September 18, 2023 - 12:48pm
Is Malted Barley Still Being Added To Commercial White Flours?
I just noticed that the ingredients lists for the two white flours I use the most no longer include barley malt. The flours are Gold Medal Unbleached All Purpose and King Arthur Bread flours. Instead, they include "Enzymes". Of course I'm aware that the purpose of using diastatic malts is to add certain enzymes. I wonder if these flour suppliers are getting enzymes from some other source than the traditional malts?
TomP
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just checked the CM website and the Artisan Baker’s Craft Plus flour still lists malted barley as the malting treatment. That is interesting that KA no longer uses barley malt. I wonder about Bob’s Red Mill which is the other one I see most available where I live.
-c
... is just one of many ways to introduce enzymes, like alpha-amylase, into flour.
For instance, in an approved USDA flour specification, one manufacturer is using fungal amylase, a different source of the enzyme:
"Ingredient Statement: Hard wheat flour enriched (niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid) enzyme. No other ingredients, carriers, or additives can be present in the flour.
Enzyme System: 1.90 Grams of Fungal Amylace per 100 pounds of flour Minimum 2.35 Grams of Fungal Amylace per 100 pounds of flour Maximum"
And in the US Code of Federal Regulations, CFR Title 21, part 136 (Bakery products) subpart B , secion 136-110 (bread, rolls, and buns) the requirements for standardized bakery products includes the generic inclusion of "(9) Enzyme active preparations."
in both regular and organic versions.
Why not just contact KA and ask them?
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But on my bag of Bread flour, behold! no malt:
KA_bread_flour_lable.jpg
I guess asking for clarification might be best!
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/bakers-hotline
the label I posted above was from the packaging pdf on their web site. Perhaps their supplier is using fungal or bacterial enzymes. It probably doesn’t matter what source they come from.
It probably doesn’t matter what source they come from.
Perhaps it doesn't, I don't know. My question was about whether suppliers are changing from malt to "enzymes". If yes, we could try to get into the question of whether there's much difference. I imagine that the big suppliers are motivated to have their products to continue to bake the same way despite any changes.
I’m curious, too, It’s a very interesting topic!
Looking at a professional bread and pastry textbook, there is a notation about fungal amylase being “more predictable” than malted enzyme sources because malt has other enzymes that are less predictable than fungal enzymes. That speaks to your consistency hypothesis, which I agree with.
I also wonder about labeling regulations, which I tried looking at but never completed the task. Product labeling and ingredients identification can be fickle and sometimes seems to require specific sources and other times seems to prefer generic.
From what I read there are specific lab testing of flour quality and characteristics, including enzymatic levels, conducted routinely by millers.
I've just sent a request for information to KA about this. I'll post what they say when I hear from them.
Here's what I just got from KA:
A quick and very informative reply from King Arthur. Very impressive (as always with them).
Hi Tom, as a fellow retired engineer I tend to go a bit crazy with research. The past couple days I've been trying to determine a relationship between diastatic malted and fungal alpha-amylase additives. (I have both and haven't noticed a difference, except in the amounts various recipes specify.)
This morning I pulled off the shelf a professional bread baker textbook. In a section about enzymes used in baking, it confirms that some millers have a preference for fungal sources rather than malted because it is more predictable and avoids (a) "other enzymes in malt that are undesireable in certian cases" and (b) avoiding potential bug infestations from the sweetness of malt. The text also states that there is no noticable difference in baking between the two sources "when used properly".
In another thread, though, I was asking about the potential difference in diastatic power between the various sources but that research remains incomplete as of now.
A quick message to the KA hotline might reveal what their millers are actually using. I recently asked a supplier of diastatic malt powder if htey had a spec sheet or informationon the diastatic power of hteir product. So far, only crickets. Hopefully KA will be more responsive.
Brian, I'm hoping to avoid getting sucked into a swamp of malt! In another thread Mariana wrote that malts also contain sugar and proteases. She wrote that you want the protease when very strong flour overdoes the gluten and after cooling the crumb becomes unpleasantly resistant to eating - not something I've experienced yet. Usually I'm trying to keep the protease from degrading my gluten during long ferments.
At this point, I'm a little unclear about how much of what is supplied by the bare flour and by the malt: yeast, LAB, enzymes, proteases, sugars.
To complicate things, apparently it's different for rye flour, which is normally unmalted as supplied.
I just want to bake bread and trying to not fall into the same vat of malt!