2.2 Suitable Types of Flour

The following pages are a translation of  these pages, at  www.der-sauerteig.de created and maintained by Martin Stoldt.

2.2 Suitable types of flour

Beginner should be aiming to use Wheat or Spelt and Rye flour, as these types are most suitable for spontaneous leavening. Although it is possible to make sourdough from Barley, Oat, Rice and other Cereals, but this requires special conditions which are not easy to meet. If you wanted to use such a sourdough, it may be advisable to use an existing sourdough and train it for use with the desired flour.  This way you will quickly have a dough which is strong enough to loosen up a dough without the use of yeast.

In principle all types of cereal are usable which have a sufficiently high content of starch from which bacteria and yeasts can live. However it is not in all cases possible to rear a fresh sourdough from such cereals.

2.2.1

Wheat

• Spelt wheat (all usual wheat and spelt types) Triticum spp. , Triticum aestivum, Triticum spelta
• Emmer wheat ( all Durum or hard wheat types [pasta wheat], limited use for baking) Triticum dicoccon, Triticum durum
  
• Einkorn wheat  (not suitable for baking) Triticum monococcum

Wheat production is only partially possible in central Europe (apart from Spelt production in the south-western parts). Until the mid 20th century central European wheat was so inferior that it always had to be blended with imported stocks of wheat. Breeding successes and the introduction of nitrate based fertilizers resulted in qualitatively sufficient wheat flours becoming available for baking. The dominant growing areas for wheat are southern Europe, North America, Canada and Argentine.

Wheat is excellent for baking. It is rich in gluten and starch.

A special form is the Emmer Wheat, which has a hard grain. It is only used for a certain few types of bread (Baguette, Ciabatta) and requires long resting periods, making it unsuitable for main stream baking as it has a hard and glass like structure. It is predominantly grown for semolina and pasta production.

A special place has Spelt flour. Spelt is a very old type of wheat, which has to this day completely eluded modification and breeding attempts.  Spelt does not react to chemical fertilizers or treatments, making it a prime candidate for healthy eating. Due to its lower yield however it is 10-20% more expensive than comparable wheat types.

Rye:

• Pettcuser Rye (Petkuser Rye, Ferd. Von Lochow 1849-1924 )
• Casten Rye

Both types of Rye are equal in usability and exist as thin shelled valley and thick shelled mountain types.  In addition,  summer and winter rye are distinguished. Rye is very winter hardy and the summer type yields a smaller harvest with lesser quality, subsequently mainly the winter type is produced. Rye is predominantly produced in east and northern Europe as well as the US and Canada.

Rye is almost completely free of gluten, thus virtually free of “dough-glue”,  but it’s grain possesses sufficient amount of starch.

This is why it is harder although not impossible to bake bread purely from rye flour. Additionally the protective enzyme “Phytic Acid” in rye flour inhibits gelatinization in the dough.

This enzyme is inhibited in acidic environments (low pH value), which is ideally provided for by the sour-dough (as well as yeast which contribute to loosening of the dough.) Another possibility to bake with rye flour is utilizing an acidic liquid (buttermilk, lemon juice, kefir, vinegar, etc) to stop phytic acid working.

Barley:

• two rowed barley (used in brewing, low in protein, not suitable for baking)
• four rowed barley (predominantly used for pearl barley,  groats, and as coffee substitute)
• six rowed barley (northern Europe, high altitude , threatened by extinction)

Barley is among the oldest cultivated cereals and has been cultivated for more than 6000-7000 years. It is remarkably resistant to cold temperatures and has a very short growing season (especially the six rowed variety). This is why barley makes the most suitable cereal for Arctic areas, even thought barley bread has a strong tendency to crack and crumble.  Bread made purely from barley is virtually impossible to produce with today’s barley types  (two and four rowed barley).

2.2.2

Types for flour

( * adopted)
Typically all flour types other than plain white flour are suitable to start a fresh sour-dough culture. For feeding an existing sour-dough, all flour types are suitable, (including plain white) as only the starch of the grain is used.

For starting a fresh culture however the bacteria and yeast which are present in the bran of the grain are needed.

These organisms will form what becomes later the sourdough.  As plain white flour does not include any of the grain’s bran any more, a freshly started sourdough will quickly become mouldy. Wholemeal flour on the other hand has too many micro-organisms living on its outer bran layers which makes spontaneous leavening more difficult. It is entirely possible however to start a fresh culture from wholemeal flour alone.

Flour types and the meaning of DIN Type Numbers

German flour type numbers (DIN Mehltyp) indicate the amount of ash (measured in milligrams) obtained from 100 g of the dry mass of this flour. Plain white flour (DIN Typ 405) is literally plain white, as non of darker and valuable part of the grain are used. Good baking properties have the types sold in the UK as  “bread flour” and “strong bread flour” (DIN Typ up to ~ 1050) the more coarse wholegrain types  (DIN Typ 1700, UK by experimentation “wholegrain stone-ground”) are less suited for fine baking which would be become crumbly with these types.

Darker wheat flours indicate higher quality flour as they are richer in content, but not all types of flour which are darker are necessarily better:
Rye flour is naturally darker than wheat flour, even the cheapest buy is light grey.

Breads are often (mis)labelled “wholemeal” if they contain malt extracts or simply caramel colour.

Commercially available wholemeal flour differs from home milled flour in that the germ has been separated in the mill from the grain. The germ is high in fatty acids (which is used to make wheat germ oil) which would become rancid during prolonged storage.

