French Flours?

jdoniach · September 16, 2021, 10:04am

After baking sourdough bread very successfully in the US for the last 15 years, we have now moved to France. The flours here seem completely different. Does anyone have any advice about how to bake bread with French flours? They seem more like talcum powder!

I just made a loaf with T65 flour at 70% hydration and it came out very flat.

jdoniach · September 19, 2021, 8:45am

I was finally able to bake a nice loaf.

For the first couple of attempts I was using salt that I found in the apartment that is a 50-50 mixture of salt + potassium, magnesium, and calcium.

What I did differently:

Using pure salt
Two hours of autolysing before adding salt and levain (sourdough starter)
A lot of stretching of the dough during the first rise.

100 g T150 whole grain wheat flour
250 g T65 white flour
67 g T80 spelt
33 g rye (T-value unknown)
10 g salt
100 g levain, 100% hydration
275 g water

First rise about 10 hours at room temp
Second rise overnight in proofing basket in fridge

30 min in 250C clay baker
10 min at 250C uncovered