Wholemeal flour

BCR RM 40 Wholemeal Wheat Flour a <0.03 w.c. = 1.70 + 0.04 %. It is important to note that this material is likely to have handling problems due to its hygroscopic behavior. The water activity is in the range where the monomolecular surface layer of water may be removed. Thus, deterioration of the lipids is hkely to occur during storage. 

Animal muscle (pork), carrot powder, total diet, wheat flour Skim milk powder (elements), whole meal flour, bovine muscle, wholemeal flour, brown bread, cod liver oil (PCBs), rye flom, haricots verts (beans), pork muscle, mixed vegetables, carrot, bran breakfast cereal, unspiked milk powder (PCDDs, PCDFs), spiked milk powder (PCDDs, PCDFs), milk powder Rye flour, milk powder, whey powder Pork meat... 

Current British fortification of bread and flour is restricted to fortifying white and brown flour and bread with those materials that would be present in wholemeal bread or flour. 

The regulations specify which flour treatments can be used in bread and flour and in which circumstances they can be used (Table 1). One obvious anomaly is that ascorbic acid is permitted in wholemeal bread but not in wholemeal flour. 

L-Ascorbic acid E300 All flour except wholemeal. All bread 200... 

L-Cysteine hydrochloride E920 All flour used in the manufacture of biscuits, except wholemeal or flour to which E220 sulfur dioxide or E223 sodium metabisullite has been added 300... 

Chlorine E925 All flour intended for use in the manufacture of cakes, except wholemeal ... 

An overdose of malt flour will introduce too much enzyme activity in the dough, potentially reducing the product to a sticky syrup. Fungal a-amylase is now much more commonly used than malt flour. However, some malt flour is still used, particularly in wholemeal bread. 

In a roller mill wholemeal flour can only be made by recombining all the fractions at the bottom of the mill. This is why some wholemeal flour is still stone ground. The stone mills used are not antiques but are usually driven by electricity. There is no reason why roller mills or stone mills should not be driven by water power in the form of a water turbine. 

After the milling process, any gaseous treatments are applied, any powder treatments, e.g. ascorbic acid, are added, as well as any fortifying ingredients such as calcium sulfate. Different countries have various policies on fortifying flour. In the UK, white flour is fortified with calcium to make up for the calcium lost by not making a wholemeal flour. In the USA, bread is fortified with folic acid. It is possible for an untreated flour to be mixed with a flour improver containing the powder treatments. 

One property of the flour that is controlled by the miller is the extraction rate. Wholemeal flour has a 100% extraction rate, with brown, white and patent white having progressively reduced extraction rates. One obvious difference is the colour. Another is that the quality of the protein increase towards the middle of the wheat berry from which patent flour is produced. Thus, patent flour is sometimes used not to produce whiter bread but in products like hlo pastry or West Indian patties where the strength that patent flour gives is important and the colour is irrelevant. 

Almost any type of flour can be made as a wholemeal in principle. Wholemeal flour is what it says it is, i.e. all of the wheat. It is illegal to bleach fortify or add flour treatments to wholemeal flour. It is the only type of flour that does not have to be fortified as the natural minerals that were present in the wheat are all present in wholemeal flour. The wheat germ oil is also present. 

While any type of flour can be made in a wholemeal form some products probably can not be made from wholemeal flour. The problems are that although all the wheat protein is present the quality of the protein is lower towards the outside of the wheat berry. This effect would render the making of products requiring very high extensibility, e.g. filo pastry, very difficult. The other problem is that the bran particles tend to burst gas bubbles, reducing the amount of lift. Despite the above, wholemeal bread flour is common and wholemeal self raising flour can be made. 

Bakers tend not to like wholemeal bread flour because it is less reliable in performance than white flour. One reason for this is the restrictive legal position on flour improvers, which makes the dough less tolerant. In addition, when a wholemeal flour is made in a roller mill, all the flour components that the mill has separated have to be recombined at the bottom of the mill. If a spout blocks temporarily one component will be held back. If this sort of problem leads to an excess of white flour then the flour will bake well, if a local excess of bran occurs then baking performance will suffer. 

Although the 100% extraction rate ensures a bigger yield, wholemeal is not particularly popular with millers as a stronger grist is needed. In addition, its shelf life is only three months (cf. a year for white flour). The reduction in shelf life is supposed to be caused by oxidation of the lipid fraction that is absent from white flour. Furthermore, wholemeal flour must be kept apart from white flour less that is contaminated. 

