Wheat R&D - Bread, Goodness and Cereal?

Bread R&D?  Why?  Isn't Bread - Bread?

Simple answer - No.  Good bread is good - and then there's the rest.

Longer answer - No.
There are lots of kinds of bread.  Many of them are good.  And, Good is in the Mouth of the Taster (to modify a common phrase).   But there are lots that are not good.

I prefer lighter, more flavorful bread and this can come from the ingredients and/or the process.  So, if it is too much in these following areas, the recipe/approach is rejected

• Too dense - and this generally means that it is not tall.  I think it needs to reach about 4" tall for a one pound loaf.
• Undesired flavors - I want the wheat goodness to come through without odd flavors.  Red wheat berries have more "wheat flavor" than the white variety.  Some people say that the white wheat can impart a sweet taste - which is ok, if not too extreme.  
• Ugly - the finished crust that is rough; has uncontrolled bursts in the crust (that are not my fault for scoring the crust poorly)

Summarizing, it is Crumb, Flavor and Crust along with overall Appearance when I evaluate a bread I am making.  Nothing can be terrible - and everything has to be good (that's why the White Whole Wheat Artisan Bread contains whole wheat.  A little 'wheat density' is tolerated in return for the flavor. )

I search for a very tasty, high ratio whole wheat bread with a good crust and good rise.  

So, I do 'experiments' with fermenting fresh coarse milled wheat berries and then mixing them with fresh ground wheat or rye flours and then ultimately with bread flour.  The 'rule' is that if whole wheat flour exceeds 40% of the total, you either need flour conditioners or end up with a more dense loaf due to the bran's effect on the gluten strands.  Although flour conditioners can be natural (lecithin, potato flakes and oils), I choose not to depend on them for production breads, so I don't use them in my testing.
My understanding is that home milled whole wheat flour differs from commercial whole wheat flour. Differences come from the methods of milling and freshness of the product. Commercial roller mills 'spin off' the germ and bran and then the endosperm is milled into flour.  The germ, which is subject to spoiling and tainting the entire lot, must be treated to kill the live part (frozen, steamed or ??).  The white flour (milled endosperm) can last for a long time because there is nothing to spoil in it.
Commercially made whole wheat flour adds the treated germ and bran back to the white flour - re creating whole wheat flour.   In some cases, wheat is 'stone ground' which means that the entire wheat berry is ground at once into flour.  I am not sure how they deal with the short shelf life of the germ.

Home milled wheat results in a product where the baker knows the freshness and all parts of the berry are included in the flour.  In some cases, it can be sifted to extract the larger bran, so that what is left has some ground bran, but not 'too much'.  The grain that I have milled on a very fine setting doesn't have anything big enough to be sifted out.  Coarse ground grain is truly coarse and there is fine flour and gritty wheat in it.  I am able to sift the coarse from the fine and it is this course grain that I have been experimenting with (and in some cases, eating as hot cereal).   My mill is hand powered and I know that it isn't building up heat and I can see the output.

Fresh and whole whole wheat flour.  It seems that this is the ideal flour for healthy bread.  My experiments, in part, are aimed at using this healthy flour to make fresh healthy bread - that tastes food, has a good fluffy crumb, a good crust and looks good overall.


With 48-72 total hours in fermenting different stages of this dough, there is a long waiting period between the 'cause and effect'.  I had a bread that had 2 of the 4 characteristics with a heavy coarse ground wheat base.  I tried to replicate the good parts and to improve the other two - and failed.  I will try again, but this long period between start and finish is not conducive to the learning curve.

That said, I still believe that there is a healthy bread that people want to eat without adding sugar.
But, if the goal is to ingest healthy wheat AND to have bread you like to eat when you want to eat it - maybe the answer is two different products - great tasting bread made without respect to the whole wheat and separately, good tasting freshly milled whole wheat cereal for breakfast.