Double Hydration
Elsewhere on this site is an article highlighting the bakery (<a href=”http://www.straightgrade.com/articles/6”>Red Hen Baking Company's Baguette</a>) and in it we cover some of the techniques used by a small wholesale bakery in rural in Vermont. They make fantastic, if not entirely traditional, organic hearth breads which they distribute across a wide swath of central Vermont. From that article:
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Their production also employs some interesting techniques that, while not un…
Posted on: 2008-09-22 05:35:50
Baker's Percent
Perhaps this subject of baker's percent has been written about so much that not one more ounce of ink needs to be spilled on the subject. But perhaps not. You still go into so many bakeries where the formulas are written out based on 'gallons of water' or there's a notebook somewhere near the mixer where someone has, through trial and error, written down all of the relevant batch sizes, but with no way to scale them up or down.
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One of the greatest things you can do for yourself is learn…
Posted on: 2008-09-10 08:34:25
Potassium Bromate
Potasium bromate (KBr03) is a flour “improver” that strengthens dough and allows for greater oven spring and higher rising in the oven. Potassium bromate, commonly referred to as simply 'bromate' is a slow-acting oxidizer which contributes its functionality throughout the mixing, fermentation and proofing stages of the bake with important residual action during the earlier stages of baking. Azodicarbonamide (ADA), potassium and calcium iodate, and calcium peroxide are 'rapid'-acting oxidizers, w…
Posted on: 2008-01-24 05:30:17
Baguette: Shaping
It would appear that the art of shaping a baguette is beginning to fade. With the pressures on bakery owners to increase volume and decrease labor costs much equipment is being brought into the bakery with these goals in mind. A baguette, even a well made one, is often one of the cheaper items in a bakery's list of offerings, and often it commands the highest volume in a typical retail/wholesale bakery. Given these factors it is quite common for even an 'artisan'-style bakery to bring in equip…
Posted on: 2007-10-26 15:48:29
Protein: 'Micro Variation'
Millers and bakers are aware that wheat, being a naturally produced raw material, exhibits variation in
its protein content. This is of significant importance for millers who are trying to meet the demands of
their bakery customers by delivering them a consistent product with little variation in terms of its
overall baking performance. Bakers, also with customers whose expectations are for a consistent
product, are looking for a flour that varies little in terms of its overall mixing pe…
Posted on: 2007-09-10 20:10:27
Emmer: An Ancient Wheat
With this article we begin the second installment of our series on 'ancient wheats'. In this series we are examining einkorn, emmer, spelt, and common wheat: all members of the Triticum genus. With the domestication of these grains our human ancestors, beginning during the Neolithic Period (approx 8000BC), began moving from a predominantly nomadic hunter-gather existence to a more settled lifestyle. Before we continue with our review of the 'ancient' wheats perhaps an overview of the grains we'…
Posted on: 2007-07-13 12:03:20
Starch Damage
In converting wheat into flour through the milling process starch granules are damaged through the pressure and shear forces generated as the kernels are reduced in the roller milling process (Morgan, 1995). The amount of damage varies with severity of the milling process (typically indicated by the roll gap used in the gradual reduction system and the differential of the rolls) and the hardness of the wheat (Lin, 1996). In general, hard wheats have around 6-8% starch damage and soft wheats ar…
Posted on: 2007-07-13 11:35:22
Amylase & Yeast Metabolism
In cereal grains the principle carbohydrate is starch (70% the total kernel weight at 14% moisture basis). These starch granules are composed of long linear (amylose) and branched (amylopectin) polysaccharide chains. If you can visualize many single sugar units (glucose) linked together in either a long line or in a many branched tree-like structure you can get a good visual picture of what these structures look like. In the previous articles on fermentation we have seen that yeast is limited…
Posted on: 2007-06-15 08:59:00
Ancient Grain: Einkorn
The first of the 'ancient grains' that we will be covering is einkorn (Triticum monococcum). Einkorn meaning “one grain” in German, is one of the earliest predecessors of today's modern wheats. It was first domesticated from wild stock (Triticum boeoticum)during the Stone Age, 10 - 12 thousand years ago, in what is today, Turkey. Einkorn is a 'diploid, hulled wheat'. By diploid we mean that its genome contains two sets of chromosomes (labeled A(m) in this case). As a point of reference human c…
Posted on: 2007-05-05 17:56:00
The Life Cycle of Yeast and the Biochemistry of Fermentation
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<span style=”font-weight:bold;”>C6H12O6 <span style=”font-size:16px;”>→</span> 2C2H5OH + 2CO2 + energy + acid</span>
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There, again is the basic equation that defines the fermentative process. In most fermenting systems there are two (desired) principle organisms involved: yeast and lactic acid bacteria. As stated earlier, fermentation is the process whereby these organisms consume a food source (simple sugars) to produce the necessary energy to support them…
Posted on: 2007-04-30 19:34:20
Fermentation: Introduction and History
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<span style=”font-weight:bold;”>C6H12O6 <span style=”font-size:16px;”>→ </span>2C2H5OH + 2CO2 + energy + acid</span>
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<br />It has been suggested that fermentation is, perhaps, the oldest known form of commercial food processing. Certainly, with the introduction of agriculture, people pounded grains to yield a more palatable food substance but, with the “discovery” of fermentation a new form of commercial trade was introduced and with it a whole new ar…
Posted on: 2007-04-30 19:30:28
Moisture, Protein & Ash
<br>We are going to look at these parameters together because they tend to be
very common indicators of general flour quality but give only a little indication
of how the flour is going to perform throughout the bake. They are great
numbers to indicate whether you are getting the flour you think you need and
can serve as a first point of reference if you think there are quality issues
concerning your flour.
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<p style=”font-weight:bold;”>Moisture</p>
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On an ana…
Posted on: 2007-04-30 18:24:44
Falling Number
In this article we will look at the method used to determine enzymatic activity
as determined by the Falling Number Apparatus.
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<br>The Falling Number method was first described by Hagberg and Perten in
the early 1960's for the purpose of providing a rapid means of determining the
extent of sprout damage in wheat or rye (Doty, 1980). It has found widespread
acceptance because of its rapid analysis time, simple operation, and high
degree of reproducibility (Pyler, 1986). Sp…
Posted on: 2007-04-30 18:16:41
Farinograph
Mixing is arguably the most critical process in bread production. As a result, much research has been conducted to investigate the parameters that lead to an optimally developed dough that will result in a high quality bread product that satisfies not only processing requirements but satisfies customer expectations. The study of dough development and formation includes investigation of a dough's rheological properties. Rheology is the study of how materials deform, flow, or fail when force is ap…
Posted on: 2007-04-30 18:14:05
Alveograph
As we know wheat flour contains gluten proteins which, when mixed with
water, develop to form a gluten matrix resulting in a dough with viscoelastic
properties (Walker, 1996). In that wheat flour is used to manufacture a wide
range of products, characterizing protein quality and dough strength is
important in determining a flour's suitability for a particular end use. Cookie
and biscuit manufactures want a flour which will not develop into a strong
elastic dough before the ingredie…
Posted on: 2007-04-30 18:12:10
