I just heard a parade of sirens coming from what sounded like the east side of Lafayette going through close to downtown to the west side of Lafayette. Does anybody know what the hell's going on?
I had been working through a 25 lb bag of sprouted hard white wheat for a while. I had my recipe down pat and was getting great bread every time. Then last week I had to switch to the new bag of sprouted hard white wheat. What I'm noticing is that even with less water, the dough starts off seeming drier but then gets very stretchy and extensible very quickly.
The old batch of wheat would start off very sticky and wet and "webby" in the KitchenAid mixer,. Mixing on setting two, it would take about 20 minutes for it to slowly become a nice, smooth ball of dough that would clean the sides and the bottom of the bowl. I would usually do a window pane after letting it rest for 5 minutes and it usually gave me a good window pane. The dough was fairly strong. I would have to be careful because of course whole wheat doesn't stretch as easily even when the gluten is fully developed. But I would get a good strong window pane.
With this new wheat, it seems like it does the opposite. It starts off a compact ball of dough. It doesn't have that wet, webby look in the beginning. But I know the gluten can't possibly be developed in 5 minutes, so I mix it for a while as I would previously. And then eventually it actually starts to look softer and stickier. So I finally stopped about 5 minutes sooner than I normally would. I let it rest 5 minutes and then tested for window pane. The dough is very stretchy, very extensible and softer, and I get a very thin window pane. The first loaf I made with this batch ended up falling a bit after the oven spring as if the structure wasn't there to hold it up throughout the entire bake and cooling process. I'm afraid the loaf I'm going to bake today will be the same. Even though I added less water, it seems even softer and stretchier than last week's.
Has anyone else had a similar experience between bags of wheat berries? Is it likely a hydration issue, a gluten percentage issue, gluten quality issue, or maybe all three? I know that one component of gluten contributes to extensibility while the other component contributes to elasticity. I'm thinking maybe this batch of wheat has more of the extensibility component and less of elasticity component.
Any help or insight is greatly appreciated!