70% Tartine Whole Wheat Bread with High Gluten Flour

Tartine 70% Whole Wheat Bread 

and 70% Gluten Flour

This bread dough felt really weird.

I think I intended to use some bread flour instead of all purpose flour for this loaf (I was baking for my sweetie), but instead, grabbed by mistake some high gluten flour that I once purchased out of curiosity.  I think that the intended use of this high gluten flour is for breads like rye or whole wheat, but you are to use it in much more minuscule amounts.  When you use 300g of the stuff, even this 80% hydrated dough begins to tighten like steel cable.

30% high gluten flour is WAY TOO MUCH

This dough feels pretty strange

Adding the salt and water and squooshing it through the fingers was like cutting it into ribbons

No matter what you do, these strange cords in the dough do not combine with kneading

I tried kneading it, to get the strands to incorporated more, but that just made it worse.  I thought for sure I'd have to add a lot more water, but I was already at 80%, so I decided against it.

Finally, I just left it to sit for 4 1/2 hours undisturbed -- not even any folding during the bulk fermentation -- and it seemed to straighten itself out.

The dividing and forming was a bit tricky too, as this bread just wanted to be tight, and when I cut it, it just wanted to shrink back like I'd cut an elastic.  Very strange viscosity.

Proofed 3 hours and baked in the dutch oven combo cooker.

Results

Tastes fine.  Wife likes it.  Crust is springy, not crunchy.  The crumb is a bit tighter, not as many irregular, wide holes as one usually gets with a Tartine loaf.  But nice oven spring.  I scored the dough deeply with a knife and it all filled in, and the shape was retained.

Notes to Myself

• To be clear:
• The bread is 70% Whole Wheat, and 30% processed wheat flour.
• The processed wheat flour is a High Gulten Flour with 70% gluten content.
• The bread is 80% hydrated.
• O Chef website answered questions about the difference between bread flour and high gluten flour in an interesting way: by suggesting that it might be useful to make breads that have less carbs since most of the starch is removed. While that may be true, the calorie content is going to be the same, per gram, so I don't see this to be any benefit to dieters. OChef also says there will be an 8x rise in the bread, and I can't verify that, from using 30% high gluten flour.
• Use less of this high gluten flour, if you use it.  It is not the same as bread flour, which is not the same as all purpose flour, and it is not the same as vital wheat gluten.  Use it sparingly.
  
  I got mine at a nearby bulk food barn.
  The bulk barn website says it is 70% gluten, and gives a rule of thumb for its use:
  

  Directions for use
  For hard rolls or heavy breads such as French, Italian or raisin, use 2 - 3% gluten flour in relation to the main flour weight. For dark breads including rye, use 1 - 3% gluten flour. For yeast raised sweet goods, use 1/2 - 1 1/2% gluten flour. For pretzels or crackers, use 1 - 2 % gluten flour.

  
  
  
  

Exorphins

I am a palliative care nurse. A big part of my job is to offer patients narcotics to alleviate their pain. While at home, one of my hobbies is baking bread. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I recently learned that all grains contain elements that mimic the action of morphine in the body.

Although I primarily work with hydromorphone (Dilaudid), morphine remains the prototype opioid analgesia. Morphine was first derived from the poppy plant and it was found to be useful because it binds to opioid receptors in the human body to block the ordinary pain response. Any substance that so directly affects the human central nervous system will have side effects, and indeed, morphine has many -- including euphoria.

The human body manufactures its own endogenous opiates, or endorphins. And the poppy is not the only plant that creates substances that will bind to the human opioid receptors. For example, wheat contains peptides which mimic the action of opiates in the human body.

In 1995, Greg Wadley and Angus Martin published a paper in Australian Biologist hypothesizing that humans invented agriculture in order to feel the euphoria that grain provides. In other words we cultivate plants, specifically grains, in order to experience the narcotizing effects of the grain's exorphins.

Last night, following my third 12-hour shift, dealing with hospital patients that overflowed our ward, I made my way home, exhausted but sleepless. Three shifts in a row is almost equivalent to an ordinary workweek for most people. So there was a reason why I was physically and emotionally exhausted.

But I wasn't sleeping because I was waiting for my firm starter to rise before refrigerating it, prior to the next day's baking. And that's when I realized it was true. I am addicted.

I am an exorphin junkie.