Whole Wheat experiments

[texmex]

Panhandle Milling White Whole Wheat came into my life, and it turns out my friend has several more bags of this in her freezer which will be headed to my own freezer this week. I already have 10 lbs of it to play with and another 30 or more lbs available. Have been reading a lot about SD acidity, the effects of bran in SD and in doughs, CF vs RT, plus tons of other stuff about best methods for successful whole wheat bakes. Thanks to all who posted their methods here!
I decided to sift to separate the bran, then I sifted the bran in a larger screen in order to take the largest particles away to feed my SD. I have done this sifting with red whole wheat, so maybe the white whole wheat doesn't need it...but it was already done, so I'm going with it. In what direction? Who knows?
  Having just revived my MOBY SD the initial few feedings is the only time I really discard, to get the SD into shape for baking.  Instead of tossing the 2nd discard I fed it with the larger sifted bran. The 2 jars have been in the fridge overnite, and I plan to make a small bread loaf today with the bulk of the bran starter, then continue to maintain a bran starter alongside the default sweet MOBY.
Mainly, I want to watch fermentation with this bran starter, then I will attempt a whole wheat pizza crust if I can get decent results with a bread.
The bulk of the MOBY needs to be discarded in the initial feedings, but this time it all went into the new jar with bran and I just mixed it up with enough water to have a similar consistentcy as my main starter.  The 5 grams or so of my main MOBY was fed 40g each water/ flour.  Here they are after 18 hour fridge rest.  Looks promising.
As usual, I have no idea what I'm doing. I was thinking of putting salt into the starter with the bran to inhibit quickening of the acidity, but I may just add salt into the bread soaker when I get my bread formula figured out.   Yeah, I know I have changed protein content of the main flour by sifting it, but there's a chance it will bump back up with a healthy dollop of this starter. Really, what do I know? Hahaha.

[TXCraig1]

Adding even a tiny bit of salt (0.1%) can be helpful to slow enzymatic activity if needed, however adding salt can actually increase sourness. Most anything that makes life harder for the LAB makes them get more sour (shifts acid production from lactic to acetic).

[texmex]

Thanks, Craig. I will revisit this chapter in my reading. Oops, guess I should have bookmarked some stuff.
I read something somewhere about salt and I do not recall it mentioning adding sourness, but my mind often sifts the wheat away, rather than the chaff. 

[TXCraig1]

When I was working on the reverse UPN formula, I found that adding a tiny bit of salt to the preferment helped the flavor and aroma.

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=10237.0

This may be the link you were looking for: https://web.archive.org/web/20050829015510/www.cafemeetingplace.com/archives/food4_dec2004.htm

[texmex]

When I was working on the reverse UPN formula, I found that adding a tiny bit of salt to the preferment helped the flavor and aroma.

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=10237.0

This may be the link you were looking for: https://web.archive.org/web/20050829015510/www.cafemeetingplace.com/archives/food4_dec2004.htm

Thanks I have now bookmarked both of those!
See, I forgot about your UPN dough, but posted there about the valuable info...except didn't bookmark it then. DUH.. I swear I need better organizing skills.  The other link is unfamiliar territory, but invaluable. 
I did remember to write down my dough formula for this bread experiment, and I set the small container of salt on top of my SD jar so I won't forget to add it in the final mix. 
The flour/water mixture is resting now. I guess I will give it 2 hours, and see what's what.... My Bran SD is also out of the fridge, so I expect it to be much more robust in the coming hours. May need the oven light, we'll see.
One might ask why I am suddenly keen on WWW doughs? I'm not, but It's fun to try new things, especially when the flour is free.

[quietdesperation]

hi reesa, you've probably seen this:
https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-flour-for-sourdough-starters-an-investigation

[texmex]

Jeff, thanks.
Hadn't seen that one. Very informative.  It's filled with some info I had read elsewhere, and I have already keyed in on the part about bran razor blades mentioned in many articles. 
I ended up mixing all the larger bran I had sifted out with some AP and have been feeding my starters with that, for now. I put the smaller bran back into the bulk of the white whole wheat I had sifted (I have used almost 5 lbs making bread).
I may change this to keeping one heavy bran starter for bread and the other without for pizza. I do like this WWW flavor very much compared to red whole wheat.
My bread adventures have been interesting since the fermentation times are much longer and I am averse to overnite fridge rests for now since I want to know what timeframe to expect in my house. Now that I have a better handle on ww delayed fermentation, I may start overnite RT, and then it will become another problem when the worm turns and it's hotter than Hades here and will be forced to make room in the fridge. Probably next week. 


I am very glad to have this white whole wheat to play with. I can have some whole wheat without it tasting so bran-like, but I am not sure if I want a straight up whole wheat pizza.  The flavors of thin tomato based sauce don't meld ideally with bran for me, and I don't have a specific sauce recipe,  so I am a bit torn on a direction to test beyond the breads. 
I am using blends of AP, Bread flour and www in all of my recent bread experiments. I have been keen on making some pan pizzas, with more robust sauce or even straight up well- drained diced canned tomato, and baked in home oven.  Weather has not been kind on days I've planned for my pizza, and I don't want to crank on the Blackstone in a wind or sleet storm.  I prefer not to use my home oven for regular pizzas because it takes me into a style of pie that is more N.Y. like, which is not my forte. It may be time for a SD Sicilian or Pala. I definitely enjoy working wih high hydration as it seems so impossible yet thrills me every time, win or lose..

