by Elena Zheleznyak
🔗Wheat: choice and homemade wheat flourFor me, the question of choosing high-quality grain has been open for a very long time, just go and buy a bag of good wheat for homemade flour, you know, can be a daunting task. Even with several sources, you need to be able to make a choice, and for this you need to have an idea of what quality wheat should be.
It was important for me that the grain had all the necessary documents confirming the quality, and that it could be bought directly in the city, in order to be able to replenish stocks at any time in the future.
It is important that wheat during maturation is stored in an open container or bags with constant air access, this will ensure the safety and oxygen access necessary for maturation. For this, fabric bags, wooden, glass or metal open containers, for example, such bins, are well suited. The same goes for flour. It is known
that freshly ground flour must also undergo an oxidation process, ripen in order to improve its baking properties. Under the influence of oxygen, gluten becomes stronger, and the lower the percentage of gluten in flour, the more noticeably its properties improve. Flour with initially high levels of gluten also improves its qualities during the ripening process, but not as dramatically as it happens with weak flour. If wheat flour is left to ripen in a vacuum, such an experiment has already been carried out, nothing will happen to it, it will not improve in any way, but it will not worsen either. Therefore, it is very important to store flour in containers that allow the flour to "breathe".
L. Ya. Auerman in his textbook "Technology of bakery production", claims that
whole grain or wallpaper flour should ripen for about 3 weeks, in fact, in production, even a small one, it matures in a shorter time - about two weeks, or even immediately after grinding it goes for sale. At the same time, the shelf life of whole grain flour is not as long as, for example, premium flour. White wheat flour of the first and highest grade can lie for more than three years without damage and only improve its quality. But whole grain flour should not be stored for long - about six months, due to the fact that it contains all the components of the grain and, including wheat germ, containing large quantities of valuable oils. And wheat germ oil, in turn, contains unique vitamins (A, E, D, B vitamins), microelements (potassium, calcium, phosphorus, manganese, iron, zinc, selenium, copper, sulfur, iodine, etc.) .) and essential fatty acids (Omega-3, Omega-6, Omega-9). It is the latter, by the way, that provide a short century of useful flour - they oxidize rather quickly and the oil of the embryo goes rancid. Such flour, first of all, ceases to be useful, begins to taste bitter, and the bread baked from it turns out to be bitter and has a musty smell of old butter. For example, until recently I kept flour in closed glass jars, but it turned out that this is fundamentally wrong: firstly, access to oxygen is closed, which prevents ripening, and secondly, flour, which naturally contains moisture, cakes, crumples and suffocates. Ideally, it should be stored in burlap or linen cloth bags.
The principle of converting wheat flour is the same as that of rye (see the post above).
Wheat flour needs maturing - up to three weeks for the protein oxidation process to occur... But, I must confess, I baked on both three-day flour and three-week flour, there is little difference, but it still depends on flour. Flour, which is strong in itself, does not improve its properties as dramatically during maturing as weak flour
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Related topics: Since the temperature of freshly ground flour is quite high, I would like to draw your attention to the following topics:
How to check if the dough is ready for baking? Finished dough temperature9 tips for baking bread in the summer from Manuel Cortés
