Wheat Flours

by Lisa Vines

Gustav, in his February online Coop Scoop article on Fontina, referred to a recipe for a homemade bread, published in a New York Times article by Mark Bittman, that describes a process developed by Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City. This bread, noteworthy not only for its simplicity but also for its taste, provides a perfect excuse to shop in the bulk aisle at the Co-op, as shoppers can pick up however much of the ingredients they need. One caveat, however: Two important elements for this bread are not available at the Co-op: time (almost 24 hours) and a heavy pot with a lid. Flour, yeast, salt, a little cornmeal or some bran, and water make this an astonishingly forgiving recipe, accepting of human vagaries. I used some granular yeast from the Co-op and the bread was a stunning success. The hardest part about producing this bread is figuring out when to start the process. The initial rise is a recommended eighteen hours. Then there’s an additional two hours rising (after patting the gooey dough with flour) and forty-five minutes baking in a very hot oven (450 degrees). No kneading is necessary.

So how does one start? Yeast is in the Co-op’s refrigerator section, right near the door to the café.

In the bulk aisle, shoppers will find not only wheat flour but soy, potato, rice, quinoa, amaranth, oat, tapioca, buckwheat and garbanzo bean. Wheat flours are the most common flours and essential for yeast breads, as wheat is the only grain with enough gluten to produce a yeast bread. Rye, barley and oat flours contain small amounts of the proteins that produce gluten, but wheat flours far surpass them. People interested in trying the “No-Knead Bread” recipe should start with a base of wheat flour. Besides containing the proteins that produce gluten, wheat provides carbohydrates and fiber. Each grain contains 22 vitamins and minerals, primarily in the bran and the germ.

Wheat flour comes in many different forms. There are three types of wheat (hard, soft, or durum). Durum wheat is a distinctly different species from the hard and soft wheats. Although high in protein, durum wheat is not good for baking because of its lower gluten content.

Hard wheat flours, with their high percentage of gluten, are used for both high gluten and bread flours. High gluten flour has a gluten percentage of about 12–14%; bread flour contains slightly less, about 10–13%. But there is a limit to how much gluten is needed for good rising bread. Too much gluten means not enough starch, which is essential for the bread to rise. A tablespoon of vital wheat gluten (the pure protein of wheat) can be added to a cup of flour to increase the protein and eventual gluten content. All-purpose flours are good for breads and baked goods; pastry and cake flours contain even less protein. Cake flours contain more starch than pastry flour does. Refining the wheat kernel strips away the nutritious bran and germ, so white flour producers often “enrich” their stripped flours by adding back some of the nutrients they removed. The Swany organic unbleached white flour, available in the bulk aisle, avoids this by simply restoring the germ. According to Swany owner Gary Thelen, the flour probably contains about 14 % protein, which puts it in the high end of protein flours. Whole wheat flour contains the entire wheat kernel, including the fiber containin bran and the vitamin and mineral-rich germ. Whole wheat flour should be stored in the refrigerator to prevent the germ oils from becoming rancid. Stone ground whole wheat flour is produced by grinding the whole kernels between large stones. The advantage of stone ground over steel ground is that no heat builds up, thereby better preserving the nutrients.

Co-op shoppers will find a plethora of flours, wheat and otherwise, in the bulk aisle. For yeast breads, start with an all purpose wheat flour; if you want to substitute a cup of wheat flour with another flour (quinoa, for example), be sure that the remaining wheat flour is a high protein flour.

Sources

Mark Bittman, “Recipe: No-Knead Bread.” New York Times, 8 November 2006.

Mark Bittman, “The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work.” New York Times, 8 November 2006. Crescent Dragonwagon, Passionate Vegetarian (New York: Workman Publishing, 2002).

Gwen Mergian,”Focus on Coop Suppliers: Swany White Flour.” Coop Scoop, November 2005

Gustav Ericson, “Adagio, i Tipido” Coop Scoop, February 2005 (online only).

“Flour: The Co-op Shopper’s Guide” (brochure available in the bulk aisle, near the pencils and stickers).

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