June 4, 2020 - 12:37pm
Sir Lancelot flour
Hi & thanks for reading my first post. I've been bread baking for about three years, mostly sourdough and rye, and have generally had good results. My wife, God bless 'er, surprised me today with a 50 pound bag of KA Sir Lancelot flour. Now, I've never used it before, sticking with KA all purpose, bread & wheat flour, and after reading up on it, fear it would have too high a gluten percentage for satisfactory sourdough. I could start cranking out bagels & pizza, but I'm hoping a few of you could share your thoughts or experiences about using this as bread flour. Thanks to all!
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King Arthur has a couple of recipes for bread using their high gluten flour:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/no-knead-everything-bread-recipe
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/no-knead-harvest-grains-bread-recipe
I've only used their high-gluten flour for making bagels - it makes an awesome bagel!
Happy baking!
I don't know if it would work in real life, but the math says....
A mix of 35% Sir Lancelot flour (at 14% protein), and 65% KA AP flour (at 11.7% protein) would result in a combo that has a net of 12.5% protein, which is what KA Bread flour has. (.35 * 14) + (.65 * 11.7) = 12.5
A mix of 83.5% Sir Lancelot flour, with 16.5% gluten-free flour (white rice, brown rice, corn starch, tapioca, quinoa, coconut, almond) would have a net of 11.7% "gluten"-protein, which is what KA AP flour has. (.835 * 14 = 11.7) Those other flours would still contribute non-gluten-protein.
A mix of 89.3% Sir Lancelot flour, with 10.7% gluten-free flour would have a net of 12.5% "gluten"-protein, along the lines of KA Bread flour. (.893 * 14 = 12.5)
Gluten-free flours can still contribute carbs, fats, and protein. And they are sufficiently different than wheat flour, that baking charactertistics would still be altered.
It might be fun to experiment with.
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Then there is always the "just a teaspoon at a time" trick of getting rid of various flours that you don't want to use as a primary ingredient. One teaspoon of the "other" flour per 1 to 1.5 cups of the "normal" flour can hide most anything.
Bon appétit.
I just put together some dough using "the math says" but I didn't read the part about "working in real life?" until just now. I guess we'll see.
I bought 50 lb of Sir Lancelot for bagels (sorry I still owe you those pictures). But I've been out of bread flour for a while. I'm trying Foodgeek's master sourdough recipe, which calls for bread flour. I'll post results tomorrow.
https://foodgeek.dk/en/artisan-sourdough-bread-recipe-an-easy-recipe-for-crispy-bread/
The next step is sourdough bagels.
p.s. 50 lbs of flour is equal to 4601 teaspoons. lol.
I've been baking sourdough for over a year. I eventually found the Tartine recipe, which I use as the basis for all my artisan loafs. Sir Lancelot is superb for this. I usually do an overnight autolyse presoak with the 90% Lancelot and 10% KA whole wheat, but it works ok without either a short autolyse or even none. Makes fantastic flatbread also. Other comments:
I had been using KA bread flour at 12.7% protein, but the Lancelot at 14% gives a much better sourdough for me.
It is a commercial market product. As such it has some additives I could live without: full ingredient list is , including Unbleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid. I would be happier with a pure unbleached flour, but I can't find a reasonable price (with shipping if necessary) for any other 14%+ protein white flours.
It is primarily sold in 50 pound sacks. KA and some other vendors do offer it in smaller repackaging (I've seen 3 and 5 lb sizes), but they are pricey. I can get it at a local restaurant/bakery supply house for $21 for 50 pound sack. At $0.42/lb that beats most house brand AP flours, much less KA.