[quietdesperation]

looking forward to seeing the results of your experiments!

[texmex]

Today I decided to make a sourdough Teglia style dough. Pinsa, Romana, Pala ...whatever. Not Tonda, which I recall means ROUND. 


I took 200 grams of SD that was fed at 100% hydro with large bran and AP.
mixed in 400g of water and 400g of white whole wheat and let it sit for 1 hr.
Then I added 100 g of AP (because I didn't want to dig another bag of www from my freezer and the AP was sitting there on my counter) and 14g salt, and let it rest 15 minutes.
Split the dough, and for dough 2 added 4 g molasses and 30 g olive oil to that half. I purposely used a lot of oil to see what might happen, and the molasses was just to alter flavor. (dough was more slack as expected).
I did 5 s&f over 1 hour 30 minutes (the oil and molasses for dough 2 was fully incorporated by this time).  After 5 hours RT I removed 120 g from each dough and placed in small containers until doubled. The oil dough was not as well risen.
The remainder of the dough went into the fridge and I will bake them on my oven stone in the morning. 
I learned that my choice of cooking method for the small samples was okay, and that it could probably handle 200g doughs which is ideal for a serving which will be exceptional for this unusual method.
The oil and molasses dough tasted of wheat and was flatter but more tender, the plain dough tasted of bread. We both liked dough 1 better as it had a better rise and was not at all wheaty.

more later... I gotta eat some stuffed jalapeno and make tacos.


So, how did I bake the dough?

Oster 7 minute grill. My Auntie gave this to me, and all I could think about was baking bread in it.  I turned it on and checked the temp when it lit up and indicated "ready to cook". 484° f. well, alright! Hubby saw my plan, and said, "what about pop tarts?" Oh yes, dear hubby...great idea, or I will create a facsimile thereof.

It isn't practical, but it is fun for single servings. This stupid machine has no temp variation dial, can only be timed for 7 minutes, and I do not care. It worked at 14 minutes. I will be trying a stuffed version soon.

[texmex]

Round 2.


I decided to try dough 2 with oil/molasses  in the electric grill again. I split the remaining (400g or so) dough in 2, stretched and filled them with sliced apple, raisins, sprinkled with coconut sugar and my magic cookie dust (with clove, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and powdered brown sugar). Cooked them both for 14 minutes in the grill.  Hell if that outer texture wasn't the texture of pastry dough!  Don't get me wrong...I am not aiming to make whole wheat pastry doughs, but I could not help myself from testing this countertop method further, and this is tasty with the morning coffee.

I had some sweet potatoes to bake so I baked the remaining dough (sd, flour, water, salt) in the oven at 550 on my stone in home oven. The sweet potatos were baking on one stone placed directly above my long stone which I launched this dough on. It was in there 11 minutes. I noticed that doing the gentle pinsa pressing method with a little olive oil on top just flattened the dough considerably, and the main bubbles just squished away... it seemed it would be a very flat dough after baking.
Boy, was I wrong!  I have not cut it yet, but will post pics of that when I get around to it.
https://fgbc.dk/2bv8

[texmex]

I enjoy this simple pala flat bread very much.  It's very easy to eat, and has a lovely light sponge texture.
Still can't see a reason to dirty the Kitchen Aid, so I am still working it all by hand.
I did remark to hubby that this may well have been the first verifiable beginning to end experiment I have ever done which wasn't altered or jumbled or mixed up  along the way, so it should be repeatable. 

I will now focus on this www style with higher hydration (I doubt 90% will be too high, so that's the plan), will use only white whole wheat flour in the sd feeding as well as for the dough, and will use some toppings next time. I have been hoping for better weather so I can bake in the Blackstone. Come on spring, stop blowing all this damn wind.

As far as the electric grill bake goes, I am keen to work on a pastry dough formula, (unrelated to www). There won't be much more need for use of that contraption here, but I am very glad I tried it. I feel a strong need to revisit the mini detroits made in the babycakes machine.

[texmex]

Today I have 1300 grams of 100% hydro WWW SD dough to play with. It fermented at RT for some hours, but I folded it none during that time, then I added the salt and folded one full turn before balling, putting it in the fridge. This morning I folded it several times to stress point and stuck it back in the fridge for now.  I need to prepare the other ingredients for some later bakes 600 g will be split into two 8×8 pans..might be too much for thickness factor of Detroit style? Maybe I will use 275g per pan, then I can make same babycakes Detroit for fun. The remaining dough will spend more days in C.F. for some topped pala pizza, or OLD DOUGH Detroit bakes on weekend. We shall see what the weather brings. I really want this dough in the Blackstone!

[GumbaWill]

[quote author=TXCraig1 link=topic=73265.msg699885#msg699885 date=16456288 Anything that makes life harder for the LAB makes them get more sour (shifts acid production from lactic to acetic).


The same can be said for us humans. A hard life equals grumpy! Smile. Me, personally I go with the flow. Very chill/laid back. However, I digress. Carry on.