so I am now getting the hang of making extruded pasta both straight and not straight. I also know that the die I can use for elbow macaroni I can also use for ditalini(which is basically elbow macaroni chopped fine enough that there is no bend) and cavatappi(a spiral of macaroni sometimes called double elbow macaroni). This is nice because then I can make baked mac and cheese, use ditalini in soups, and use cavatappi in certain recipes.

a whole wheat bread recipe I saw on Allrecipes calls for 5 cups of bread flour and 3 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour. This is not actually whole wheat bread because while whole wheat flour is used there is a blend of whole wheat flour and white flour which equates to wheat bread, not white whole wheat or regular whole wheat and not white either.

How much whole wheat flour if that is the only flour I am using will I need for the same consistency dough as with 5 cups of bread flour and 3 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour. The original recipe makes per batch 3 loaves.

Personally, I wouldn't get a bread recipe from Allrecipes, even if that recipe is highly rated. There are other sites that I trust far more. For example: kingarthurflour.com

but Allrecipes is the website that I used for the pizza pasta salad recipe and a recipe for lasagna and baked mostacchioli. Plus some of the ones with higher trust use specific flours which is not helpful for someone who does not have that flour and wants to make that recipe

I'm not suggesting that recipes from the site are inherently bad, I just choose to stack the odds in my favor.

I know. I'm just saying because my whole wheat flour is unlike any other whole wheat flour in that when fully ground it is at the same consistency and has a similar texture to all purpose and it acts similarly in half the amount as all purpose does so because all purpose has about 12% gluten than my whole wheat flour must be 24% gluten. The bread flour has about 13% gluten so I guess for bread flour vs wheat flour it would be approximately that same 1:2 ratio as for wheat flour to all purpose.

What wheat variety are you using?

It is spring wheat and I think I am using a red wheat because of the darker appearance in my whole wheat pasta

BTW, I just attached a comment to an answer of yours. Oats do not contain gluten.

yes they do

Bob's red mill Oat Flour has 14% gluten in the non-gluten free variety

now that is exactly the same % gluten as King Arthur 100% whole wheat

Sorry. Oats do not contain glutenin or gliadin, the proteins that are, by definition, gluten.

but Bob's red mill oat flour does not contain wheat and the variety with gluten is at 14% gluten which is the same % gluten as King Arthur 100% whole wheat

Plus all grains are directly related because they are all grasses

so all of them should have gluten since there are non-gluten free flours made from grains that aren't in the same family as wheat.

I don't care what wrong thing you have read. The fact is, oats do not contain gluten. Period. I know this like I know the earth is vaguely spherical.

IT IS NOT MISINFORMATION I READ

Ok, fine.

Those people giving 0 gluten to oats just say "Oh this is not the same as wheat gluten so it isn't gluten" and completely ignore the fact that the gluten genes are there with some mutations because it is oat gluten and not wheat gluten.

Oh Ok. Is that like saying saccharine isn't sugar-free because it tastes sweet?

yeah it is like that

It's time for me to go to bed, I have a long day tomorrow. Goodnight.

@caters, is this what you think is suggesting that Bob's Red Mill Oats contain gluten?

@caters The biggest reason some oats and oat flours aren't gluten free is that they get contaminated with wheat. The oats themselves are gluten free.

A lot of grains are actually gluten free; I think the big ones that aren't besides wheat are barley and rye.

As for the bit about genes... well, there's a lot of variety in grasses, it's a whole family (not just a genus) with thousands of species. Some of them have it, some don't.

I think all the ones with gluten are in this tribe: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triticeae (between subfamily and genus, I guess the taxonomy was too complex so they put a couple more levels of classification in there).

In other grains I'm sure there's something that's related to glutenin and gliadin, but it's different enough that it doesn't work for breadmaking, and doesn't trigger gluten sensitivities, so it makes sense that we don't call it gluten.

Even among varieties of wheat there's variation in gluten; the wheat we use today has been selected over time for making good bread.

@Jefromi I wonder if that's a possible answer to @Jolene's flour question

@Jolenealaska Yes because it isn't the gluten free oat flour(that's separate) and it is 100% oats

huh?

