[grendel]

Just for background, my mum has made her own bread since I was small- every other day Her dad (my Granddad) was a Master Baker most of his life, so we too have a good background in baking.
Like Paul I use the supermarkets own brand flour (whatever bread flower is the cheapest on the day in whichever supermarket I happen to be in when I remember), I do still have to get my head around how to produce the 'tiger crust' bread from supermarkets (something to do with a wash of rice flour dough I recall).
Grendel

[Annen]

Grendel that loaf looks good enough to eat!

What started this off was that for the first time in ages, I made a spelt loaf and it was okay-ish, but a bit cakey textured, so (a bit late) I checked the use-by dates and I had about 5 or 6 half bags of different bread flours, all past (well past) their best dates. It does seem to matter on flour, bread flour especially.
Which is why I was wondering if I could use plain flour, as I would use that up in other things. 
It seems like the answer is yes, but not with such good results.

[Trillium]

A general purpose flour will still make a decent loaf but if you can get the hard bread flour  you'll notice a difference. Spelt is a healthy grain to use but lacks gluten needed for rising so use it only as 10% of your total flour and the rest as regular wheat flour.

Flours do have basic 'sell by' dates of roughly 5 years, and that depends on the storage conditions. Once the wheat grain is ground up, the inner sections are now exposed and slowly go rancid over time with 5 years generally the maximum 'off' time. 1 or 2 year old flour should still be fine unless they were stored next to an oven or something that heated up regularly.

[Annen]

A general purpose flour will still make a decent loaf but if you can get the hard bread flour  you'll notice a difference. Spelt is a healthy grain to use but lacks gluten needed for rising so use it only as 10% of your total flour and the rest as regular wheat flour.

Flours do have basic 'sell by' dates of roughly 5 years, and that depends on the storage conditions. Once the wheat grain is ground up, the inner sections are now exposed and slowly go rancid over time with 5 years generally the maximum 'off' time. 1 or 2 year old flour should still be fine unless they were stored next to an oven or something that heated up regularly.

I wonder if that was why the spelt loaf was cakey, as I used all spelt not a mixture, perhaps the use-by date had nothing to do with it.  And I threw them all out! Thanks Trillium I'll give the spelt loaf another go as I like the flavour.

[rowan57]

I make quite a reasonable Spelt loaf using about 200g Spelt & 250g Strong White (Bread machine). I have put one on tonight and increased the oil level to see if that opens up the texture a bit, I will report back! I am much better at digesting Spelt so I likes to try.

[Annen]

I make quite a reasonable Spelt loaf using about 200g Spelt & 250g Strong White (Bread machine). I have put one on tonight and increased the oil level to see if that opens up the texture a bit, I will report back! I am much better at digesting Spelt so I likes to try.

Let us know how it turns out!

[Trillium]

Haven't tried it myself but here's a recipe for spelt biscuits: biscuits

and a slew of spelt bread recipes: here

[rowan57]

Very noice indeed. Still quite a dense crumb, but a nicer crust. Toasts very well which is all I want it for.

[Annen]

Very noice indeed. Still quite a dense crumb, but a nicer crust. Toasts very well which is all I want it for.

I will try that.  I wonder if adding a pinch of vitamin C powder, as Grendel suggests, would work with spelt flour too. I feel an experiment coming on...

[Kleftiwallah]

So. . .after reading all your admirable replies, anyone know why my 70% strong white and 30% wholemeal (no oil) always seems to be a tad heavy and breaks rather than bends?  Tastes jolly good though.

Cheers,   Tony.

[Trillium]

When you work with any whole wheat flour you need to add a bit extra liquid and when you knead it, be careful not to add too much extra flour to minimize stickiness. My w.w. doughs are somewhat sticky as I knead and they turn out perfectly.  By doing so you leave in enough moisture for the bread to be more bendy. 

[Annen]

Just to report back...I tried the bread that Snoop talked about at www.artisanbreadinfive.com

I made the dough using half amounts yesterday and set a shaped small amount to rise in the fridge overnight.  It was very sticky and I couldn't get it into the nice shape which they do on the video, but I soldiered on... It didn't seem to rise much in the fridge but I put it in the oven this morning anyway. I am using a halogen oven. It was so soft the cuts in the top healed over instead of blooming. It looked okay, but had a very chewy crust, nice in the middle, quite open texture.  I have some more dough left so I will try again because I think it will be useful especially if I don't need to light the main oven and wait for ages for it to come to temperature. I think next time I will let it sit for a while after it comes out the fridge, half hour might let it rise a bit more.

