Hello Magda,
What recipe are you making and what is the percentage of water / liquid that you are using?
The article about flour you are referring to can be found here:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…our-types/
In general European flour absorbs a few % less water than American type flour. So overall people using American type flour should add extra water to the final dough. So, that is also why we ask the questions, because you say your dough seems too moist.

Thank you,
Magda

Hello Donna,
We do not know how to help you exactly. The amount of protein you mention is indeed very high. We find it curious a miller should not be able to answer your questions, but maybe you have to ask for the ‘head miller’ or something to find out more.
The bread flour we use contains around 12.5% protein. We do use Manitoba sometimes that has around 14%, but we do not recognize the tough and rubbery result that you mention. It might be a result of over-kneading?

We know with pizza, it is not only the amount of gluten but also the type that is important.
We would suggest to use a mix of all purpose and this flour (50/50) for your bread baking and see how that goes. The result should be better.

Good luck with it!

Hi Bill,
You are right, many factors need to come together and there are so many recipes and methods with corresponding formulas that can result in good loafs. There is no one formula really, more a path to travel to a good basic recipe that you must make your own, based on your ingredients, equipment, surroundings and hands. So you might need to tweak your recipe to adapt to your altitude and humidity for example by altering the hydration just a few %. If you are looking for formulas we can recommend buying a good baking book like ‘Bread’ by Hamelman. What we have found, based on our own experience is that the quality of the flour is key in getting a good result. You can check out our test on the subject: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…nt-part-1/
We have collected our best baking tips here as a checklist for the most important variables in bread baking: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…king-tips/

Good luck with it!

Also, I use hard white wheat from Utah, and I live at 5100 feet elevation.

Thanks for any tips or tricks to try.

Thank you Mr. Salur for finding it helpful. Glad to hear it.

Normally the autolyse is between 30 and 60 minutes. Then you add the salt and yeast. The bulk proofing times depend on the recipe but are often between 2 and 4 hours in our recipes. Your 15 to 20 hours sounds very long.

Hi Escafon,
Yes, shaping and especially creating surface tension is very much part of creating a loaf that also gets good oven spring. Getting used to the stickiness and performing each action with efficiency so your hands are less and less in actual contact with the dough.

Just wanted to add this and you have already seen it: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…gh-mixing/

Excuse, I had completely overseen your article on kneading, that is where your infomation about gluten development is.

Groet,

Matthijs.

Two loafs further I see that this is not a very simple question, but asking a question is the beginning of the anwser, I start to get used to higher protein / gluten content, if it is hard to perform stretch and fold actions because the dough behaves like the rubber in my good old slingshot, I am probably too far get a good oven spring. My last batch ended well restraining myself while performing the slap and folds, Had half wholemeal 14% protein, a quarter white flour 14% and another quart white flour 11% protein. At hydratation 70 % I proceeded until I had a dough which left my work surface allmost clean but still a bit sticky to the hands, I keep on trying! I have seen that allso the shaping of the loafs makes difference in oven spring, so the gluten are still full of surprises.

Hi Verdi,
Danger is maybe to strong a word. But we do think you should always be careful cutting out something from your diet completely. Also with gluten, not because ‘gluten’ as such are good for you, but not eating the good products that contain gluten in favor of gluten-free products without the same health benefits would probably not be a great idea, (if you do not belong to the 1% group that is actually really gluten-intolerant that is). You can read more here: www.scientificamerican.com/artic…uten-free/
Our own mantra is ‘make your own with lots of variation’.