Shepherd's Grain Flour Evaluations

This details my recent baking comparison of Shepherd's Grain flour with my current standard bread flours (Harvest King/Better for Bread-General Mills, Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat and Bob's Red Mill Artisan Bread flours). I'm assuming a little knowledge of bread making here and have decided to create an upcoming post outlining some of my "normal" procedures for (small & large) dough batches of 3 to 16 pounds mixed by hand and using the no knead method.

When I was returning home this fall from Vancouver, B.C., I stopped at a Whole Foods store south of Portland, Oregon to stretch my legs and see if there were any new interesting products on the shelves. Lo and behold, there was a lady giving cookie samples away promoting Shepherd's Grain flours. Always a sucker for any baking goods presentations (especially ones passing out good cookies), I had a wonderful chat with Lori Lusetti and we talked about my WFO and retirement project of baking breads for my friends and the neighborhood. I loved the concept of smaller grain farmers being connected with the milled flour by code on the bags. It turned out Lori was not just "pushing cookies" but was involved in promotions and sales for Shepherd's Grain. I wanted to know where I could buy some of the flours in 50 pounds sacks, but she said she’d send me some whole wheat, wheat (all-purpose white), and a high gluten wheat to try out first.

Baguettes benched and resting before final shaping.
The small plastic cups contain Asiago cheese for stuffing
half of the baguettes. Small piece of dough is for my dinner.

My normal whole wheat breads are supplemented with a high gluten flour and my baguettes use an all-purpose flour, so her samples were going to work out very well. The baguette uses a levain created with my sourdough (Chef Bill…doesn’t everyone name their starter?) and a refrigerated (retarded) poolish made with a small amount of commercial (Red Star) instant yeast (IDY). As an FYI: I tried to be consistent how each dough was mixed and handled, but it’s impossible to do a perfect duplication for a side by side dough/bread bake comparison. I like to run my prep room cool and for this baguette and whole wheat bake the room was 65°F with 50% humidity. Here's a couple pictures of my prep-room work surfaces.


I have been using Better For Bread (General Mills...packaged as Harvest King in the 50 pound sacks I use) for my baguettes for years after doing several side by side tests with other flours. I also have been using the Harvest King for pizza dough since I did some taste/texture testing against Caputo 00 flour and Bob’s Red Mill several years ago. (I will be trying the Shepherd's Grain low-gluten in the near future against the Harvest King and see which one I will prefer.)


*****

Billy Baguettes 

(pdf for batch at the end of the post)

I mixed up two batches of dough (just 3 loaves projected for both). Each batch had two components as I noted earlier, a levain and a poolish. I always employ a 30-45 minute autolyse in my doughs and all mixing is done by hand. After a 45 minute autolyse, I mixed in the natural yeast (Chef Bill) and commercial yeast respectively. The poolish with the IDY was covered then put into the refrigerator for an overnight, retarded pre-ferment, while the inoculated levain stayed covered on the counter in the prep room.

The next morning, I pulled out both the poolish tubs from refrigerator and let them come to prep room temp for a couple hours (I’d bumped the room temp up to 65°F). I then combined the levain and poolish and mixed in about ¾ of the remaining flour. After the dough and flour had been combined, I add the salt and mix it in the wet dough. (Rule of thumb is that the dough should be about 70-75% hydration so the salt will completely dissolve and evenly disperse when mixed.) After the salt is incorporated, I mixed in the final portion of flour.

Note that I was baking a large batch of  "regular" baguettes
in addition to the six test loaves...gotta love that blue tape!

The covered dough was folded twice during its two hour bulk fermentation. Dough masses had a last stretch & fold before being benched in 405-410 g pre-shapes and allowed to rest for 40 minutes before being shaped and placed in a couche (dusted with rice flour) for final proof.

After 45 minutes, the loaves were loaded into a 575°F oven for 17 minutes and an internal loaf temp of 205°F. I gave a light flour stripe to the baguettes made with Harvest King (HK), so I could clearly distinguish them from the Shepherd's Grain (SG) baguettes.

My other baguettes had been baked, so now it was time
to put in the six test loaves...still 575°F

Three baguettes made with Shepherds Grain flour
are those closest in the picture.

I gave one baguette made with each flour to two neighbor families. Of course I kept one set for my picture taking, visual comparison, and tasting.

Baguette Verdict:

Both sets of bread had good oven spring. The HK baguettes were a bit darker out of the oven. Possibly a slightly higher content of sugars in the dough. Cutting into the loaves, it appeared the HK loaves had more and larger holes in the crumb. I actually liked the tighter crumb of the SG loaves which gave a nice mouth feel (and helps avoid the dreaded drop/drip-through of toppings – I guess you could say it isn’t quite as good a diet bread as the HK). I noticed that the SG baguettes seemed more moist as did the other taste testers. Both baguettes sliced cleanly and toasted well. Half of my neighborhood testers liked the SG best and half thought they were both equally good.

