| Yes, read up on varieties of flour used by professional bakers and buy some on online instead of your local super market (hint most supermarkets don't even have the right flour). It makes a lot of difference. Alternatively, find some local mill and source from there. It's worth the extra money. Also learn about the different ways flour is processed at industrial scale. Basically bleaching and sterilization are two things you don't want as a home baker. You can make it work if you really have nothing else but why go through the trouble? Another good tip is to feed your starter with whole wheat or rye flour. It has more nutrition and especially Reye has a lot of natural sugars in it too. There are a lot of recipes out there obsessing about weights, timings, etc. The important thing to realize is that you need to adjust those numbers to the flour used, the ambient temperature, humidity, the state your starter is in when you start, and probably a dozen other factors. In other words the numbers are not actually that important and you can totally wing it if you know what you are doing. The importance of measuring is not repeating what the recipe says but doing the same things consistently between bakes and adjusting as you go in a semi data-driven way. In my case, I take 60 grams of starter (which is 50/50 water and flour) and add 70 grams of water and flour to make what is known as a levain (basically a glass of starter that I let ferment on the counter). The rest of the starter is replenished and goes back in the fridge. The significant thing here is that I end up with a 100 grams of flour and a 100 grams of water. These are just nice numbers to work with when I have to calculate the hydration. That's the only reason for those numbers. Cup measurements are not precise enough, even if you are in the US. Using volumetric measurements for weight has a very high margin of error in a process with a low tolerance for exactly that. How high you can push your hydration is a function of what flour you use and how much skill you have handling the dough. Too low and you end up with a brick instead of a bread. Too high and you're making focacia instead of a nice puffy bread. This is why you want to get the right flour. It will allow you to push the hydration higher. Also the flavor profile benefits. Good flour makes things easier and tastier. |
Hard disagree. Bleached flour is much easier to work with for the home/inexperienced baker. Hydrates easily, dough tends to be less tacky, better volume etc. It's only when you've got the basics down and want to get into the weeds with details that I'd recommend getting into specialty flours that are less likely to be chemically bleached.