefore, following a published formula can bring disappointment as your flour most likely differs from the one used by the author. My suggestion is to start the mixing with a lower hydration, say 75%, and keep adding water in 10 or 20 gram steps until the consistency of the dough is a one you like. Than you can amend the published formula to your specific flour and needs.
Regarding “the goal to mix whole wheat on the wet side (for moist crumb)”: I think the moistness of the crumb will anyway come from the additional honey and olive oil and there is no need to overstretch the hydration for that purpose.
Regarding the long autolyze: I autolyze for at least 30 minutes and no more than 1 hour, according to my schedule. I did not notice any better results from longer autolyze. The trick is proper hydration and this can be achieved from selecting the right amount of water (see above) and using Forkish’s pincer method to make sure the flour is evenly wet. I don’t think any other method does the job so efficiently.
Note also that on top of the 85% of water, this formula contains 6% olive oil and 8% honey, so the total hydration is really high. http://thebreadlab.wsu.edu/the-approachable-loaf/
Dan, when I write WW it means home milled berries at 100% extraction.
I recently made an Approachable with 75% hydration not including the honey and oil. When compared to ~80% hydration with the same oil and honey the crumb is noticeably more dry.
The 75% WW dough was much more strong (easily handled) and scored better. The 80% (I did about 7 of them in different bakes) were giggly, poofy, and super delicate to score.
Also, it may be important to know that all of these loaves were baked in pans. Baking in pans is new to me so I may be missing something.
and thats what I did the first time and it came out great. That seemed to go against all the tricks that I thought I knew to make it even better. I mixed it in stages first with water, levain, and whole wheat flour then rest 20 minutes add yeast mix, add salt mix, add oil and honey mix add in remaining water after some dough development.
I think a brief autolyse helps hydrate the flour but a longer one to increase extensibility is probably not necessary for pan loaves. Adding the salt at the beginning would strengthen the gluten and may help for a longer autolyse. Adding the oil later has always been recommended by most bakers but maybe the rules are different for whole grain.
I use a mixer for this recipe because of the narrow window to fully develop the gluten. I have found that holding back more than 10% of the water and letting the mixer knead a stiffer dough in the beginning works best for me. My Bosch does a great job of incorporating the held back water, unlike the Kitchen Aide I used to have, that sloshed it all around. The last loaf I made started off too wet and took 20 minutes on speed 2 to come together and clean the bowl. I was worried about friction heating up the dough by I have not seen that happen in my home mixer. I have learned to recognize when it has reached the window pane stage and it happens quite suddenly, so from now on I keep it running until it does and ignore the mix times. It has a lot of tension for such a wet dough. I don't have to scrape it out of the bowl just reach in and grab it. It seems to handle the folding and shaping with ease but does get jiggly at the end of the final proof.
The amount of water in this recipe seems to prevent the dough from going stale quickly but the crumb seems better if I wait a long time before I slice it and even opens more ( less dense) after it has been sliced for a day.
I was thinking that I no longer needed to sift the brown bits out but the last time I did that and put the bran in at the front of the line to soak and then just dumped in the rest. It all ends up about the same so maybe this is over thinking it. YRMV It is fun to play with the different options though.
I think the best way forward is sift out the bran on a #40 sieve. Then you can do an ambient overnight bran soaker with 1% salt.
This way the bran gets a g.ood soften but without the negative effects of long autolyse on the rest of the grain.
Or you can get fancy with an overnight bran sourdough ferment.
Lance
Even the fancy part. I would have to mill the whole amount of flour the night before instead of just the amount to make the levain. I am probably wrong about this but I like to use fresh milled flour right away, figuring that wheat berries are like coffee beans and the flavor is best when used immediately after grinding. I am still getting the tingling on the tongue from eating this bread that I assume is the still sharp bits of bran.
Yes, I too wonder about the "coffee bean effect". What do they say? Over 20 days roast and it's toast, over 20 minutes ground and it's toast too.
Can wheat grain really be like that too? Who knows? It's crying out for a fully blown experiment with taste panel. Modernist Bread, why didn't you do it? Bread Lab, can you do it?
Lance
"...it is important to saturate the whole wheat, especially the thirsty bran"
As I've posted previously, from this evolutionary botanist's perspective, the fraction that needs help getting "saturated" when wetting WW flour is the starchy endosperm, not the bran. The bran (pericarp) has evolved to suck up soil moisture to promote imbibition and germination. Its "thirst" actually deprives the white starchy flour from getting the water it needs to be fully saturated. It's a competition and the starchy fraction is at a disadvantage. To my mind, that's why WW flour needs more time to be fully wetted.