@logophobe some people make both an oat flour that has gluten and a gluten free oat flour. Bob's Red Mill is an example of a company that does that.

they probably contain some similar proteins that wheat flour also includes

It isn't, Bob's Red Mill oat flour with gluten is 100% oats

if it doesn't explicitly state "gluten-free" that just means they're playing it safe... it's pretty easy for trace amounts of other flours to get mixed in, which can cause problems for people with gluten sensitivities

see here: thekitchn.com/the-oat-conundrum-are-oats-glu-137074

"oats contain a protein only a few amino acids different from gliadin" is one of the comments on that article. This implies that the gluten genes are there but are different because of different mutations.

yeah, but that by definition makes them no longer "gluten genes"

they express a different protein

but it should still make them act like gluten somewhat because of only a few amino acids being different not the whole sequence

well, you might think so, but that's not always true

protein folding and formation is ridiculously complex

check this out: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_folding

even a difference of a couple amino acids can completely change the resulting shape of a protein and what it does

even rearranging the same set of amino acids can give you a totally different protein

and a difference in DNA does not necessarily mean a difference in amino acids

not necessarily. it depends on whether the difference is in a set of DNA codons that express amino acids

even then, it's possible for those codons to get turned on or off... so an organism might contain the same set of genes, but they're just dormant and don't wind up creating certain amino acids and thereby proteins

and different environmental factors can change gene expression. In fact that causes the majority of changes in gene expression

I dunno about the majority, that's debatable. but that's correct, yes

so in the oats example, yeah, it's possible that the DNA codons that ultimately produce gluten are present and just dormant

but it's also possible that those codons aren't present

that could even vary depending on the oat

but, it's pretty clear that for whatever reason, oats don't produce gluten proteins

@caters The reason that product, the one that has the nutrition label I posted above is different from the "gluten-free" version is in the very last line on the label.

Since contamination is possible (even probable), it does not make the gluten-free claim.

yah exactly

at most you'll get a trace amount, but that's enough to cause significant problems for people with sensitivities

@Jolene all this discussion makes me think that your mystery flour might be a particular strain that's been bred to express an unusually high amount of other proteins'

Here's the label from the gluten-free version. You'll see it's identical in every way except for the last line.

@logophobe I actually suspect that the label (on that weird flour) is wrong, I'm going to experiment with it later. I swear if behaves in a high-gluten way, I'm going to be just beside myself.

that's a strong possibility too. I've been digging around and most of the high-protein varieties I can find are also advertised as producing high gluten too

that "low-gluten" statement could easily be marketing rubbish

It's not a statement on the label, it's what the flour itself is supposed to be. It's maida, which I spent hours researching before I wrote a couple of answers regarding it. So then to see it on the shelf claiming 16% protein has me just flabbergasted.

isn't fine-milling what makes it maida? or is maida made from a particular type of wheat?

both

huh

maybe the argument goes something like: it's fine-milled, so it hydrates quickly. hence less mixing, hence less gluten formation

which sounds pretty dubious to me

be interesting to see the results of your tests, though

The first thing I am going to do is make bread in my bread machine using a simple recipe, super-accurate scales and precise water temp. I am going make the loaves as identical as possible, but use cake, AP, bread and maida flour.

cripes. the second thing you'll have to do is find some recipes for all your leftover bread.

The loaf with maida should be most like the loaf made with cake flour.

If not, I've got some rather embarrassing re-writing to do.

how are you checking similarity?

The only way I know how, by measuring, feeling and eating.

I'm still hoping that someone will come along and answer that question with something more scientific.

I mean more... what specific characteristics would you expect to differ between your known quantities? cake flour = finer texture, etc.

The amount of rise and the "chewiness"

Cake flour should rise more because the lower gluten content should provide less resistance to the yeast action. It should also be significantly softer, less chewy.

hmmm

wouldn't lower gluten content mean less efficient gas capture?

Maybe. At any rate, since I have a continuum of gluten content in my "known" flours, I should know more after the experiment about where maida (or at least this maida) falls on that continuum.

right on - have fun

I gotta go perform an experiment myself. one where I see whether cleaning the kitchen will make my wife not yell at me when she gets home

I'm using this recipe. It just doesn't get any simpler. Of course I will convert measurements to grams and I'll even use my gram scale with sensitivity down to hundredths of a gram to measure the yeast, sugar and salt. kingarthurflour.com/recipes/…

good luck!

back at you. bye for now

cya

I plant my wheat in the spring for these reasons:

1) Where I am the frost is very mild so winter wheat won't become dormant like it is supposed to

2) it makes me harvest wheat during the same time that I harvest some of my fruits and veggies

other than the fact that the frost is mild there are very few days with frost and a lot with warm or hot weather because I am in the goldilocks zone of New Earth which is at the same latitude range at Memphis, TN

This means that I could direct seed peppers in January or Febuary with no problems

I also think that this means since I have cultivars that are both heat-hardy and cold-hardy that pretty much all my plants would become perrenials if they aren't already and so the getting seeds out and planting them would just be to increase harvest/year.