Brown flour is a term that covers the extraction rates above 70% and below 100%, i.e. between white and wholemeal flour. Unlike wholemeal flour the full range of flour improvers are legal. The sale of brown bread is lower than that of wholemeal. Some nutritional thinking points to... 

Brown flour has all the shelf life and contamination problems of wholemeal flour. Some biscuit and wafer flours are brown merely because they do not need to be white. 

The situation with wholemeal flour is refreshingly simple. Flour treatments are banned and there are no statuary additions. The addition of ascorbic acid to wholemeal flour is forbidden but the use of ascorbic acid in wholemeal bread is allowed. Presumably, it was thought beneficial to allow the change so that the Chorleywood plants could make wholemeal bread. The ascorbic acid presumably goes in as an improver with other ingredients. 

The permitted use level in bread flour in the UK is 75 mg kg 1 in all bread flour except wholemeal and biscuit flour. The use in biscuit flours is permitted at 300 mg kg-1, except where sulfur dioxide or sodium metabisulfite is used. L-Cysteine is also used in pastry as a pastry relaxant. In both pastry and biscuits, not too surprisingly as the chemical action is the opposite of that in bread improvers, the reducing agents... 

Various fat-containing ingredients are in use in bakery products, which can be categorised as essentially pure fats, e.g. lard, largely fat ingredients, e.g. butter, ingredients with a substantial fat content, e.g. whole milk, and ingredients with traces of fat, e.g. wholemeal flour. 

The traces of fat in wholemeal flour reduce the shelf life of the flour as they become rancid fairly rapidly. Claims are made that this trace of fat has important dietary properties but the veracity or otherwise of this claim is beyond the scope of this book. 

Brown and wholemeal bread are generally made in a similar way to white bread except that a higher level of fat is normally used, e.g. 1.5% of the flour weight as fat, compared with 1 % for white bread. In making wholemeal or brown bread by the CBP process the fat level must be raised. It is only possible to make wholemeal bread by the CBP because... 

In general wholemeal bread is made with shorter fermentation times than white bread. As wholemeal flour has a higher water absorption than white a higher water addition can be used. 

Although a miller will always get a higher yield of wholemeal flour this is offset because in practice wholemeal flour needs a stronger grist than... 

Wholemeal and brown flours create problems for both millers and bakers since both sorts of flour have a limited shelf life (about three months) compared with the twelve month shelf life of white flour. Steps have to be taken to prevent brown or wholemeal flour contaminating white flour. 

These products were developed to offer the consumer a fibre-enhanced bread that still tasted like white bread rather than brown or wholemeal. Various kibbled grains, e.g. kibbled rye and kibbled wheat are added. The addition can be made either in the bakery or at the flour mill. 

Process for Fermented Rye Crispbread. This process is a bulk fermentation process with a dough made from wholemeal rye flour, water, yeast and salt. This dough is fermented for 2-3 hours at 24-27°C. Then the dough is knocked back by mixing for 5-6 min followed by proving for 30 min. 

Early versions were not very successful but later versions were more satisfactory. Bread baked from a mixture of 65% wheat flour and 35% of stone ground wholemeal triticale has been marketed in the USA. 

Bread has been made in Norway from wheat flour 78% extraction (50 parts) barley flour 60% extraction rate (20 parts) wholemeal flour (30 parts) with extra fat added. 

Ingredients. A simple recipe consists of wholemeal flour, salt, water and sour dough starter. The flour would be stone ground, possibly by hand. 

Notes. This recipe will work with the sort of flour sold at retail in the UK as suitable for bread making. The quantity of water added might need adjusting, particularly for wholemeal flours. 

The three levels of water addition used in variation 8, i.e. 800 mL, 900 mL and 1 L, should be tried. As a result of this experiment it should be apparent which is the optimum level for this batch of flour. Experimenters are warned that wholemeal flour develops more slowly and will never rise as much as white flour. 

Another trend that is likely to affect the bakery business is the move to healthier food. This could lead to an increase in products based on wholemeal flour as well as products based on sugar replacers rather than sugar. Special sugar-free bakery products are currently made particularly for the benefit of diabetics. 

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