In this course we will use four types of wheat flours and one type of rye flour.
Rye Flours
There are three types of rye flour: light, medium, and dark. The dark is the rye counterpart to whole wheat flour. The dark color is due to the included bran. The light rye flour is equivalent All Purpose wheat flour, which is also called patent flour and white flour. We will be using the medium rye flour or dark rye flour in rye bread and in pumpernickel. These flours are sometimes called “pumpernickel” flour. That name is misleading. The same rye flour is used to make rye and pumpernickel. Also, even dark rye flour requires burned sugar to darken the finished loaf enough to look like a pumpernickel.
Rye flours have very little gluten. That is why a dough using only rye flour would have very little rise. Depending on how it was handled, a 100% rye flour dough could be as flat as a cracker or look like a quashed loaf. The work arounds for the lack of rise are either to mix in a type of wheat flour that has a high gluten content or to add vital wheat gluten, or do both. David Kaplan (co-coordinator in 2025) has managed to get a good rise in a loaf made with 100% rye flour and sour as the only leavening. It required days of proofing. The process was so complicated and time consuming that we decided against including it in this course.
Rye can be grown in cold, wet areas that are not well suited for wheat. That is why the traditional breads in Scandinavian countries, Northern Germany, and Poland are rye-based.
Wheat Flours
In this course the wheat flours we will use are All Purpose, abbreviated “AP”, (11.7% protein for the King Arthur flour), Bread (12.7% protein for King Arthur), First Clear (14.1% protein for Ardent Mills version), and High Gluten (14.2% protein for the King Arthur Sir Lancelot brand). Small differences in the protein percentage can make a big difference in volume and the chewiness of the finished product. Almost all of the protein in these flours turns into gluten when water is added and the dough is kneaded. The First Clear is an exception because most of the protein coming from the outer section of the wheat kernel is not the kind that turns into gluten when mixed with water and kneaded. To get a proper rise I boost the gluten content of rye and pumpernickel breads with vital wheat gluten.
There are two proteins in the wheat kernel, glutinen and gliadin, that combine to make gluten when the wheat kernel is ground into a flour, water is added, and the dough is kneaded. The biological functions of the two proteins is to speed the wheat seed growth into a plant by helping the seedling draw energy from the stored starch in the endosperm. The gluten is an accidental by-product of the process of making wheat-based doughs. Wheat was first cultivated 10,000 years ago. While other grains, such as emmer and einkorn, are sometimes called “heritage” grains, they are just slightly more ancient than cultivated wheat. Wheat became the dominate grain wherever the weather suited its cultivation because doughs made from wheat could rise and make easily digested bread.
Wheat kernels are complex. The outer layer, the bran, is a hard protective coating. It actually has seven distinct layers. Inside of the bran layers there is a wheat germ that contains oil and the endosperm that contains the starch. The entire kernel is about 85% starch that could be used to yield white flour. It is difficult to completely separate the white starch from the darker parts of the kernel. The basic separation process is that the entire kernel is ground so that the bran brakes up into larger chunks than most of the starch. Sieves are used to separate the chunks of bran from the smaller particles of starch. To increase the yield of starch, the flour is ground again and then run through finer sieve. All this work used to be done by hand. In ancient and medieval times the poor ate unsifted flour, i.e. whole wheat. It was much cheaper than white flour because the sifting process was labor intensive. In medieval societies, in which most of the calorie consumption came from wheat bread, peasants had worn-down teeth because bran has a gritty texture. The nobles, who ate bread made with white flour exclusively, had undamaged teeth. That is why a noble disguised in peasant clothes during the French Revolution could easily be detected by looking at his or her teeth.
In the 1870s a Swiss born engineer, András Mechwart invented the steel roller flour milling machine. His first invention was a steel railroad wheel that was closer to being truly round and was made with a more durable steel. His new wheel was quickly adopted throughout Europe, as it saved railroads money. His next invention, steel rollers for grain milling machines, had a similar precisely-sized and durable steel technology and compelling economic advantage. It made milling wheat quicker and it recovered a higher share of the white endosperm, because its three steel rollers could be set to very precise gaps. White flour is often called “patent” flour because Mechwart’s invention was tightly protected in Europe by patents. From the 1870s on white flour became the most common type of flour. Mechwart was an entrepreneur who set up a huge flour mill in Budapest because it had good access to wheat growing plains in Southern Hungary, to river transportation on the Danube River, and to web of rail lines. Mechwart is often called a Hungarian. However, he never learned to speak Hungarian, in spite of being based in Budapest for most of his life.
The same confluence of economic factors: rail and river access, and nearby wheat-growing regions, was present in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area. There were major US millers based in this area using water power to drive their mills. These companies still exist under the names General Mills and Pillsbury. What they didn’t have was Mechwart’s recently-invented patent steel roller mills. They did an end-run around the patent restrictions by recruiting industrial spies to learn how Mechwart’s machine worked and thus avoided having to pay for licenses to use the technology.
The emergence of Budapest as a milling center and its competition with millers in Minnesota as discussed in the milling trade journal from page 24 in the link below:
The reason that the wheat flours we will use differ protein content is mainly due to different varieties of wheat. Hard red winter wheat has a high protein content, and a darker color if it is milled into whole wheat flour. Hard white winter wheat also has a high protein content, but not as much color when milled into whole wheat. Soft varieties of wheat have less protein and are used to make AP flour or cake flour, the lowest protein type of flour. Flours also vary in the fineness of their grind. The first clear flour from Ardent Mills that we will use for rye and pumpernickel breads is labelled 00, which is a European designation for the finest grind. Finer grinds can absorb more water. First clear flour has no bran or wheat germ, but it has little of the white endosperm. It is basically the fraction of the wheat kernel that would otherwise be used for animal feed after making white flour. The characteristic taste of first clear is crucial for authentic Jewish style rye breads and pumpernickels.
We will use the AP or Bread flours for to make soft rolls and challah bread. Some recipes call for a mix of the two types. You can experiment with these two types of flours and see what you like better.
What we will not use:
As a home baker I am not worried that one of my bread products will be useless in a week. Commercial bakers, especially for breads sold in supermarkets, care a lot about shelf life. They face two sources of spoilage. One is that the bread dries out and hardens. The other is that it gets moldy. There are chemicals that delay either drying or mold. The anti-drying chemicals are generically called “dough improvers”. Flours sold by millers to bakeries and supermarkets often include the dough improvers.
Commercial bakeries and supermarkets with in-store bakeries also care about how quickly a dough rises and how easily it can be processed by a machine. Again, I shape doughs by hand, so whether they are soft enough to be shaped by a machine is irrelevant.
Some of the dough improvers or conditioners or mold inhibitors can have undesirable effects. For example, the bleaching chemicals that make flour whiter can turn into monosodium glutamate during baking.
Here is a link to Wikipedia entry on dough conditioners:
I prefer flours that are unbleached and not bromated. For example, General Mills All Trumps High Gluten Flour is bleached and bromated. High gluten flours are used in bagels. I suggest using King Arthur’s Sir Lancelot high gluten flour instead. Fortunately, my only source for first clear flour, Ardent Mills Powerful Clear/00 is unbleached and not bromated. First clear flour is used in rye and pumpernickel breads. All the added ingredients we will use, in addition to the traditional flour, water, salt, and yeast, are for flavor. Malted barley syrup does have a distinctive flavor that enhances the taste of some products, such as bagels. Sugar and eggs will be used in Challah and in some rolls for their flavors.
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