On 21 May 2004 14:06:06 GMT, Ignoramus29346
> wrote:

>I have been baking sourdough bread in a bread machine for a year,
>about 2x per week. I used Sams' Club enriched flour ($4.50 per 25 lbs
>sack)and it worked great. Also, about a year ago, I bought a 50 lb
>sack of unbleached, not enriched flour from a baker. The flour spent a
>year in my clean and relatively dry basement.
>
>The bad news is that when I switched to this flour, the bread stopped
>rising properly. It looks like the air bubbles appear alright, but
>they come out of the dough rather than stay trapped. So the dough does
>not rise properly.
>
>Any ideas?
>
>i

Hi "i",

One quick thought:

The second batch of flour may be significantly lower in protein. The
protein (gluten) in wheat flour is what allows the gasses to become
"trapped." Bread can be made with almost any flour, but there are
byproducts of the sourdough process that degrade the gluten. If you
start with little, and degrade that, you may not be able to get the
loaves to rise properly.

Perhaps the easiest way to approach this would be to add to the flour
some of the pure protein. It is sold as "vital wheat gluten." That may
help you to use the flour as you wish.

All the best,

--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

It's probably because you aren't using "bread" flour. The " Bread " flour
has a higher gluten content.

You say you've been baking sourdough in your bread machine... would you like
to share your technique?

I've been using my bread machine to mix and knead the dough but have not
had great success in using it to bake the bread.

Rina

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Please respond to the newsgroup, mail from this account is deleted, unread


...
> I have been baking sourdough bread in a bread machine for a year,
> about 2x per week. I used Sams' Club enriched flour ($4.50 per 25 lbs
> sack)and it worked great. Also, about a year ago, I bought a 50 lb
> sack of unbleached, not enriched flour from a baker. The flour spent a
> year in my clean and relatively dry basement.
>
> The bad news is that when I switched to this flour, the bread stopped
> rising properly.

On 21 May 2004 17:07:54 GMT, Ignoramus29346
> wrote:

>It makes sense and I believe that I still do have some gluten, maybe 3
>years old. How much should I add?
>
>i

Hi "i",

I will have to leave that to someone else... I have never used the
stuff.

All the best,

--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

"Ignoramus29346" > wrote in message
...
> I have been baking sourdough bread in a bread machine for a year,
> about 2x per week. I used Sams' Club enriched flour ($4.50 per 25 lbs
> sack)and it worked great. Also, about a year ago, I bought a 50 lb
> sack of unbleached, not enriched flour from a baker. The flour spent a
> year in my clean and relatively dry basement.
>
> The bad news is that when I switched to this flour, the bread stopped
> rising properly. It looks like the air bubbles appear alright, but
> they come out of the dough rather than stay trapped. So the dough does
> not rise properly.
>
> Any ideas?
>
You should probably throw out the flour and the vital wheat gluten. White
flour that is properly stored should be used within a year. I believe that
it is recommended that vital wheat gluten be used within 3 months(I can't
pinpoint that fact, it is just something that I read somewhere recently.)

In addition, unenriched flour lacks malt and ascorbic acid. Both of these
ingredients have beneficial effects on how the dough rises. It isn't that
you can't make bread with flour that is unenriched; just that you most
likely will have to rethink the way you work with the flour.

Janet

On 21 May 2004 at 20:39, Ignoramus29346 wrote:

> Okay, thanks. I will buy new flour and try to get rid of old
> flour. I wonder what is the best way to feed it to chickens (I own
> two chickens).

Bake into crackers?

On the other hand, if the flour shouldn't be held more than a year
(which is consistent with USDA guidelines), why feed it to your
chickens?

At risk of outraging librarians and teachers, maybe it's time to make the
flour into flour paste?

Mike
--
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