Strong bread flour types are most common in Rye flour.  (DIN Typ 970, 1150 and 1800). Ready mixtures often contain other cereal types and mixtures of differently milled flours.

DIN flour types (or your flour makers marketing names) however do not relate to coarseness of the flour or to the quality of the grain used.

Flour types are milled by a complicated and elaborate process of grinding, sieving, milling, sieving, milling again and a final sieving and blending with various tools, differently sieved components and at different speeds. Milling processes take advantage of the effect that the endosperm and bran have different weights and that the endosperm is easily crushed under pressure.

The owner of a domestic flour mill, (regardless if it is a steel, ceramic or stone mill or whether electric or hand-cranked) therefore can not produce different types of flour. Domestically milled flour will always be wholemeal flour.

A work-around could be to sieve out the bigger parts of the bran, but for starting a fresh sourdough culture it will be best advised to fall back on commercially available flour, apart form those who are willing to try the hard way.
Once you are in possession of a sourdough culture however home milled wholemeal flour can be used to feed and rear your leaven.

Further Reading: European Flour Milling Association

2.3

Water

It is often advised to bring water to the boil to kill any micro-organisms or reduce the amount of chlorine (we’re not going to discuss how feasible the latter actually is). Water quality in industrialised countries is usually of superb quality, frequently monitored and with not noticeable loaded with chlorine or ozone. This makes sterilizing water somewhat pointless, on the other hand however there is no harm in doing this. Everyone should stick to their individual preferences. It is important however that only lukewarm water is used.

40 C (104 F) and above are easily exceeded in water taken from the hot-water tap, and kill off sourdough  cultures.

Mould and Escherichia coli bacteria will spread destroying the sourdough.

2.4

Inoculation culture from a baker, friend or purchased

Bought or given sourdough cultures come in many forms, colours and consistencies. However it is always a mix of flour and water which is home to acidifying bacteria and yeasts.

Liquid as pancake mix
This is the normal sourdough culture, which we gain from rearing (see following chapters) or from starting a fresh culture. Thicker mixes we can start feeding immediately.

Solid as a bread dough
If the culture is solid like a bread dough, then flour has already been added and the culture is an advanced stage of rearing. ( storage leaven, ripe leaven sponge). We’re simply going to ignore what stage it may be at and simply add lukewarm  water until the mix has the consistency of pancake mix. Then we’ll feed it up to a full sourdough.

Dry crumbs
Dry crumbly sourdough is nothing but a normal sourdough mixed with enough flour until it forms little crumbs. Refrigerated this dough will live for several weeks. Add as much water as you have crumbs and let it soak for 1-2 hours or until the crumbs have dissolved. Now it is ready to be fed.

Hard and wafer thin, small hard grains or powder

When you pour a liquid sourdough  thinly on baking paper and leave open to dry, you will get wafer thin sourdough sheets which will remain usable for many years. (We will be using this method later ourselves to make a “secure dry copy” of your dough.) You can break the sheets up to get granules the size of semolina. To regenerate this into storage leaven we add the same amount of lukewarm water and leave it to rest for 4-5 hours, it doesn’t matter of the granules have not dissolved completely,we will begin feeding the dough, and 12 hours later the granules will have dissolved.

Purchased sourdough
Ready soughdough mixtures which you can buy in shops are often unfortunately not a suitable substitute  for a starting mixture obtained from a friend or traditional baker. These mixtures (in liquid or powder form) only contain the acidifying cultures, and not the necessary yeast (which could burst the sachets) which explains the requirement for adding yeast to the dough. These cultures are not suitable for use as starting cultures for your own sourdough.

“Fast sourdoughs” as used by many bakeries is similarly unsuitable. Fast sourdoughs are an industrially manufactured leavening additive which with the aide of yeast creates reasonably useful sourdough bread. It is not a comparable substitute for our sourdough. Equally you can not use them to rear your own cultures from them. Ask your baker if they use self-reared sourdough or ready made mixes from wholesalers.

It is of course possible that a baker does not wish to sell sourdough. They do not wish to loose customers. As a white lie you might try to say that it is for you child’s biology lesson. This could cause a miracle to happen!

Several sourdough mixes are available in powdered form. Read the label carefully if it is only a leavening agent, or if it contains it own yeasts (if the recipe ask you to add yeasts, it probably doesn’t!)

If all else fails, your self reared sourdough simply doesn’t want to live, you don’t find a friend who is willing to share with you and no baker lends a helping hand, you can ask someone on the forum to send you a healthy sourdough in exchange for token of your gratitude to cover the costs. I  (Martin Stoldt,  referring to the forum “www.der-sauerteig.de”) had to stop with my own sourdough mail delivery service, as it became to much work to prepare 50 portions every day.

v. 1.0 date: 13/06/2009

*) Notes on 2.2.2 Flour Types:

This text is a translation from German. The original text was written for a German audience which is accustumed to local standards and terms. The section 2.2.2 Flour types was written espescially specific to products and standards avalable in Germany only, and I made the decision to take a liberal stance on the translation rule ” as close a possible,  as loosely as necessary” . You can’t buy DIN type flour anywhere else in the world, so I’m citing them in brakets for a) “those in the know”, b)”good practice”. The terms ” baking flour” and “strong baking flour” are common in the UK, and I am using them here in this text. Consequently I have marked the chapter “adopted” as it is no longer a direct translation of the original.