Shepherd's Grain bread in on the left.

Shepherd's Grain bread on left, notice larger holes in
the crumb of the Harvest King (right side).

I will be using the SG wheat flour in the future.




*****

Whole Wheat

(pdf for batch at the end of the post)

My whole wheat loaves are made with the addition of a high gluten flour to supplement/support a good rise in the bread. Normally I use Bobs Red Mill (BRM) Whole Wheat and their Artisan Bread (high gluten) flours. For this bake, I made 2 loaves normally and 2 loaves using SG Whole Wheat and their High Gluten flours.

This was my standard (no sourdough) whole wheat formula. It’s very moist and a good keeper. The addition of potato in the dough is what helps the baked loaf stay moister longer and the Lyle’s Golden Syrup has a wonderful flavor profile that enhances the whole wheat “taste experience” (IMHO).

As with the baguettes, the whole wheat bread is mixed and allowed a 45 minute autolyse before the first yeast (IDY) addition. After the yeast was mixed in, the doughs were put in the refrigerator for the overnight, retarded pre-ferment. The next morning, they were brought out into the prep room to come to room temperature.

Dough at room temperature, remaining
ingredients (mis en place)
weighed out in little stainless steel cups.

I like to weigh my flour into different areas of the container.
That way, if I get interrupted, I can see which components
have been already added. As a bonus, if I overshoot my target
weight, it's easy to remove the (correct) extra flour.

As with the baguettes, I withheld not only the salt but the melted butter and added ¾ of the remaining flour (and the remaining ingredients). When mixed, I added the salt, mixed again until dissolved and distributed, then added in the last of the flour. I let the dough rise through two stretch & folds in a 75°F proofing box. Next, I added the melted butter for a final mix into the dough. One more rise then I benched & did a final shaping into oval (semi-batard) loaves and placed them in a cloth lined basket. All four loaves were put back into the proofing box for a final rise of 1.5 hours. Loaves went into the 550°F oven with a light flour dusting on the SG loaves and my dragonfly stencil (in cocoa powder) on the BRM loaves. The loaves were in for 25 minutes then, because the oven was a bit too hot for whole wheat breads, I moved the loaves off the oven cooking floor onto inverted sheet pans with an aluminum foil cover to keep them from getting too dark. The loaves took an extra 10 minutes to come to 200°F internally when I pulled them from the oven. As with the baguettes, both the SG and BRM loaves exhibited excellent oven spring.

Verdict on the Whole Wheat

Upon cutting the loaves in half the next day, I thought both bread versions had extremely similar crumb structure. The SG crumb had a light, wheaty aroma and a little softer chew than the other. I also thought the SG crust has a bit of sweetness to it as I savored the bite. I was surprised that I couldn’t smell much coming from the BRM loaf although I did like the distinct crust/crumb interface.

I'd already started taste testing the baguettes, but here are (most) of the test loaves.
Shepherds Grain loaves are on the left side.

A bite that included some crust presented a very nice textural contrast while chewing it. That said, there was a slight bitterness that lingered a little too long for me. Toasted, both breads had a great crust crunch although I thought the chew was more pronounced and lasted longer with the SG loaf. Both breads finished with a nice and pleasant wheat aftertaste.

Shepherd's Grain loaf is on the left, Bob's Red Mill on the right. As far as I'm
concerned, both had excellent crust, crumb, flavor, and mouth feel.

I cut each of the remaining loaves in half and gave them to three neighbor families (half of each test loaf). My neighborhood taste testers were split...which was certainly a valid result. One set of folks  favored the BRM and the other liked the SG bread...both said the breads were so good they really had a tough time choosing. Another taster liked the SG best, but really couldn’t say why...  “it just tasted better” and the other just could not pick a favorite.

Again, as with the all-purpose wheat, I’ll be switching to Shepherd's Grain. It’s a competitive company that provides not only an excellent product selection but allows you to actually learn about the farmer(s) who have raised and harvested the grain. I found out that my local store has been filling their bulk whole wheat flour bin with Shepherd's Grain from GloryBee Wholesale Flour Suppliers and is able to order both the high-gluten and low-gluten (all-purpose) flours in 50 pound sacks for my baking needs.

 Baguette formula (levain & poolish - 3 loaves, indirect fermentation/no knead)

Whole Wheat formula - 2 loaves, rustic bread/indirect fermentation


FYI: I followed the code on my Shepherd's Grain bag and found that Mark & Becky Sheffels grew the wheat used to make the flour for my baguette testing. Their farm location is four miles west of Wilbur, Lincoln County, Washington. Thank you Mark & Becky for providing not only a great product but a connection to good sustainable farming in the Pacific Northwest!