into two parts ("the south" and "everywhere else"), and supply AP flour with a lower gluten content to "the south". Keep at it, this post is meant to be helpful as we all have been there and more than occasionally are. There may be legitimate issues with the flour you cite other than protein content.Īnd see the Tartine book - great results only by hand mixing.
Dan Leader's "Local Breads" on p18 says "Home bakers often assume that more protein makes better bread, but the best hand-crafting bakers like a balanced flour, between 11.3 and 12.2%, with enough strength to hold the gases within the cell walls to give the bread a high rise but still soft enough to chew." Leader also says to use unbromated flour same as you mention above.Īs MRFrost says, useful to try a different flour for comparisson which may allow you to point to technique? Higher protein requires a higher hydration ratio so adjusting up or down to get the right feel is perhaps needed too. the 11.6% above- not far off enough to really matter. See Tartine P 70 and Hamelman's "Bread" p365 - where the flour analysis uses 11.78% protein vs. Many of the well known books say that bread results are more influenced by technique rather thant protein per se. There are many recipes that work fine with AP or flour at the lower end of high protein resulting in a great loaves characterized as slightly softer texture rather than overly chewey which can result from very high protein levels. I respectfully suggest that lack of protein is likely not the issue, perhaps technique. It should be roughly equivalent for recipes on the King Arthur website that call for AP flour.Īdding vital wheat gluten to the ConAgra Harvest Bread flour will probably bring it up to the range of actual bread flour - I'm told it adds about 1% to the protein content when used as directed. SO, if you want to use the ConAgra Harvest flour from Costco, and you're in the SE, you may want to avoid the AP flour and stick to the Bread flour, treating it like it's equivalent to King Arther AP. National brands have a bigger stake in maintaining some level of consistency I guess. Most national store brands of AP flour are nominally listed at 10.5% protein though I'm told in actuality they vary regionally from around 10% to 11%. *sigh*Įven the ConAgra Harvest Bread flour is too low in protein to actually qualify as a bread flour - it's slightly lower in protein than King Arthur's All Purpose flour! No wonder none of my AP bread recipes were coming out! And I guess maybe some of the credit for the success I've finally had with pie crust is due to the flour rather than my increased prowess at pie making. This means the ConAgra Harvest AP flour is actually a PASTRY flour. (Then there's White Lily, which historically was around 8%, not sure what it is now that it's been sold off) Typically we think of bread flour being something close to 13% protein, high gluten 14% to 15%, all purpose around 10% to 12%, pastry flour at about 9%, and cake flour being about 6% - 8%. It'll be a couple of weeks yet before I can get to Costco to double check that. I could have sworn the bags I bought actually did say it was bromated, but I've long since repackaged the flour and tossed the bags. The ConAgra representative to whom I spoke swore that although the ConAgra Harvest flour available at Costco is bleached, it is NOT bromated. Kyrol "high gluten" flour is 13.8% protein (compare to KA Sir Lancelot at 14.2% protein) - not all Costco's carry this, mine unfortunately does not. "Bread flour" coming out of that mill is 11.6% protein (compare to 12.7% protein for King Arthur) SO for the South East, that would be from AT LEAST North Carolina down and I'm not sure how far west the ConAgra mill is in Alabama.Īll Purpose Flour coming out of that mill is 9.2% protein (compare to 11.7% protein for King Arthur) Unlike King Arthur, Con Agra does not mill their wheat to meet any particular definition of what we would typically think of as "bread flour" or "all purpose flour". I had to call ConAgra to get this information and if you are in some other part of the country it's going to be different. OK so I've been having an AWFUL time trying to make my bread come out right and I finally found out what's wrong.ĬonAgra Harvest All Purpose Flour is about the same protein content as biscuit mix.
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