Basic Food Storage--Flour

Flour.  It's a food storage staple.  But trying to figure out exactly what kind to store, and how, can be a bit of a challenge.  So first we'll talk about the basic kinds of flour.  I'm not going to cover rice flour or any of the other gluten-free options.  I'm sorry, but I have zero experience with these, and I firmly believe that people should only write about what they have at least some knowledge of.

TYPES OF FLOUR

Bleached, enriched flour.  The bleaching agents most commonly used to produce pure white flour are benzoyl peroxide, potassium bromate, and chlorine gas.  Sam's Club and the restaurant supply stores around here only carry bleached, enriched flour.  This flour is better suited to cookies, pancakes, pie crusts, waffles, quick breads, and muffins. 

Unbleached, enriched flour.  Unbleached flour does not have the bleaching chemicals (you probably guessed that on your own).  It does have more protein than bleached flour.  Most grocery stores carry both bleached and unbleached flour.  Unbleached flour is better suited to yeast breads, cream puffs, eclairs, and pastries. 

Enriched flour.  Most flour sold in the US is enriched with vitamins (thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid) per government regulations, as well as other nutrients (iron) that are lost in the milling process of removing the wheat germ.  Enriched flour does not have the same nutritional value as whole wheat flour.  Whole wheat flour has fiber and a lower glycemic index, meaning the sugars are digested and enter the blood stream more slowly, which is especially important for diabetics.  

Bread flour has gluten added to it to produce a stronger rise and chewier crumb, and it is higher in protein.  It does not work well in making cookies or pie crusts.

Gluten flour has gluten protein added to flour to help bread rise better and improve texture.  Generally, about one teaspoon is added per cup of all-purpose flour.  One tablespoon is added per cup of whole wheat flour.

Bleached and unbleached flours remove the wheat germ, so there is nothing to go rancid. However, flour does still go bad.  Just in the bag from the store, it lasts about a year.  Stored in a plastic container, it will go about two years.  Flour in #10 cans, packaged and stored properly, has about a ten-year shelf life, much shorter than whole wheat.

Whole wheat flour is not bleached and not enriched because the wheat germ, the brown stuff, is retained, and that's where most of the vitamins and other nutrients are.  Because the fatty acids are now exposed to air, they immediately begin oxidizing, and the flour goes rancid fairly quickly, usually within 6-9 months.

Regardless of what kind of flour you buy, you should freeze it for three days to kill insects and eggs before packaging for long-term storage.  After three days, remove it from the freezer and allow 12-24 hours to come to room temperature.  You really don't want to get condensation in your bag or bucket.  That would be a complete waste.  Ideally, you'd vacuum-seal in mylar bags, but that gets a little pricey for some, especially with a lot of flour to store.  And it still only gives you a shelf life of five years.  What we've done, what's worked for us for years, is to simply put it in buckets with oxygen absorbers.  Well, that's what we used to do.  We rotate through flour pretty quickly and usually only have 100 pounds on hand. Even then, though, I sometimes come across a bucket that was hiding someplace else and is up to two years old.  My taste buds aren't too sensitive, and I've never noticed a problem.  My family members do have more discriminating palates, and I've never heard them complain about the flour going bad.  Freezer-burned butter, yes.  Dry milk in the fridge, double yes.  Old flour, no. 

On the other hand, I have a friend who has gotten flour from the Home Storage Center (HSC) and I've read of people online getting their flour from the HSC, and that it sometimes takes on a metallic taste.  Don't despair!  We don't know why this happens, but if it happens to you, try pouring it back and forth in bowls and letting it air out. That should help.  If it doesn't, I'll soon have an entire post devoted to what to do with flour that has gone bad.

Links to related posts:
Overview of Long-Term Food Storage
Food STORAGE


© 2019, PrepSchoolDaily.blogspot.com   

9 may 2021

Basic Food Storage--Whole Wheat Bread

Bread is the staff of life.  It is not a doorstop.

Unfortunately, most people produce more doorstops than loaves in the beginning, and then they stop, because one only needs so many doorstops in the house.

Being able to make a nice loaf of bread is one of the most valuable skills to acquire now, and to start now.  It really takes a lot of practice.  Once you've made a few nice loaves and then you start churning out doorstops again, you want to know why.  That only comes with practice.  Sure, Youtubes can help, but it's better to get a true feel for the dough yourself.

So let's jump right in with the recipe.  Instructions, explanations, and tips will be included below.  And if you have any questions, please ask!

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

2 1/4 cups warm water (about 100 degrees)
1 1/2 tablespoons fast-rising yeast
pinch sugar
1 tablespoon dough enhancer, optional (recipe to be posted tomorrow)
1/2 cup gluten flour
7-8 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup dry milk
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
3 eggs
1 tablespoon salt

Put the warm water, yeast, sugar, dough enhancer, gluten flour, and 1-2 cups of whole wheat flour in your mixing bowl and combine well.  (This is sometimes called a "sponge.")  Let this mixture proof for 15-30 minutes.  Then add in the rest of the ingredients and mix well.   Continue adding flour, if necessary, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.  Oil your hands and the counter where you will be kneading the dough, re-oiling as necessary.  Do not use flour to prevent sticking, as this may make your bread unnecessarily dry.  Knead for 8-10 minutes, until dough is nice and smooth.  Cover with plastic or a damp cloth and let rise.