Could be wrong - wouldn't be the first time. But that makes sense to me.
fwiw, I've been giving our standard weekly house 60% WW doughs 2h 78˚F autolyses for years with excellent results.
Tom
Tom, I want to make sure I understand you. I value your experience. Some of your thoughts come from left field and they are extremely interesting.
You are saying that the endosperm should be our focus when hydration the flour. This is where I need help. White flour is all endosperm. Since you say (I think) the endosperm in WW is our focus when hydrating, do both the white flour and WW flours require the same autolyse for the same amount of time? Have I missed your point?
You say that the bran has evolved to suck up water for the survival of the berry. It seems to me that when hydrating the WW flour that the bran would suck up a lot of water, depriving the endosperm of moisture.
Please help me to understand properly.
Danny
Update - I reread a few times and I think you are saying that in order to saturate the endosperm we need to soak the bran thoroughly before it can be fully hydrated. If this is the case, wouldn’t presoaking the bran be super beneficial?
Yea, nay, or what?
My observation above doesn't necessarily suggest a change in your process. I was only making the point that when we give WW flour extra time to hydrate, it's more for the benefit of its white starchy endosperm fraction than for its bran fraction, the latter being better at sucking up moisture (is thirstier) than the former.
I dabbled with separately hydrating the white and WW components of our bread a few times, as a consequence of (but not directly a test of) my "bran's thirst outcompetes the starch" hypothesis. I didn't find a significant difference in baked outcomes. But I certainly invite you to try it yourself.
Tom
This thread reminds me of a practice promoted by Ian Lowe (of former Ars Pistorica blog and Apiece Bakery, Ravenswood, Tasmania) during his brief presence on TFL several years ago. Ian swore by a form of extended warm autolyse he called an Enzymatic Preferment, particularly of relatively bland white flours, to develop not just gluten but also flavor, letting enzymes act on polysaccharides in warm wetted flour long enough to provide additional simple sugars for flavor reactions. Sort of like malting the flour (as opposed to the grain). It's trickier with WW flour that is more enzymatically active and can self-destruct, from a baking perspective, if subjected to too much "enzymatic prefermentation". But I've felt comfortable pushing autolyse longer than convention since hearing these ideas from Ian Lowe.
Tom
Ian Lowe is active on Instagram as "apieceofbread". His nowadays infrequent posts always attract great interest (and often have a certain controversial element to them...).
I remember when I first started following him on IG, I trawled through a lot of his posts pretty much from the beginning to the present day, because they were interesting and because I wanted to learn.
What I noticed was that he was initially a great proponent of long autolyses, but later in the timeline he appears to have moved to much shorter ones.
I guess he realised like the rest of us have (or most of us) that long autolyse is good for extensibility and flavour but not good for sound gluten development due to excessive enzymatic degradation.
This is why I think it is better to long soak the bran on its own and also to add a bit of salt to inhibit any degradation somewhat.
Lance
Lance, the bran soaker seems sound. I’ve used this method before but don’t remember the results. The bran gets thoroughly soaked and it is reasonable to believe that after wetted it is softer and may interfere less with the gluten. Since the bran has been soaked it should be fully hydrated and unable to absorb additional liquids. Because of this the endosperm should hydrate normally, even when combined with the soaked bran because the bran can’t steal any more water from the remaining flour.
With the above in mind, shouldn’t we autolyse WW flour only long enough to fully hydrate the endosperm, since the bran has already fully absorbed it’s limit of water? If this is the case, the time to autolyse WW or white flour should could be identical.
This makes sense for 2 reasons.
1- Most agree that extended autolysing will lead to increase extensibility. It is my present thought that increased extensibility is not desirable with WW doughs.
2- Since WW requires well developed gluten, mechanical mixers are often used. Because of this the benefit of reduced mixing and mixing time because of autolysing is not as big an issue. We mix a little longer.
So, if that theory is correct, testing is in order.
THOUGHT - we know and most have experienced that WW (100% extraction) will hinder the gluten development resulting in a weaker dough than a dough made with strong white flour. Does it make sense to consider the bran as an add in that has been soaked (soaker)?
QUESTION - How can we reduced the particle size of the bran? I’ve tried everything I can think of to no avail. Even tried a mortar & pestle and a mini food processor. Has anyone cracked this nut.
Lets put our heads together and bake better bread.
I think you and I are in agreement on this one, Dan. It's how I made my Approachable Loaf, except that was the deluxe version with a whole wheat scald as well. BTW, I intend to repeat soon with your recommended 0.3% IDY.
What you need to grind bran fine is a Zentrofan mill, already discussed on TFL. I hope you have a spare half room and a lot of $$$!
Lance
Lance, I recommend you consider Bakes 7 & 8 for your next bake. The flavor excels any WW bread I’ve ever baked. Besides I’m looking for the taste opinions of others. See THIS LINK and scroll down to Bake 7 for the spreadsheet.
