November,
Thanks for the additional information.
I believe you are correct on the molasses. The molasses I have on hand is the Grandma's brand of unsulphered molasses. There is no volume to weight conversion given on the label, and I could not find it at the grandmasmolasses.com website. I sometimes weigh ingredients on either my regular scale or a special scale I use to weigh small amounts of ingredients but I doubt that I did that with the molasses because I know that I can't accurately measure out a teaspoon of molasses using a standard measuring teaspoon and get it all out without some of it sticking to the teaspoon. So, I must have gotten 9 grams per teaspoon on the internet somewhere.
Today while I was in the supermarket, I checked out the Brer Rabbit brands of molasses and the bottles give 7 grams per teaspoon. That would make one teaspoon weigh 0.24691 ounces, or about the same as honey and nondiastatic liquid barley malt. While I was doing my research on this matter today, I saw that 17.6% of honey is water and 28% of molasses is water. I am not a big user of either honey or molasses but when I have used honey I have adjusted the water in the dough formula I am using. For single dough ball weights the differences are usually quite small and not worth worrying about since the dough will be tweaked in most cases with more or less flour and water to get the dough to the proper condition.
I was interested in your comments about the amount of sucrose in honey versus molasses. However, my recollection from reading about yeast performance at the theartisan.net website is that the fructose is readily fermented by yeast, both initially and later, with the bulk of the fermentiscible sugars coming from amylase extraction of sugars from the starch which represents the bulk of the flour (about 70%). I have copied and pasted below for your reading pleasure an excerpt from the theartisan.net article on yeast performance:
Sugar Transformations (Rosada)
Simple sugars: The main simple sugars, glucose and fructose, represent about 0.5% of the flour. Yeast can directly assimilate them by penetration of the cell membrane. Simple sugars are transformed into alcohol and carbon dioxide by zymase, an enzyme naturally present in yeast cells. Because of this easy absorption, these sugars are the first ones used in the fermentation process. Their consumption takes place during the first 30 minutes or so at the beginning of the fermentation process.
Complex sugars: The two main types naturally present in flour, saccharose and maltose, represent approximately 1% of the flour. Because of their complex composition, these sugars will be used later on in the fermentation process. The lapse of approximately 30 minutes at the beginning of the fermentation period is necessary to achieve their enzymatic transformation into simple sugars. The enzymes involved are saccharase, which transforms saccharose into glucose and fructose, and maltase, which transforms maltose into glucose.
Very Complex sugars: The main very complex sugar is starch, which represents about 70% of the flour content. Two types of starch are found in flour: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose is degraded by the enzyme beta amylase into maltose, and in turn the maltose will be degraded into glucose by the maltase enzyme. Amylopectin is degraded by the alpha amylase enzyme into dextrin, after which the dextrin is degraded by the beta amylase into maltose. This maltose will them be degraded by the maltase into glucose.
The simple sugar, glucose, obtained during these transformations is used by the yeast to generate carbon dioxide and alcohol. During the fermentation process, most of the starches used are the ones damaged during the milling process. Because the particles are damaged, they can easily absorb water during the dough making process. This water contact triggers the enzymatic activity. A non-damaged particle of starch will only retain water at its periphery and not inside the particle itself.
Peter
