Home-ground flour - First attempt at making bread = not good!

[Sage0925]

I feel you pain, dear...I've made my share of bricks as well.

[bridgierapa]

Hello! Responding to the OP....


1. Wheat is measured by 'hardness' of kernel, which is a measure of protein content. The higher the protein content, the fewer the starch granules and so the more vitreous & translucent the endosperm. Hard wheat grains break up into large chunks of protein with relatively olittle free starch sot hey form a strong glueten when the flour is mixed with water. Beware though: durum wheat is too hard for bread & is used for really stiff doughs necessary for dried pastas.

One can mix the flours but there is also a way to get the best out of whatever flour you possess. Kneading stretches protein chains, which are tangled like an afro, 'combing' them out long, where they relock their bonds. You can tell when dough is well kneaded because it is reaching the end of its ability to stretch. Both stretchy and elastic.

WRT water you need a dough that has enough water in it to allow elasticity but not so much that won't hold its form and put where it is pushed.

As to flour itself - milling is basically a process of separating the endosperm from bran & germ and then grinding down the endosperm into flour sized particles. Bran & Germ are nutritionally beneficial but contain lipids so lower the shelf life of flour substantially, and dilute the gluten in dough. They also shear into the gas cells of raised breads, breaking those cells.

Aging of the flour is also important - well, ... actually yes it is. If you let flour sit one or two months it affects the bonding characteristics of the gluten proteins allowing them to form stronger, more elastic doughs. Commercially it's aged using Potassium Bromate or iodate or they can use chorine dioxide.

Okay you soooo wanted to know that.... sorry! But hey it's worth knowing.

Thing is, Kneading not only pulls out the gluten chains, it also incorporates air bubbles. Now, when yeast grows it creates co2 but that will not go into lovely even little bubbles in the bread unless those bubbles are already there. Kneading puts them in there.

Kneading: I do this for over ten minutes. (NZ flour has notoriously low gluten contents and longer kneading times helps this.) You can overknead, ie you knead, it gets harder, and harder, and harder - and then bang you can break the protein chains and be left with a goo.

However what I think is you've used flour too fresh to bake bread, you've left in too much undermining bran & germ - and possibly you've underkneaded although you already had a lot going against you so couldn't say. It has risen, but the dough was not strong enough to 'hold' the gas in little pockets, it's seeped through creating larger bubbles and they've popped.

Here's the bread recipe I usually use. I would usually go half and half white & whole flour.

400 ml / 13 fl oz cold water
200 ml / 6 1/2 fl oz boiling water
2 tbsp (30 g) surebake, (or 2 tbsp (35g) compressed yeast w/1/4 tsp ascorbic acid, or 2dssp (20g) dried yeast 2/ 1/4tsp ascorbic acid $ 1/2 tsp sugar.)
7 1/2c (950g - 2lb 2 oz) flour.
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp butter.

Pour water into measuring jug to make luke-warm water. Stir in yeast and leave while preparing dry ingredients.

Measure flour, salt, sugar into bowl. Rub in butter. Pour yeast mix into dry ingreds, mix thoroughly.

Knead for ten minutes. It is important to knead for this length of time.

Return to warm & greased bowl, turn over to grease top, cover with damp teatowel or gladwrap and leave in a warm place for about 15 mins.

Cut dough in half and flatten each piece into square. Roll up Place in warmed & greased tins till doubled in bulk. (can be 1/2 - 1 hr depending on warmth & humidity.)

Preheat oven to 220c, (430F) Bake 10 mins 220c (430F), then down to 180c (350F)for 30 - 35 mins.

Remove from oven, glaze top with butter if desired, turn onto rack. If the bread sticks to the tin, leave for five minutes to soften before turning out.

[shireart]

Originally Posted by cheftothestars

1/ Possibly youre not activating the yeast enough
2/ when proving the dough how long are you allowing and how are you proving it?
3/ Are you kneading the dough enough to develop the gluten?


http://www.recipezaar.com/Basic-Whole-Wheat-Bread-25082

This recipe looks pretty good

Thanks for this info Chief - that's definitely a good looking recipie - I will be certain to give it a try on my next attempt.

the shortest proving time I have used so far is about 3 hours, the longest was overnight - still with only minimal rising.
Kneading the dough - I usually take a max of about 6-10 minutes - do you think longer will help?


.