[Snoop]

Just to report back...I tried the bread that Snoop talked about at www.artisanbreadinfive.com

I made the dough using half amounts yesterday and set a shaped small amount to rise in the fridge overnight.  It was very sticky and I couldn't get it into the nice shape which they do on the video, but I soldiered on... It didn't seem to rise much in the fridge but I put it in the oven this morning anyway. I am using a halogen oven. It was so soft the cuts in the top healed over instead of blooming. It looked okay, but had a very chewy crust, nice in the middle, quite open texture.  I have some more dough left so I will try again because I think it will be useful especially if I don't need to light the main oven and wait for ages for it to come to temperature. I think next time I will let it sit for a while after it comes out the fridge, half hour might let it rise a bit more.

Sorry, that's my fault for not giving full instructions it would seem. I thought they'd do that on their website and didn't look carefully enough.

Make the dough as detailed in my earlier message and leave it all to rise in its container for two hours. It will double in volume. Then put all the dough, still in its container, in the fridge, where it will probably sink a little bit. Don't close the lid of the container completely at any stage, just rest it on the top to allow any fermentation gases to escape. It's not worth trying to shape the dough immediately either before or after the two hours initial rise because, as you say, it's very sticky. This is why they recommend putting it in the fridge beforehand.

When you want to bake bread, take an amount of dough from the container (450 g is their recommended amount - a quarter of the full recipe) and quickly shape using what they call their 'cloak' technique. If you check this on the website, you should find some video demonstrations. Essentially, take the lump of dough in floured hands and roll edges and tuck in underneath for ten seconds or so (absolutely no kneading) till you have a smooth surface. If you want a freeform 'boule' loaf, that's it. If you want a tin loaf (450 g is about a pound to give you an idea of the tin size), you need to stretch your ball of dough a bit to fit your tin.

When you've done this, leave the loaf to rise again (they cover in cling film but I make loaves in a tin and plonk the tin in a carrier bag twisted at the top to close it for convenience). For loaves of 450 g and more using dough from the fridge (the maximum weight they mention is 650 g), leave to rise for an hour and a half before putting in the oven. For rolls, 30 minutes rising is enough. For pizzas and foccacias, I leave them to rise while I'm putting on the topping and then maybe another five minutes or so depending on how long it took me to do that. If you put boiling water in a container in the oven as well, you get a decent crust (I put a pyrex jug in, but they use a metal grill pan if I recall rightly, which probably gives a more even spread of steam, but I don't have shelves in my oven so I can't do that).

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask. The authors have had years of trying out their method and explaining it. This is my first time, so I will probably have missed things out. I highly recommend the new edition of their book (mentioned in my previous message) for a full explanation.

Apologies if the loaf didn't come out well. That was my fault, not theirs. Have a look around the website, as they have some nice bread ideas. I strongly recommend the book for lazy bread bakers. The results are more than acceptable and couldn't possibly be easier. I've tried all kinds of breadmaking methods, but keep returning to this one for convenience and cheapness.

[Annen]

Apologies if the loaf didn't come out well. That was my fault, not theirs. Have a look around the website, as they have some nice bread ideas. I strongly recommend the book for lazy bread bakers. The results are more than acceptable and couldn't possibly be easier. I've tried all kinds of breadmaking methods, but keep returning to this one for convenience and cheapness.

No need to apologise at all, it was probably my fault if anybodies, I forgot to flour my hands so every thing stuck, and I'm trying out the halogen oven, which I am still learning, so that was 2 opportunities for things to go wrong.  I deliberately only used a small amount so I would have some left to experiment with. And anyway it tasted nice and good exercise for the jaws. Thanks for the further instructions, it is quite simple though, isn't it.  That method certainly has potential to be useful and easy if I can get the hang of it.

[Snoop]

The key is to leave the dough in the fridge for a few hours after its initial rise. It makes it much easier to handle when you come to shape your loaf. Any unused dough goes back in the fridge. According to the book, it will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks. It never lasts that long here! What they do say is that towards the end of the two weeks, it won't rise as much during the second rise, so it's best used for flat breads, foccacia say.

You were right about flouring your hands before shaping. It also helps to scatter a bit of flour on the surface of the amount of dough in the container that you want to use for your loaf. When they remove dough from their container, they grab it with their floured hands and then cut it off with scissors. They drop the ball of dough into a little flour, shake of the excess and then start to 'cloak' it.

Another handy thing is that they suggest not washing out your container after you've finished your batch of dough. Just make up your next batch in the same container with the leftover bits of dough from the previous lot. I've done this, though I must admit I was a bit worried at first. Their argument is that it's not very different to the sourdough technique and it does improve the flavour slightly. It certainly makes washing-up much easier.

Try the hot water trick for a better crust if it was very chewy. It's recommended on the Lidl bread mix packets and it does make a difference. I also dust the top with flour before baking, but I don't know if that has any impact on texture. Certainly looks good.