I’d have to add on to my house for that mill!
Did you drop the tangzhong for these later bakes Dan?
Yes, I did abandon the Tangzhong. Bakes 7 & 8 blew everything else out of the water. And I’m really trying to not exaggerate.
Hi Dan, I was wondering about another aspect of a very long autolyze. Let’s say you do an autolyze with only water and flour and later add the salt and starter. To get an even development of the dough, it makes sense that both salt and starter would be evenly distributed, right? To achieve that, you have to knead them into the dough this way or another.
Now, let’s look at the flour water mix. Gluten is getting developed spontaneously and after two hours of autolyze there should be many more, and stronger, bonds. Kneading the salt and starter in, bonds will get broken and the damage after two hours of soaking will be greater because there are so many more bonds that can get broken. The result may be a healthier dough coming out of a shorter autolyze.
The question therefore is: how good are gluten bonds in repairing themselves if getting broken?
If the self-repair is not great, I would say that:
1. The longer you autolyze the lighter any dough handling should be in order to avoid damage
2. shorter autolyze is more forgiving to “beginner hands”, and using a mixer to knead after a long autolyse may be counter productive
3. longer autolyze may require longer bulk/proof to give the gluten time to rebuild itself
“ 1. The longer you autolyze the lighter any dough handling should be in order to avoid damage”
I can remember watching Kristen’s Basic Open Crumb SD. She always handled the dough gently. Maybe she knows something we don’t.
“2. shorter autolyze is more forgiving to “beginner hands”, and using a mixer to knead after a long autolyse may be counter productive”
If you are correct about damaging the newly formed gluten strands via autolyse, machine mixing may be capable of major damage. I’ve watched the gluten being stretched and torn while mixing.
The BIG QUESTION remains, “Will the torn gluten strands repair themselves, and if so how do these repairs take place and at what time frame”?
At the point of mixing, kneading (energy input) develops gluten by breaking existing bonds and building new ones to form a highly organised structure (polymers).
Overmixing (depolymerisation) requires lots of energy, hence why it's almost impossible to overmix (damage gluten) by hand. I did once slap and fold a dough for 90 minutes solid with no ill effects...
However once the dough fills with gas and acidity levels increase this strongly effects structure.
” However once the dough fills with gas and acidity levels increase this strongly effects structure.”
Does the buildup of acids ultimately weaken the dough, possibly leading to degradation?
Lastly, Is the final damage to gluten strands (from machine damage, slap & folds, etc) ultimately repaired during the BF?
I'm trying to say that damage is only depolymerisation which can only occur with prolonged high energy input or enzymatically. This cannot be undone.
Gluten bonds are breaking and reforming all the time (I wouldn't describe this as damage) because the inherent abilities of gluten are not diminished.
Acid has numerous effects in dough but its initial one is a tightening effect which makes the dough stronger (more resistant) in one regard but weaker in another in that it becomes more fragile (ruptures more easily).
There are other effects of acids on redox (oxidation state) and activation of proteolytic enzymes however.
Relevant reading:
Aminlari, M. and Majzoobi, M., 2002. Effect of chemical modification, pH change, and freezing on the rheological, solubility, and electrophoretic pattern of wheat flour proteins. Journal of food science, 67(7), pp.2502-2506.
You can view it online but I can't provide a link since it is non-static and generated per user view..
To find, copy the title and search for it at Google Scholar.
I've always been at odds with the concept of long time soaking of wholemeal flour for that very reason of weakening of the flour.
Question is how much time does it really take to hydrate flour completely? And if the physical action of kneading facilitates hydration of flour particles is soaking at all necessary?
A long autolyse will make the flour behave like a weaker one. Mixing and fermentation tolerance will be diminished somewhat.
Don't forget the original intention of the autolyses step was to decrease mixing time. And decreased mixing time was desired to limit oxidation which could otherwise bleach the crumb and strip out native wheat flavour.
Michael, would you consider soaking the bran overnight and mixing in (with little or no autolyse) with the flour during the final whole wheat dough mix a good practice when dough strength is the goal?
Any other tips for producing a strong WW dough?
A common practice in Italy is the toasting of bran to neutralise the enzymes before incorporation.
Good idea, I’ll give that a try.
What is “a large proportion of Wholewheat “?
What are you trying to accomplish in the end? Better oven spring and more open crumb?
I am curious since my breads are 30-40% whole grain, I do at least a 2 hour true autolyse and I use a mixer for 10-12 minutes to add the rest of the ingredients. Generally I am pretty happy with what I get.
Danny, 70% and above. More oven spring.
Makes sense then.
Danni