[shireart]

Originally Posted by MikeK

That's a good wheat to make bread with alright. You might hit your local market for wheat gluten. It's in the baking section. It really helps pure wheat breads. You can cheat and add some white flour to the whole wheat also. That's what most bakeries do, since it's hard to bake with 100% whole wheat.

Thanks for the comment on the wheat. I've been looking for wheat gluten locally - the only thing I can find is wheat gluten for fish bait! not sure that would be suitable for human consumption.
I have found it in a specialist catalogue, but there is a minimum order and it works out as ridiculously expensive. I will keep looking though.

In the meanwhile, I'll start adding white flour, although it is cheating a bit, because grain lasts for 20+ years, bags of white flour last only months, so in a real SHTF situation, this option would not be available to me after a year.
Unless i've got it completely wrong?

.

[shireart]

Originally Posted by bridgierapa

Hello! Responding to the OP....


1. Wheat is measured by 'hardness' of kernel, which is a measure of protein content. The higher the protein content, the fewer the starch granules and so the more vitreous & translucent the endosperm. Hard wheat grains break up into large chunks of protein with relatively olittle free starch sot hey form a strong glueten when the flour is mixed with water. Beware though: durum wheat is too hard for bread & is used for really stiff doughs necessary for dried pastas.

One can mix the flours but there is also a way to get the best out of whatever flour you possess. Kneading stretches protein chains, which are tangled like an afro, 'combing' them out long, where they relock their bonds. You can tell when dough is well kneaded because it is reaching the end of its ability to stretch. Both stretchy and elastic.

WRT water you need a dough that has enough water in it to allow elasticity but not so much that won't hold its form and put where it is pushed.

As to flour itself - milling is basically a process of separating the endosperm from bran & germ and then grinding down the endosperm into flour sized particles. Bran & Germ are nutritionally beneficial but contain lipids so lower the shelf life of flour substantially, and dilute the gluten in dough. They also shear into the gas cells of raised breads, breaking those cells.

Aging of the flour is also important - well, ... actually yes it is. If you let flour sit one or two months it affects the bonding characteristics of the gluten proteins allowing them to form stronger, more elastic doughs. Commercially it's aged using Potassium Bromate or iodate or they can use chorine dioxide.

Okay you soooo wanted to know that.... sorry! But hey it's worth knowing.

Thing is, Kneading not only pulls out the gluten chains, it also incorporates air bubbles. Now, when yeast grows it creates co2 but that will not go into lovely even little bubbles in the bread unless those bubbles are already there. Kneading puts them in there.

Kneading: I do this for over ten minutes. (NZ flour has notoriously low gluten contents and longer kneading times helps this.) You can overknead, ie you knead, it gets harder, and harder, and harder - and then bang you can break the protein chains and be left with a goo.

However what I think is you've used flour too fresh to bake bread, you've left in too much undermining bran & germ - and possibly you've underkneaded although you already had a lot going against you so couldn't say. It has risen, but the dough was not strong enough to 'hold' the gas in little pockets, it's seeped through creating larger bubbles and they've popped.

Here's the bread recipe I usually use. I would usually go half and half white & whole flour.

400 ml / 13 fl oz cold water
200 ml / 6 1/2 fl oz boiling water
2 tbsp (30 g) surebake, (or 2 tbsp (35g) compressed yeast w/1/4 tsp ascorbic acid, or 2dssp (20g) dried yeast 2/ 1/4tsp ascorbic acid $ 1/2 tsp sugar.)
7 1/2c (950g - 2lb 2 oz) flour.
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp butter.

Pour water into measuring jug to make luke-warm water. Stir in yeast and leave while preparing dry ingredients.

Measure flour, salt, sugar into bowl. Rub in butter. Pour yeast mix into dry ingreds, mix thoroughly.

Knead for ten minutes. It is important to knead for this length of time.

Return to warm & greased bowl, turn over to grease top, cover with damp teatowel or gladwrap and leave in a warm place for about 15 mins.

Cut dough in half and flatten each piece into square. Roll up Place in warmed & greased tins till doubled in bulk. (can be 1/2 - 1 hr depending on warmth & humidity.)

Preheat oven to 220c, (430F) Bake 10 mins 220c (430F), then down to 180c (350F)for 30 - 35 mins.

Remove from oven, glaze top with butter if desired, turn onto rack. If the bread sticks to the tin, leave for five minutes to soften before turning out.

Excellent information there - thanks so much for taking the time to write such a detailed response.
With all this feedback, I am slowly starting to get a bigger and better picture of the things I should and shouldn't do in order to have success in my survival breakmaking

Particularly interesting idea about turning the oven down after 10 mins - I will definitely try incorporate this into my experiments.

