can to much clorine in tap water bleach out unbleached flour?

[thezaman]

 i am having major issues with my dough!! it is not rising much and not browning. i use king arthur special bread 13/ 13.3 gluten. the flour when mixed usually has a yellow appearance to it, it is stark white. i have used a different batch of yeast, taken out my pre ferment, the same results. i wondered whether the city has done anything different to the water they said the chlorine is higher this time of the year. they recommended trying my filtered water that is used for ice coffee,soft drinks. i made today's dough out of it will test results. i want to know if the white appearance could be caused by to much chlorine.

[The Dough Doctor]

Actually, no. When commercial bread is made with unbleached flour, the flour has that creamy color, but the color cannot be seen in the dough. Fast forward to the finished bread and you can see that same creamy color in the crumb that you saw in the flour. Due the the huge variation and inconsistency in the crumb structure of a baked pizza crust it is all but impossible to see the creamy color unless you actually do a side by side comparison of two different crusts, one made with bleached, and the other made with unbleached flour, then you can see an overall, slightly creamy or yellow color in the crumb of the crust made with the unbleached flour. However, when chlorine, or a chlorine like compound is added to the water, it lowers the water pH, making it more acid, which is not good for plumbing fixtures, so the municipality buffers the water back to close to 7.0 (neutral), but in many cases they actually get the water too high in pH (slightly alkaline), and this is what has such an adverse effect upon yeast activity (yeast is an acid loving organism). I know this because this is what our problem is here in Manhattan, Kansas. How do you correct for this, simple, just add a small amount of vinegar, or cream of tartar to your doughs to correct for the high pH of the water. You can also check your water pH by using some litmus paper strips available from any drug store. Also, remember not to mix the yeast with the salt, and/or sugar as they do not play well together.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[pizzaboyfan]

How about the effect of  chlorine/chloramines on killing the yeast cells ?

[thezaman]

 thank you for your response. what if anything would whiten a batch of dough? this problem surfaced for me at the same time last year .i sent all of my flour back to my supplier and waited for a new bag code. this time they gave me the number to other local users to call and they are happy with the flour.
  how much vinegar would be used in 25 pounds of flour with 65 % hydration?? i also use  an on going mix of old dough , flour, and water could that effect the final product?thank for your help,larry

[Pete-zza]

Larry,

Salt acts as an antioxidant so if you add it at the end of the kneading process, and/or you use a long, high-speed knead, that can cause the dough to look more white. French bakers used to do this and it irritated Professor Calvel no end.

Peter

[TXCraig1]

Also, remember not to mix the yeast with the salt, and/or sugar as they do not play well together.

Tom, what do you mean by this? I almost always start with the water, dissolve the salt (2.8%-3.0% of the flour weight) in the water, and then mix in my sourdough culture (typically 1.5%-2.0% of the flour weight). It seems to work just fine. I don't leave the culture alone in the saltwater for a long time, the flour follows right after.

Also, what is the concern of mixing yeast with sugar?

Craig

[thezaman]

 i add salt right at the beginning of the process. i just baked off 30 pizzas for three different orders, i was not proud of any of them. something is wrong and i am stumped. today i am using spring water to see if it helps.
  maybe it is the flour or how it is being stored .last time king arthur checked the analysis of the flour i returned and it was as spect as ADM reported.

[thezaman]

 dough from two different bag codes. same product

[The Dough Doctor]

Craig;
Both salt and sugar can/will irreparably harm the yeast is allowed to remain in direct contact with it for any length of time. Both the salt and sugar will plasmalize the yeast by drawing the plasma material out of the yeast cells. To see this first hand, just take some fresh yeast (cake yeast) and put it into a container with some salt or sugar, the salt or sugar will begin to absorb moisture from the yeast, thus damaging it. True, it does take some time for this to happen, and if you are careful to not let the salt/sugar yeast mixture set for any period of time, little if any real damage will be done, but everyone isn't so diligent, that's why we always say not to allow the salt and/or yeast to come into direct contact with each other.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[The Dough Doctor]

I've never seen "potable" water with a chlorine level so high so as to kill the yeast.
While some municipal water supplies might reek of chlorine, there is actually very little chlorine in the water. Chlorine is a recognized carcinogen and as such it is regulated in drinking water supplies to I believe 100 parts per billion residual chlorine. Like I said in my previous post, I think the pH of the water will have a much more dramatic effect upon yeast performance than the chlorine content.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[Pete-zza]

Tom, what do you mean by this? I almost always start with the water, dissolve the salt (2.8%-3.0% of the flour weight) in the water, and then mix in my sourdough culture (typically 1.5%-2.0% of the flour weight). It seems to work just fine. I don't leave the culture alone in the saltwater for a long time, the flour follows right after.

Also, what is the concern of mixing yeast with sugar?

Craig

Craig,

What you have been doing with the salt is what Marco (pizzanapoletana) advises, as he points out at Reply 4 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1085.msg9695.html#msg9695.

Tom's advice is mirrored elsewhere in professional circles. See, for example, Reply 8 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1085.msg9702/topicseen.html#msg9702. Salt and yeast, as well as sugar, are often combined in "goody bags" or pre-mixes, without incident. The problem is when you let salt and sugar "steep" in a liquid with yeast, as during prehydration.

Peter

[thezaman]

 This is a update on my dough issues . I received a bad batch of flour.  as we were mixing today one of the bags had water stains and hard caked flour in it . I saved the flour and bag called my supplier and asked them to pic up all of my flour. Unfortunately I have to get through tonight serving a poor quality product. If this is what you get when you pay premium for your flour . I'll look elsewhere .  

[thezaman]

today i was able to use a replacement flour, arrizio from sysco foods. the difference in the finished product is dramatic. before i threw all of the questionable dough away i made a pizza .