fresh milled flour not good for bread making?
My niece brought to my attention an excerpt from the textbook used in her upcoming baking class.
Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen, p58, states:
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AGING AND BLEACHING
Freshly milled flour is not good for bread making. The gluten is somewhat weak and inelastic, and the color may be yellowish. When the flour is aged for several months, the oxygen in the air matures the proteins so they are stronger and more elastic, and it bleaches the color slightly.
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I was very shocked to read this, especially after I insisted that my niece let me buy her a grain mill so she can make excellent bread from scratch. I don't have an answer for her.
Is the author referring to commercial kitchens and "not good" meaning too labor intensive or something along those lines? Or is fresh milled flour truly not what I thought it is.
Hamelman talks about this as well in his book. Doesn't mean you can't make amazing bread with fresh flour.
I don’t have a home mill but many of the bakers on TFL do and they bake incredible bread with their freshly milled flour. You can’t believe everything you read even in textbooks. Seeing is believing.
I wouldn't say it's wrong per se but it doesn't mean you can't work with fresh flour. It's more temperamental for sure.
But you can’t beat the flavour of fresh flour. We did pitas in a sourdough class using expensive commercial flour and flour freshly milled in a Komo. The Taste of the fresh flour blew the commercial flour right out of the water. There was no comparison! That experience is why I bought my Komo mill.
At Farine, M.C. said in her post: http://www.farine-mc.com/2010/01/building-levain-la-gerard-steps-2-3-and.html, " I remember from my classes at SFBI that flour needs to age for about 3 weeks after milling". In reply to a comment, she clarified that it is white bread flour that needs to be aged. Fresh milled is good to go.
I am with Danni. I much prefer the flavor of home milled wheat. So has your niece made any bread for you yet to taste?
BTW, I am not familiar with the book, but understand from this review it is a commonly used textbook, but covers many areas besides bread baking, and bread baking is not a big focus. book review
She hasn't made any bread just yet as we are still trying to figure out the Challenger issue (I posted about it another thread, I think) and whether it will fit in the Breville Air (and if it's recommended).
My whole family likes the flavor. It might be a little yellower than it would be after oxygenating a while. But if you like it you think of that as golden.
Also, to be a little Fresh-Loafy, so what if the fresh flour is slightly more difficult to work with - that’s why we practice baking.
My mill's output goes directly into the KitchenAid mixer bowl on to the top of the starter. That means it ages approximately 0.001 of a second. The other day my three-year-old grandson contemplating a sandwich and well aware of the selection of commercial breads on the counter said, "I want some of Pa's bread." He's now mentioned specifically in my Will. Commercial roller milled flour can be aged because the germ, which contains oils and can become rancid, has been removed. Following all the processing commercial flours have to have the nutrients that milling and processing removed added back to them. No thanks. I'll go with freshly milled flour for flavor and nutrition.