.

[ForestBeekeeper]

I make sourdough bread.

It takes some getting used to. Sometimes our house is not warm enough to get the yeast to rise. It just takes experimenting.

Good luck !

[elgin]

I've got a loaf in the bread machine as this is being typed.

I mill my own hard red wheat, but my bread recipe uses 1/2 whole wheat flour and 1/2 unbleached white flour. Two things to keep in mind when making bread: 1) measure everything exactly, 2) warm the milk (I use the microwave).

Here is my recipe:

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1 1/2 tablespoon dried milk powder
1 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar

2 tablespoon butter (or margarine, or oil)
1 1/2 tablespoon honey
1 cup, 1 tablespoon warm milk

1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon machine yeast

Salt & yeast go into the machine last, make a small hole in the flour for the yeast, then put salt off to the side so that they don't mix while still concentrated.

set the bread machine on the whole wheat setting.

100 percent whole wheat is rather harsh on a body not used to it. I have many hundreds of pounds of wheat in storage, but only 40 or 50 pounds of unbleached flour (I rotate it). In a survival situation, as the white flour starts to run out, I will increase the percentage of whole wheat in my recipe toward 100 percent whole wheat.

BTW, I plan to continue using my electric mill post SHTF. It is a priority use for my battery bank/inverter.

My long term survival plans rely heavily on wheat. My other long-term food storage items are just supplements to the wheat. I believe that wheat is the staff of life. My mill is a key item of my preps.

elgin

[|eric|]

correct me if im wrong but diffrence between white and whole flour is the shell of the grain is pre-grind removed in the white flour so as long as you store the grain
white flour will be available ...

and yes i did make an attempt at bread wen i was younger (about 15 years a go ) and yes it turned brick :P muffins are so simpler ...

[go player]

Since Bridgie likes Alphas so much

I thought I'd chime in with my AlphaBread Real MAN'S recipe... BWAHAHAHAHAHAH

Seriously though homemade breads are NOT, SHOULD not be so soft and limp like Wonder Bread. These breads are mostly air and have so much corn syrup and gluten in them you can't make a decent sandwich out of them!!!

Just falls apart on ya.

Basically I aim to make the densest, heartiest bread I can make. Instead of hamburger buns I use this bread.

I typically use rice flour and or rye. I eat lots of steakburgers/hamburgers so it has to stand up to A1 steak sauce.

Basically all you have to do to make this dense bread is not use as much sugar or use less yeast.

Throw in bread machine along with rosemary, blackpepper, garlic.

What should come out of the bread machine is a hard, slightly gummy, dense loaf with lots of flavor.


Heres what I make my pitas out of... I love hamburger pita pockets with rice bread. Just add blue cheese, onions, A1, shredded lettuce, tomato and pickle.

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=8533.0

I just ignore the adding of the veggies into the recipe. Comes out nicely.

Go Player
-

[cranky1950]

I finally got around to using my new grindstones on hard red wheat. My first loaf of 100% whole wheat came out pretty good. The flour was much better than just using the metal burrs that came with the grinder. I did have to run the flour through the grinder twice though.

I used this recipe but was too lazy to bake the bread in the oven and just left it in the bread machine.

Serves/Makes: 1 loaf | Difficulty Level: 3 | Ready In: 2-5 hrs

Ingredients:
2 1/2 teaspoons dry instant yeast
1 1/3 cup water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey, molasses, or maple syrup
3 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour (more if needed)
1/4 cup nonfat dried milk
1 1/4 teaspoon salt


Directions:
Place all ingredients in the container of your bread machine, or into the bowl of a heavy duty mix master.

For bread machine follow the instructions for making dough.

For mix master, mix with a spoon until dough comes away from the sides of the bowl. Now using the dough hooks knead dough for 6 to 8 minutes or until it becomes smooth and supple. Place dough into a lightly greased bowl, cover and place in a warm place rises and becomes puffy about 60 minutes. Dough may not double in size this is ok.

Transfer dough to a lightly oiled surface and shape into a log about 8 1/2 inches long. Place log into a bread pan, cover loosely with lightly greased plastic wrap and allow bread to rise for 1 hour or until crowned about 1 inch above edge of pan.

Bake bread in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes, or it sounds hollow when thumped on bottom of loaf.

Recipe Location: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/rec...ead79644.shtml