ConAgra First Clear Flour. Baking Tests.

Normally, bakers test flour using their own bread recipe, for bread that they regularly bake. After all, they are not interested in flour itself. They want to know whether that flour is suitable for their product, for their breads.

Scientists, however, developed standard testing methods for flour, which allow to compare flour to flour in the same recipe anywhere in the world.
International Association for Cereal Science uses different method than American Association of Cereal Chemists.  British and Canadian technologists used to use their own fast baking test using Chorleywood Process. And Soviet technologists used yet another one.

They are all straight dough methods and allow to see whether flour would actually give edible bread using such fermentation schedule, ranging in length from no-time dough, to long 4hr fermentation straight dough.

Some methods use plain flour, water, salt and yeast. These tests are typical for Europe and Russia, where breads of such simple composition, unsweetened and hard crusted, are still popular.

Other baking tests use additives and flour improvers in their test recipes. They show how flour reacts to improvers, effects of sugar and fat in the recipe. After all, good flour is not just good by itself. It reacts to improvers stronger and more favorably than not so good flour. Additions of sugar and fat, vitamin C and lecithin to good flour will give better loaf than addition of improvers to mediocre flour. Such sweeter and softer test breads are typical for Great Britain and its former colonies - Canada and the US.

I. Soviet baking test method for wheat flours

500g flour
10g yeast (4g ADY, rehydrated)
7.5g salt
water according to flour absorption capacity.

Mix to homogeneity. DDT 28-30C. Let rise until dough increases 2.5 times in volume at 30-32C, punch down by kneading. Let rise until max volume at 30-32C, punch down by kneading, round up. Let it rise until 1.5-2 times increase in volume. Place dough in baking pan (no shaping is required) or shape it for hearth baking. Proof at 30-32C. Bake. Baking time and temperature is determined according to the grade of flour and kind of bread - hearth or pan loaf.

Source:  Плотников, Колесников (1940) 350 сортов хлебобулочных изделий. Стр10.

Results

Ingredients

500g ConAgra First clear flour
4g Fleischmann's active dry yeast, rehydrated for 15 min in 20g of 38C water.
7.5g fine sea salt
350 g water 30C

Method

Mixed for 1 min 30 sec in Cuisinart Food Processor. Stretched dough out and folded 7 times on the countertop. 2 hrs fermentation @30C. Mixed for 1 min 15 sec in Cuisinart Food Processor. Folded dough 7 times on countertop, 1hr 30 min fermentation @30C. Mixed for 1 min in Cuisinart food processor. Rounded up. 30 min rest @30C.

Panned in Russian bread tin #7, 1.8L volume, without shaping.

30 min proof @30C.

1 hr bake: 30 min @450F inside a covered turkey roaster. 30 min outside of roaster, on middle oven shelf, @400F with convection.

Results

 730 g loaf, perfect in every sense, after baking. 700 g after cooling.

Crumb

Observations

First rise gave weak surface of dough, grainy looking, collapsing with ease upon touching. Second rise gave huge shiny bubbles on the surface, stable top at the maximum volume. Third rise gave elongated pores on the sides, visible through glass walls of the container (optimum fermentation rate), very tiny bubbles on the surface.

Tall loaf, good oven spring. Normal crispy crust, normal elastic crumb. Even porosity. Small pores. Color of the crumb is creamy with grayish tint. Taste is neutral, somewhat flat, resembling cooked egg white (high content of albumin), slightly sweet, not enough acidity. Aroma is wheaten and nutty, good. Loaf volume @70% hydration is about 2.5L, @ 78% hydration - about 3L.

II. Standard German Baking Test for Pan Bread Made with Wheat Flour

500g flour
15g yeast, or 6g ADY, rehydrated
6g salt
water, according to absorption capacity, (350g for ConAgra First Clear flour)

Mix to optimal development (2 min in Cuisinart FP). Let ferment for 1hr @24C, punch down @30min and @60min mark. 'Punch down' is done in the mixer. I mixed in CuisinartFP  for 15sec @30min mark and for 2 min @60min mark to obtain nice dough. Rounded it up, after 20 min rest I placed dough in 2.2L pullman pan from William Sonoma, 30 min proof@24C, 1hr bake @400F. After baking the loaf is brushed with water. It gives the crust nice gloss.

Association for Cereal Research, 1994. Published in Determining the Baking Quality of Wheat and Rye Flour, by W. Freund and M. Kim. http://www.muehlenchemie.de/english/know-how/future-of-flour.html

 Results

750g loaf, crispy glossy crust, excellent oven spring

Beautiful soft moist crumb

The German testing method uses 30% more yeast and 20% less salt than the Russian Test Bake. The dough ferments only 1hr@ 24C, instead of 4-4.5hrs at 30C. So, compared to the Russian test output, it gives softer fluffier crumb and larger loaf at the same hydration level.

 Such short fermentation coupled with low salt is insufficient to give edible bread, it tastes like saltless porridge and plain boiled egg white... but the the testing method itself is very convenient, fast and displays what flour is capable of in pure form - mixing and fermentation tolerance, volume, crumb, crust, glossiness upon baking with steam or simply brushing with water at the end of baking, etc.