[Mike Nolan]

I think the original use of strong may have come from 'hard' wheat. 'Hard' vs 'soft' wheat had to do with the berries themselves, hard red wheat berries are, well, harder than soft red wheat berries, which affects how you mill it as well as what the resulting flour is like. How well this translates into protein/gluten differences and thus baking differences is where things get fuzzy, because there are several major types of wheat (notably hard/soft, red/white and winter/spring), and that's before you get into things like durum and the heritage varieties like turkey wheat and legacy wheat ancestors like emmer.

There are USDA recognized wheat breeders in a number of states, and they're all producing varieties intended primarily for use in specific parts of their state.

Some of the presentations I've heard of from Nebraska's (now retired) wheat breeder were interesting, he was more concerned with growing conditions (temperature, moisture, insects and plant diseases) and yield than with what bakers did with the wheat. (In fact, when he gave me 5 pounds of triticale berries, which he also bred, he'd never tasted bread made with any triticale flour in it.)

One of the great successes in wheat breeding was the development of dwarf wheat species. Shorter stalks means less chance of the wheat getting blown over and being harder if not impossible to harvest. It also means more of the nutrition drawn from the soil goes into the wheat berries rather than into making straw, reducing the need for fertilizers. One presentation I saw from Nebraska's (now-retired) wheat breeder considered this almost as important in the struggle against world hunger as Norman Borlaug's work with breeding dwarf rice. As a result of his work with both grains, Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

One of the more interesting presentations at last year's online International Bread Symposium was on how they're trying to develop an ultra-dwarf wheat variety that could be grown in space or on a Mars colony. They've got wheat that's only 18 inches tall now. BTW, did you know that bread isn't allowed in space because of the crumbs? Some years ago an astronaut snuck a corned beef sandwich on board, though.

[Mike Nolan]

There aren't precise standards for how terms like 'high extraction' and 'strong' impact our baking.

'High extraction generally means a higher percentage of bran and germ are included. Patent flour is virtually all endosperm and has an extraction rate of 72%, which means that from 100 pounds of wheat the miller gets about 72 pounds of patent flour.

Whole wheat flour is 100% extraction. The higher the extraction rate, the more flour the miller can sell. What they can't sell as flour generally gets sold for animal feed, at a much lower price.

It seems to me that flour that is separated into component streams in a roller mill and reconstituted according to the standard percentages of endosperm (around 83%), germ (around 3%) and bran (around 14%) in wheat has some differences from whole meal flour, such as what you would get from a stone mill where the milled wheat is never separated.

'Strong' refers to the gluten strength of the flour, which isn't quite synonymous with protein content. It depends on the type of wheat and the ratio of gliadin and glutenin in that wheat.

Other factors that come into play are the amount of starch damage and the alpha amylase level. (This is by no means a complete list, the more you learn about wheat the more you realize what a complex chemical environment it is.)

A lab report of flour will give more information, but home bakers never get that information. Better flour companies blend their flours so that it is more consistent from bag to bag throughout the year. A recurring theme on the BBGA forums is bakers noting that they changed brands of flour, or the mill changed what they're providing, how the new flour is performing differently and how the bakers are trying to compensate for that.

[Mike Nolan]

Have you checked the accuracy of you oven's settings? (I do it with an infrared thermometer.)

If the oven runs hot, then reducing the temperature might help.

[Mike Nolan]

Diane had potato soup, I had tuna salad in a tomato from the garden.

[Mike Nolan]

I tend to have a heavy hand when adding cinnamon to apple pie filling, and a lighter hand with nutmeg, but those are usually the only spices I use.

[Mike Nolan]

Yes, you cook the apples until they're soft enough to bend, then strain off the juice and cook it further.

The recipe is here: https://mynebraskakitchen.com/wordpress/forums/topic/apple-pie-filling/

Freezing the filling does not appear to change it enough to notice.

I tend to make it in batches large enough that the peeled apples fill my 12 quart stock pot half to 2/3 full, I think that's 10-15 pounds of apples.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't have his book, the version of the recipe on the NY Times site these days, which appears to have been modified a little several years ago, says to use a cotton (not terry) towel for the final 2 hour rise.

[Mike Nolan]

A fig galette might be nice.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm hoping to get enough tomatoes to do some more juice in the next few days, the vines are slowing down as the weather cools. I'm not sure it even hit 70 today and there are lows in the 40's coming in the next few days, though we could still have another week of highs around 80.

BA, you don't have to have the well water tested before you start using it?

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making potato-leek soup for supper tonight, with croutons made from semolina bread.

[Mike Nolan]

If you've read the original Jim Lahey/NY Times no-knead recipe, you mix the dough until it is shaggy, then you let it sit for 12-18 hours before shaping, then it is placed on a towel to rise (which will wick some of the moisture out). It rises another two hours before it is transferred to a hot pot or Dutch oven and baked, inverting it as it is transferred, so any air pockets at the top of the risen loaf are likely to collapse somewhat under the weight of the dough.

The lengthy time is the key, that's a substitute for the kneading or repeated stretch-and-folds of a more traditional recipe. And I suspect letting it rise on a towel also has a major impact, and the inversion will definitely impact the dough structure.

I think some of the derivatives of the no-knead process suffer from the changes made to the process.

[Mike Nolan]

I bought two dozen eggs at Aldi the other day, $1.91 a dozen, which is anywhere from $1 to $2 lower than the other stores.

I weighed a number of them, all were between 2.0 and 2.2 ounces each.

According to a post I saw earlier today citing Labor Department data, eggs are up 39.8% over the last year nationwide, butter 24.6%, chicken 16.6%, rice, past and cornmeal 15.7%.

Butter in cold storage is at at the lowest level since 2017, and the holiday baking season is coming soon. Stock up when you can!

Beef had the smallest increase, 2.5%, but I've seen many reports saying that ranchers have been cutting their herds, which means more beef on the market now but less, possibly a lot less, down the road.

I'm seeing a lot of bacon in 12 ounce packages instead of 16 ounce packages.

[Mike Nolan]

I had planned to do steaks on the grill, but we had a storm come through this afternoon, so I wound up doing tacos indoors. I'll try to do the steaks tomorrow, and then probably potato leek soup on Friday.

[Mike Nolan]

I can't get a roofer to call me back, either.

[Mike Nolan]

Yes, I brushed the crust with some egg wash and sprinkled sparkling sugar crystals on it.

It may have hit 102 here today, which would be a new record for 9/20. But it looks like the heat will break overnight, with rain possible. I don't see any 90's in the forecast for the next two weeks, in fact nothing above the mid 80's.

[Author]

Posts