@Jolenealaska are you sure that maida has a specific gluten level at all?

In many countries, the flour types are independent of gluten

For example, in Germany, flour types are determined by the part of the grain which gets milled. Which is correlated to gluten somewhat, but not completely.

So, a German Type 450 flour can have anything between 8 and 12% gluten, I think (roughly).

and in italy it is determined by how fine the grind is which has little correlation to gluten

Maybe Maida is the Indian name for a kind of flour determined by something completely unrelated

and so there could be Maida flours with gluten content all over the map

If you found some sources insisting that Maida has some specific gluten content, it is possible that some Americans (who are accustomed to categorizing flour according to gluten) bought 2-3 types which happen to be in a similar range and then decided that this must be the normal range for Maida?

and hello @caters

That maida is all over the map concerning gluten is clear, but I do expect it to remain in a hemisphere.

7% to 16% is getting a bit ridiculous.

@Jolenealaska why? If the thing which makes it maida is completely orthogonal to gluten content, then there is no need for it to remain in a "hemisphere" regarding gluten

But how could you even use it in baking if it varies that much?

Until I bought my first American cookbook, I didn't even know what gluten is

it is normal for flours to vary that much

the Americans are the people who are exact about that kind of thing

and until a few decades ago, the only ones for whom such variation was possible at all

Europe doesn't even grow the flour varieties needed for high gluten flours

Evening ladies

Hi tall! Guess what we are talking about?

I can see

I guess it is possible that traditionally maida had a smaller range, and nowadays it gets a larger one because it continues to use the same name but starts using a wider variety of wheat types

You are getting gluten on the brain jojo

@rumtscho I think you're brushing against the answer there.

Perhaps in India you can buy different strengths of maida just like you can with flour in the West

@Jolenealaska it's still a speculation. But indeed, in Europe you get neither 7% nor 16% flour. It is almost always somewhere in the middle.

But beside the protein amount, it also acts differently - has a slightly different ratio of glutenin to gliadin, and other stuff. Corriher mentions it somewhere.

@ElendilTheTall I doubt it. Flour strength is something only American and English bakers care about or have .heard of.

OK, not "only", that was badly worded

That's what's important. More than the numbers, how does it act?

@Jolenealaska a bit differently each time, obviously.

But nobody cares.

Or even notices much.

This is true. French bakers will often have specific blends of flours that have been passed on from their predecessors

Your American flour with the carefully selected gluten percentage also acts differently

I am such an American, that bugs the hell out of me.

because there are a handful of other parameters beside protein amount which change the gluten formation

but these are not generally stated for home bakers (industrial bakeries control them for their flours, at least the large ones do)

so in fact, you can't expect your 12% flour to act the same between batches or brands or years

but you probably aren't aware of the differences

If I follow a recipe and like the results, I expect to be able to reproduce it exactly.

That's the art part of baking

@Jolenealaska What does "exactly" mean?

It ain't an exact science

I am sure there are tons of parameters you are not even aware of, which have changed.

do you think your crust color is the exactly same Pantone shade between each baking, or do you accept a ridiculously wide range of brown?

similarly, bakers around the world accept a wide range of chewiness created by different gluten amounts, without even noticing it

I have stupidly accurate scales, I'm brand loyal, and I do have a picture in mind of "proper" browning.

and you accept a narrower range, but it is still a range, and not an exact "point" on the chewiness scale, because the protein content narrows the range but doesn't make it exact.

Sure

Jojo, forget bread. You need to make macarons

They are the perfect project for a perfectionist

Oh, I should make macarons again too. I haven't baked in ages.

Except I don't like them much. Now the lace cookies, those were fun and yummy.

I even have six eggwhites, made wild peach icecream today, French style.

Actually, I only made the mixture today, it's cooling in the fridge. It's hard to wait for the ice cream itself.

I hope the soda/powder in chocolate chip cookies in Czechoslovakia dude updates.

@Jolenealaska not sure what you're talking about? is every single word in that sentence a modifier of "updates"?

I enjoyed that question.

I want him to tell the end of the story.

@Jolenealaska oh, a question? I must have read it (I read all of those) but right now I can't find such a question in my memory.

You even commented. You pointed out to me that baking soda may not be as ubiquitous in the rest of the world as it is in the USA.

Time for an upgrade Rumi

@Jolenealaska ah, I have some recollection of it. But if the question had anything to do with the Czech republic (or with Slovakia), I must have overlooked it.

You would have to have looked at his profile to catch that.

