Anatomy of a Wheat Berry, and About Gluten

Basically, wheat germ is the baby plant, endosperm is the plant food, and bran is the outer covering. White flour is the endosperm alone, and has a relatively long shelf life. Whole grain flour is the whole deal ground up, and has a shorter shelf life because the oils in the germ will go rancid.

It's funny; before I knew this, I had sometimes made bread with white flour, and added bran and germ to make it more nutritious. I had really just reassembled whole grain flour!

Left whole, the grain can last a long time. I just soaked some >8-yr-old grain two nights ago, and it is already sending out spider-like root fingers. I wonder how long the grain will keep?

Gluten is a protein in the endosperm. If you add water to it and knead it, the gluten will form stretchy, rubber-band-like strands. This is of course the friend of the yeast bread, and doom for tender baked things like biscuits, cookies, and cakes. The gluten acts like a bunch of balloons, which fill up with the gas produced by the yeast, allowing the bread to rise. Or, it acts like a tangle of rubber bands, making cookies, biscuits, and cakes tough and chewy. A good "bite" is essential for a bagel; it is bad news for chocolate cake.

Different brans and kinds of wheat flour have differing amounts of gluten. Off hand, the extremes seem to be King Arthur Flour's "Sir Lancelot" on the high side, and White Lily® Flour on the low side. Sir Lancelot: great for bagels; White Lily: great for biscuits. An All-Purpose flour will be somewhere in the middle, and work reasonably well for most things.

Gluten absorbs water. A higher gluten flour will require more water than a lower gluten flour to achieve the same dough texture. I think this is the main thing that affects bread recipes, not the humidity in the air, or the season, etc.

I always use King Arthur Flour for bread, because they test and maintain a consistent gluten level in their flours. Once I find the right amount of water for a bread recipe, it never changes, all year, and I live in the south. Our humidity is all over the place.

Whole-grain bread may be heavy because the bran cuts up the gluten strands, reducing their rise. Bleah. I say mix the whole wheat flour with a good white bread flour; get some benefit of the whole grain while still making bread that's worth eating.

Musing: Hard wheats are higher in gluten, and tend to grow better in the more Northern states. Soft wheats are lower in gluten, and grow better in the South. Bagels are very popular in New York; biscuits are very Southern. Accident? YOU decide.

Prelude to Pretzel Class: Wheat Life Cycle, Other Grains, and Gluten

Before I go to my kids' preschool to bake pretzels with them next week, the teacher is weaving "baking" into the daily work, by reading them related stories, and having them use the grinder/flaker. I provide a variety of grains to be squashed into flakes, crushed into flour, handled, and maybe sprouted. I'm not sure why some grains are referred to as "berries", e.g. wheat berries, rye berries, etc. Oats are called "groats". Go figure.

This photo shows the preschoolers the life cycle of wheat, helping them discover that grain is grass seeds. Sprouting some certainly beats a photo, if you've got the time; just put a few on a wet paper towel, inside a zip-lock. They will absorb water, and sprout in just a couple of days. I started three varieties going at home yesterday, to show my daughter and to get some pictures. They are already plump from the water. I hope to keep them going until they look like green blades of grass; one day maybe I'll grow some that I can harvest... Hopefully the teacher will sprout some too.

Images from here, here, and here.

It's probably waaay overboard, but I gave the class 13 kinds of grain to crush. Most of them can sprout, too.

It's normal to have a grain collection, right? Once I wondered why we make bread with so few, given how many varieties there are. With tasting comes understanding. Much as I wanted to love them all, alas, it was not to be. Also, many of them are too low in gluten to make a loaf; they can only be additions to a good dough.

Here's info I've collected on grain varieties. I'm probably missing some. Unless someone tells me that teff or sorghum really do something fantastic for bread (do they?) I probably won't try any more. Anyone have opinions to share?

My greatest discovery: Kamut®; great story behind it, and it tastes great, good for you, hypo-allergenic, and more nutritious than red wheat.
My greatest dissapointment: Quinoa; great story, great nutrition, native to America, I really wanted to like it, but, yuck; big time yuck; tried it again, still yuck.

Grain	Gluten	My Comments
Wheat	high	"Hard" wheats are high in gluten. People who don't like whole wheat often like the taste of white wheats.
rice	none	Haven't tried in yeast bread.
corn	none	A bread called "Anadama" calls for corn meal.
millet	none	It's very mild; it might give some texture to a loaf.
sorghum	none	I have never tried it.
rye	high	Not my favorite, so I haven't used it much.
triticale	high	I don't care for this grain.
oats	none	I like adding a handful or two, either rolled or steel-cut, to my bread.
barley	moderate	Apparently you can make bread from barley alone, but I have not ever tried. It's nice in soup.
teff	none	I have never tried it.
wild rice	none	Haven't tried in yeast bread. Just doesn't strike me as a great idea.
spelt	high**	I think this one tastes ok, but not as good as wheat.
Kamut®	high**	My favorite whole grain, even more than wheat.
buckwheat*	none	I have never tried it.
amaranth*	none	I like throwing these into yeast bread whole, for texture in the bread.
quinoa*	none	Reading about Quinoa makes me want to like it, but I just don't; tastes bad.
kañiwa*	none?	I have never tried it.
cockscomb*	none?	I have never tried it.

*a non-grass grain, or "pseudocereal".
**The gluten is different from wheat gluten, and may be ok for people who cannot eat wheat gluten; or so I understand.