October 16, 2023 - 8:20pm
How do protien levels affect the process?
I posted earlier about my struggles to get good results from Reinhart's whole wheat sandwich bread recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I'm wondering if it's the flour I'm using, which is TAM 105 from Barton Springs Mill. I was reading a little about protein content in The Perfect Loaf (Leo Marizio) and it made me wonder about the protein content of TAM 105. According to their site it's 16.7%. My knowledge about breadmaking is fairly intermediate, but it's my impression that 16.7% is pretty high. So, that leads me to two questions:
- Where does that rank on the scale? Is that merely high or is that really high?
- If it is on the upper end of high, then how would that affect what I should do to develop the dough? Should I add more or less liquid, work the dough more, etc?
Thanks!
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That is a *very* high protein value, especially for home bakers. For example, King Arthur's bread flour says 12.7% on the bag. That high a value (16.7%) would probably also soak up much more water. I read somewhere that a home baker can't develop the gluten enough to take advantage of such high protein values. Whether or not that's really so, I'd try again with a good all-purpose or bread flour, or mix your TAM 105 with some AP flour.
If the high protein content is playing a role here, you should be able to tell: the dough will feel dry with little or no stickiness, and it will get very stiff or bouncy with very little kneading or stretching.
Whole wheat protein contents aren't directly comparable with white flours, and TAM 105 is a whole wheat flour, unless you're buying the 00 version - which still wouldn't be perfectly white, since it's stone ground. Bran has protein, though it doesn't form gluten.
As tpassin says above, if the protein level is the issue, you'll need to increase the hydration to compensate. For a whole wheat bread, I wouldn't replace with white flour, but I would get whatever whole wheat flour you can from the grocery store (I'd recommend King Arthur or Gold Medal) and try it with that to see how it turns out. If it works well, now you know what the dough needs to feel like, and you adjust hydration on the TAM 105 as needed.
You can also sift out some of the bran, soak it in water (possibly hot water) for hours or overnight, and add it back when making the dough or even after a rest/autolyse. This will reduce the undesired effects of the bran, and as a bonus taste better too. You'll need to remember that the soaker will add extra water. If you do try commercial WW, by which I mean roller-milled, which most of them are, the sifting will most likely sift out a lot of large flakes rather than a smaller amount of hard broken bits. You can either leave them out or make a soaker of them.
TomP
Crobran,
Bread flour is considered to be high protein, compared to all purpose flour or cake and pastry flour. That is what Peter Reinhart means when he asks for "high protein flour" in his recipes.
Bread flour has 10-12% protein, 11% on average. Whole wheat bread flour milled from the same wheat will have 0.7-0.9% more protein due to bran and germ proteins, i.e 11-13% protein.
The best bread flour that Canada exports worldwide, for example, has 13.2% percent protein, and it is milled from whole wheat kernels with 14% protein. These are very high numbers. They are so high, that this flour is usually used in blends with weaker, lower protein flours. A 100g sample of that bread flour absorbs about 65g water and produces a loaf with 1 L volume. I used Canadian wheat as the example only because that "manitoba" flour is so world famous for being so extremely high in protein and in excellent gluten quality.
Whole wheat TAM 105 flour has 16.7% protein which is 20-50% higher than whole wheat bread flours have.
Peter Reinhart's whole wheat bread recipe includes 20% of coarsely milled flours and meals from grains that form little to no gluten (rye, barley, oats, soft wheat). Mixed with 80% of TAM 105 flour, they make a blend with only 13.6% hard wheat protein which is still really high, but already within the manageable range . Or you could blend TAM 105 with whole wheat cake and pastry flour, it has only about 6% protein. This will also help you bring that impossibly high protein level down to earth.
How much water it needs or is able to absorb should be determined experimentally. Measure 25g of water in a little bowl and add flour to it little by little with a teaspoon, stirring and rubbing, to obtain a piece of soft dough. Weigh it and you will know how much flour is there. Let's say, it took 31g of flour to absorb 25g water. Then your flour water absorption is 80% which is 25% higher than the strongest bread flour from Canada.
This could be part of my problem. I'm using more of the TAM 105 for this portion of the recipe (the soaker) as well as the other portion. Perhaps if I did try something coarsely milled or another grain it would work out better.
Having said that, I also use all TAM 105 when I make his other whole wheat bread from Whole Grain Breads and it works great there. I wind up using almost exactly the amounts of flour and water called for in the recipe as well. I'm still a little mystified.