Trouble with Stoneground not rising
Question
I have been making bread quite successfully using white bread flour and french flour for baguettes etc. However, whenever I use stoneground flour, the bread does not rise as it should and the consistency is not right - it is too dense. When I can get hold of fresh yeast I use this, otherwise dried yeast (not fast acting, though).
How I can get a decent loaf using stoneground flour and what type of yeast I should be using.
Answer
True wholemeal will always have a closer crumb structure, unless it has been enhanced, as with some of the modern flours and bread making methods, by extracting some of roughage and goodness and adding a whole bunch of enzymes to increase the volume.
Some of the best flavours of wholemeal breads will be produced using softer proteins; they will have that lovely sweet flavour with lots of texture when complemented with fermentation.
I always prefer to use fresh yeast, or a sourdough starter to produce wholemeal. Fast acting yeasts do, as the name says, act fast, but there is a price to pay. There is no short cuts to making good wholemeal bread.
You can lighten the texture by setting what is termed as a flying sponge by fermenting 20% of your flour with all of your yeast and one and a half times this weight of flour in water
Added by: tom