Translation: you need to have stalked the guy to know that ;)

I always check out profiles, especially if different locations are relevant to the question. Here, it definitely was.

eh, if checking profiles was considered a bad thing, it wouldn't be accessible to everybody

I admit that I almost never check them, unless it is a person I've interacted a lot with

but I see nothing stalker like in checking

There isn't. Tall is just giving me crap.

Sigh.

Jojo gets me.

Yep

She has an innate sense for inane, immature banter

yep

And thankfully infinite patience

except when I don't, but you don't test that particular quality. Others do.

Well, that's good to know

And a challenge for next week... ;)

Yes, I'll try to be ready for you:)

A question after just watching the Simpsons Movie. Homer et al enter Alaska and a guy at the border gives them $1000

@Jolenealaska hmm, I don't think I've ever seen this happen. When's the next occurrence of impatient-jolene scheduled? I want to prepare the popcorn and pencil it in the to-watch calender.

Yes, that's a reference to our"permanent fund"

I can get really short tempered.

@jolenealaska is it an annual thing or something?

The joke in the movie is that it's a bribe for turning a blind eye to the ravaging of the state's natural beauty.

Evey October all residents of Alaska get a check. $1000 is about average.

It's called the PFD, Permanent Fund Dividend

It stems from when the state sold a huge portion of land to the oil companies.

The governor at the time (Hammond) asked himself who the land actually belonged to.

The answer (in his mind) was the people of Alaska.

So, that money has been put into a trust. It is invested by a native corporation. Once you have been here for a full calendar year, you can apply to receive your potion of the proceeds of that fund.

Well, TIL.

Remind me to hit you up for a loan come October ;)

Yeah, like most Alaskans, mine is spent before it arrives.

@Jolenealaska Very interesting. I haven't heard of a similar thing happening elsewhere. (I mean, a state giving money as dividends in general, not just oil-money specifically)

They announce the amount in late September. Sarah Palin tagged on a fuel apology thing, making that check the largest in history, over $3000.

I'm pretty sure that the PFD is quite unique.

Tentatively SA-relevant joke: how do you make holy water?

@ElendilTheTall you boil a pope?

Take ordinary tap water and boil the hell out of it

@ElendilTheTall haha, I like it

:)

Ithangyoo

So...

What are you two lovely ladies doing indoors on a Saturday night?

Why aren't you abroad painting your respective towns a vibrant shade of vermillion?

Procrastinating. There is stuff I should be doing. I don't wanna...

Such as?

The opposite with me. I'm working, and thinking that it's the wrong thing to do on Saturday night.

So, me and Jolene together must give a pretty balanced package :)

besides, it is raining outside, so painting the town would be somewhat counterproductive. Unless I had a hightech paint which sticks to wet walls.

Working? Cease and desist this instant

I need to chase down a check that I wrote and belatedly realized is going to bounce. I can keep the check from bouncing, but I have to jump through hoops. I'll jump through the damn hoops because I don't bounce checks, but it is still a PIA, particularly since my car is still broken down.

So, I'm here.

@Jolenealaska oh, straightening out money matters. You have my sympathy. I hate this stuff too.

Christ, it's been years since I wrote a cheque

@ElendilTheTall I've never written one in my life. And I have received exactly two. One was written by an American resident :)

They're so backwards over there rumi. I wouldn't be surprised if jojo saddled a mule for the ride into town to get more ink for her quill to sign the cheque

hehee

Jojo's bank manager:

Eeek! Here's the damn cash!

The most respectable man in Frostbite Creek

Well, I'm going to turn in

Jojo, never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Rumi, all work and no play make Rumi a dull girl.

@ElendilTheTall as long as she didn't saddle a moose

Peace out y'all

By the way, I thought of both of you @ElendilTheTall and @Jolenealaska yesterday

I have this live wallpaper app for Android, Muzei. It brings really great photography as wallpaper when configured with the right stream.

So I think of Elendil now and then when the picture is very good, especially when it's a macro

and yesterday, it was a picture of a moose in a lake. Only the upper part of the head and some back was visible.

:) Moose are fun, they do add a certain spice to the joint.

Greetings, roomies!

"Roomies"? Then it's your turn to do the dishes.

Nooo...

We have a cleaner!

And his name is not Cerberus!

How is the island?

Rainy season's kicking in gently.

So that's good.

Aye.

Things are greening up, but we don't have flooding yet.

Do you expect flooding?

Are you considering dikes?

It's not that bad, but the island's increasingly paved, especially in the north and central areas.

When it starts raining really hard for days, the drainage can't handle it and a lot of our developed areas get several inches of running water--a couple feet on some low roads.

Oh, dear.

Perhaps you need more drainage?

That's a capital idea.

It's not the sea?

OMG I'm the first dog to think of that!