When dough has doubled in volume, punch it down, and separate dough into three equal pieces.  Roll each piece into a rectangle, and then starting on the short side, roll it up and pinch ends together to seal.  Repeat with the other two pieces and place each log into a greased bread pan.  (For regular, sandwich-type loaves, you want 4x8" bread pans.)  Let rise until doubled in volume again.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the loaves reaches 190 degrees.  Remove from oven and let cool for ten minutes in the pans.  Then remove from pans to cooling racks and let cool completely.  Store in plastic bags when completely cooled and dry.


Simple, right?

Or not? 


Tips:

Practice, practice, practice.  It takes a lot of experience to make good bread consistently.  At least, it took me a lot of practice.  I've been making all my family's sandwich bread for ten years, and I'm still learning.

I start with water that is about 100 degrees.  Many bakers use water that is a bit warmer.  However, I have found that my Bosch mixer sometimes gets the dough really heated--so warm that it kills the yeast.  So I start with water that is a little cooler than most.  If I were kneading dough by hand, I'd start with warmer water.  (Yes, I know that I will be kneading by hand someday.  But right now my Bosch saves me a lot of time, and more importantly, it spares my thumbs and wrists from tendinitis that would otherwise afflict me.)

If you have never made bread before, or you are really out of practice, start with white flour and gradually substitute in wheat flour.  Or if you are not accustomed to whole wheat, start with white and gradually increase the amount of wheat flour.  White flour is more forgiving and just overall easier to learn with.  Get the overall process right and the kneading and windowpane test right first, and then gradually work in whole wheat flour.

Making bread is much more art than science. The amount of water and flour can vary widely depending on humidity and how you measure your flour--do you spoon it in and level off with a knife, or do you use the measuring cup to scoop the flour so it's a little more packed?



Measure the oil first, and then measure the honey.  This way the honey will slip right out of the previously oiled measuring cup.

Mix the dry milk powder into the flour so you don't get little clumps of dry milk.

I have substituted powdered eggs for fresh numerous times without any problem.

In my experience, the dough sticks more to metal than to plastic bowls.  If I am using a metal bowl, I allow for some stickiness of the dough to the bowl.  In all cases, it is better to have a dough that is too wet rather than too dry.

Once fully kneaded, your dough should be smooth and stretchy.  A really good test for this is the windowpane test.  Take a bit of dough, about the size of a walnut, and using your forefingers and thumbs, stretch it into a square.  Ideally, you should be able to stretch it very thin, definitely enough to see light through it, without breaking.  If you can do this, you are going to have some very nice bread. 


For optimal rising, place a pan of very hot water on the bottom rack of the oven, then place loaves on the center rack.  Close the oven and let loaves rise.  This creates a nice, warm, humid atmosphere for the loaves--the ideal conditions.

When it's time to bake, leave the loaves in the oven but remove the pan of water.  Set temperature to 350 degrees.   Now the timing will vary by oven.  How long it takes is not the issue--when the bread reaches an internal temperature of 190 degrees, it is done, whether it takes 35 minutes or 45 minutes.  For me in my kitchen, with three loaves in the oven, I set the temperature for 350 degrees and the timer for 38 minutes, and my loaves are perfectly baked every time. 

For a soft bread crust, brush loaves with oil or butter after they are baked but still warm.

Do not bag loaves of bread until they are dry and completely cooled.  For best results, use actual bread bags. (I get mine at Pleasant Hill Grain.) Plastic wrap just doesn't work all that well.  And the bags can be re-used several times.  (Unless the bread has gotten moldy.  Then that bag gets tossed.)

This bread baked very well in a sun oven, but the crust was much lighter.  Crust color will not be an indication of doneness.  You will really want an instant-read thermometer for this.

Troubleshooting:

• Loaves raised well, were placed in the oven to bake, and then come out of the oven collapsed.
• Answer:  The loaves were allowed to rise too long--over-proofed.  Next time, put them in the oven a bit sooner.
• Loaves didn't rise well or at all.  
• Answer:  This could be attributed to a few different problems.  
• It could be due to poor yeast.  Try a different yeast.  If you did the initial proofing above with the "sponge," you should have had a very bubbly batter with a yeast-y smell.  If you didn't get that, it's most likely the yeast.  If that happened to me, I wouldn't even bother trying to make bread with that sponge.  Throw it out and start over.  
• The temperature was too high.  High temperatures will kill the yeast.  Make sure your water temperature is at about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  An instant read thermometer will be your friend as you learn to make your bread.  Or your bread mixer may have gotten the dough too hot (rare, but it does happen).  Of course, this will not happen with hand-kneading.  
• It could be the wheat.  Experienced bread makers usually blame the wheat before blaming the yeast for a problem in rising.  If wheat was not properly stored, especially if stored at high temperatures, like in a garage or attic (or it could have happened during shipping), it just won't make good bread, no matter what.  (It also won't sprout.)  Do not throw the wheat away.  It will still work for making tortillas and cookies and cracked wheat cereal.

Links to related posts:
Wheat
Dry milk
Honey
Oil
Dough enhancer
Salt  

© 2019, PrepSchoolDaily.blogspot.com   

23 april 2021