07/04/07

I was back again at the small Indian grocery store near my work-place. The store has stacks of Atta flour. There were 3 brands on sale there. My test with House Brand showed that Atta can be a very good bread flour. Atta is a stone-ground flour that is milled finely and the bran itself has been milled to a powder consistency. This is very different from Graham flour. The protein was 12%.

The store also has 5kg bags of Pillsbury Chakki Atta and at  $5.60 in Singapore Dollars (US$3.60) per bag, it was really a steal. The word Chakki means stone-mill in Hindi. I had bought this flour before in the past but did not get good results with it but then, I did not realise that 100% whole-wheat breads need to be treated differently. Back then I was using it as an addition to the main dough flour. The breads invariably suffered with the addition of Atta.

For my flour test, I used my standard test vehicle recipe of 85% hydration. The sourdough starter was 30%. The bread is a lean bread with only water and salt. No oil was used, not even for greasing the bowl. After the mixing and autolyse, salt was added and after an hour on the kitchen counter, it was retarded in the fridge for 15 hours.

During the baking, some of the rice flour was caught in the convection and I could see a blizzard inside the oven. As a result, the breads were covered in a fine dusting of rice flour.

The package says 100% WW flour. I was told that some Atta is adulterated with plain flour.

After shaping.