Just received my new Mockmill Professional 100 (!!!) and 5lbs each of Red Fife, Sonora, and Durum. Am searching for information about each of these wheat varieties to find out proper use toward my goal of 100% Whole Wheat goods. I’d prefer not to “cut” with AP, or even sift, if possible. (Pretty much why I have the Mockmill, so that I can grind fine enough to avoid bran-cutting-the-gluten-strands issues; again as much as possible).
So - the Sonora is a white wheat? Spring or Winter? Softer than other wheats, so more suited for quick breads? How might it perform in laminated doughs, like croissants?
Red Fife for 100% Whole Wheat wild yeast leavened artisan loaves? It is a hard winter wheat, right? My theory is that if I grind it fine enough, and add a tiny bit of Gluten Flour, I can achieve somewhere close to the loft and crumb of my former “greatest hits” bread which uses somewhere around 85% extraction flour. Would mixing in some Sonora help with that? (Again, not sifted).
TIA for any help from more experienced millers and bakers.
Not sure if you’ve seen this blog post I wrote. I think it has some of the info you’re looking for.
I touch on a white sonora / hard red artisan bread I’ve made that I like a lot. No extra gluten needed for the openness I’m okay with, of course that’s subjective. White sonora is a soft winter wheat.
Additional opinions and info:
Emmer is great for cookies and shortbread tart crusts.
White sonora in my favorite chocolate cake recipe was perfect, no hydration adjustment needed. It’s also good for empanadas and pie crust and tortillas–see a recent thread in these forums for tortilla discussion. @theangelinyourkitchen on Instagram makes a lot of whole grain croissants. Lately, hard white and spelt.
Thank you very much, Melissa. I see that there is a LOT of information from you, and I look forward to taking my time to study it. Can’t wait to try your methods and recipes, as well as the others you mention.
Here’s my whole grain recipe using 2/3 red fife and 1/3 hard white:
That’s a sourdough recipe and since I’ve never baked a loaf of bread with commercial yeast, I’m not sure how to tell you to convert it, but I assume one could substitute some amount of yeast for the sourdough and make some adjustments in the proofing.
I think I remember reading that Red Fife can be either a winter or spring wheat. I don’t know which the berries I get from Breadtopia are. Compared with hard red wheat, Red Fife tastes much better (less bitter) to me and has somewhat less gluten. Though it definitely has enough gluten to make a good, open, 100% whole grain bread loaf, I see a less open crumb and less oven spring with 100% Red Fife than with 100% Hard Red. I’ve found that combining it with 1/3 hard white wheat berries opens things up a fair bit without losing the nice Red Fife flavor (hence my recipe ingredients).
Edit: someone just wrote me that the Red Fife berries that Breadtopia is currently stocking are spring berries.