Just a quick note to say that “White” Whole Wheat (King Arthur) is truly odd, and caused me a strange couple of hours waiting for it to rise. I don’t know what the deal is with it, but I used a mixture of about 1/2 regular whole wheat and half “white,” both from King Arthur, and followed my standard, can make it without thinking recipe … and it wouldn’t rise. Just plain wouldn’t.
Finally I took it out of the oven, where I had it stashed with the light on to keep it a bit warmer than the 68ºF of the room, and added a whopping 2 Tablespoons of commercial yeast & sent it for another knead. This added another 1/2 Cup of warm water, and which I soaked up with more of the white stuff. Back into the oven and an HOUR later it’d risen enough to bake.
Nothing different about the water, the yeast, the sourness of the starter. Nothing different in the amounts of fiber, the size of the batch, nor the added yeast. I even shorted the salt, as I usually do. Just the flour was different.
I will continue to try this flour, but something about it just doesn’t seem right, in the acidity or something. It felt more like working with Rye or Spelt than Wheat. Strange.
In any event, it turned out nicely, with a perfect balance between sourdough and sweet dough (honey and molasses), so it can go either way. I’m quite pleased with the consistency, although it truly is a dense loaf. We’re down half a loaf by way of tasting … so it’s up early in the morning to slice up the remaining three and carry them off to friends, lest we eat them ourselves.
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Marvellous Persimmon Bread came from using this flour, so perhaps I’ll have to keep it around just for quick-breads. Wonder what’s going on, truly, but I suspect it’s something in the acidity, and also the gluten levels. Who knows?
White wheat is a freakish albino varietal of regular red-hulled wheat… it is: “Lower in protein and gluten content than whole wheat bread flour.”
Could explain a few things.
I’m still gobsmacked by how NON-rising it seems to want to be; the persimmon bread is so dense and moist yet would have been lighter with conventional WWF. I’m still not sure about it.
Yeah, I knew about the gluten thing, but that wouldn’t really prevent it rising so much as the acidity would, if that were different. I’m just concerned that something in it inhibited the action of the yeast, you know?
Rye is less acidic than wheat. That alkalinity is part of the reason for using sourdough with rye – to make a better environment for the yeast, and to “strengthen” the flour by pre-digesting some of the starches & giving you more available gluten.
Anyway, as a practical measure, I’m simply going to avoid using it with yeast-risen breads, and only use it for quick-breads, and probably won’t buy more of it.
Rye also tends to have a different rising profile than wheat, in that Rye will rise more in the oven than on the counter, whereas Wheat’s pretty much done rising when you put it into the oven. That’s what I was wondering about this stuff, was whether it’s more like using Rye, ’cause I can live without that.
Remember that loaf of raisin-bread which was sliced to 1/2 a centimeter slices? The one that’s nice & flavorful, but which is denser than anything in the universe? That’s Spelt / Rye, without Wheat.
I just don’t do well with Rye.
A “bakers’ helper” representative from King Arthur Flour says that “white whole wheat is slightly less acid than regular whole wheat,” which confirms what I was thinking about it. She’s just as baffled as I am by its behaviour, and says that she has no problems with it. I’m thinking that it’s just not my friend, and we’ll leave it at that.