The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book_ A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking - Laurel Robertson [145]
Grain: even, uniform, thin, elongated cell walls/uneven, dense, coarse, thick cell walls
Texture: velvety/silky/soft/elastic/rough/furry/crumbly/harsh/brittle
Moisture: moist/dry/gummy
TASTE: wheaty/gluteny/nutty/pleasant/sweet/flat/sour/acid/rancid
COMMENTS:
Separated Wheat Products
As we’ve seen, wheat germ and bran are separated out by commercial mills when they manufacture white flour. Both bran and germ have received a lot of attention lately from nutritionists and the medical profession because of the impressive contribution they can make to health—and it’s about time, too. But to us, wheat germ alone or bran alone just can’t compare to what they have to offer when used as part of the whole grain. And so we do not often use them individually, but celebrate their virtues within the perfect balance of the whole.
WHEAT GERM
Wheat germ is the seed’s embryo, 2 to 3 percent of its weight, or a full two tablespoons in the three-cup pound. It is packed with nutrients—good-quality protein, unsaturated fats, vitamins, and minerals. Because the fats are unsaturated, they are quite unstable, and once milled, wheat germ gets rancid after several days at room temperature. Since heat treatment, either wet or dry, helps to inactivate the lipase enzymes that cause rancidity, we suggest if you buy wheat germ, unless you can get it within a few days of milling, buy the kind that is toasted at the mill. Buy small rather than large quantities at a time and store airtight in the refrigerator.
Cereal scientists who have studied wheat germ because they wanted to use it to fortify white bread have decided that 2 to 3 percent raw germ is all that the dough will tolerate, because wheat germ contains a reducing substance called glutathione that breaks down gluten. Fascinatingly, this is almost exactly the amount that occurs naturally in whole wheat flour. (As the saying goes, What do you know? God got it right.)
BRAN
Bran is the protective, fibrous covering around the wheat kernel, comprising 13 to 17 percent of its weight. That is a little less than two ounces of bran in a pound (3 cups) of flour—one loaf’s worth—but if you could sift all of it out, it would fill a whole cup. Whole wheat bread, then, already has a generous amount of bran in it, but there may be circumstances where you would want to add more, either for the culinary effect or for its roughage. Yeast fermentation softens the bran, making it gentler on the digestive tract (though still effective). It also helps to make some of the plentiful minerals the bran contains easier to assimilate.
From the baker’s point of view, added bran cuts into the gluten, reducing its rising strength. Soaking the bran in hot water or overnight to soften it seems to help somewhat: for example, see the recipe for Spicy Currant Bread.
GLUTEN FLOUR
It is true that we included gluten flour in some of the bread recipes in Laurel’s Kitchen, but we’ve learned a lot about breadmaking since then! We hope that once you’ve mastered the skills described in A Loaf for Learning, you will agree that gluten flour is not only unnecessary but downright unwelcome. We have parted ways with gluten flour for several reasons: with good flour you don’t need it to make bread light, for one thing; it is a superrefined product, for another (even more so than white flour); and it makes cardboardy bread, for a third. Besides, the amino acids in its protein are far out of balance.
Well, so what is the stuff, anyway?
When the bran and germ are removed from wheat, what is left is white flour: mostly starch and gluten. The starch can be washed out, leaving the tough gluten. This is dried, broken up, ground again and combined with patent (fine white) flour. Fifty percent protein gluten flour is the result. Some bakers add gluten flour to their dough: if there is more gluten, you expect a higher loaf. But if there is more gluten, much more kneading is required to develop it, and more time to ferment it adequately, too. Gluten-enhanced breads have a characteristic taste and texture reminiscent of corrugated