Need help w/French Bread, please!

[panini]

"All purpose flours run about 10% protein and are sold in supermarkets. This is a blend of soft and hard wheats. No commercial bakery uses all purpose flour(at least I hope not.) It is common for the home baker but something the serious baker should get away from"

Mr. Cookieguy,
I'm thinking you need to have some KA apf sent to you. I can't recall being in a bakery without apf. We have many uses. There are very good apf's made with hard wheat, actually better then the moderately priced, inconsistant, pastry flour garbage from the local vendors. Just my 2 cents
Yu got som splaining to do, Im lisening

[KyleW]

UFC comes to ChefTalk?

Play nice boys

I have to agree with Jeff. There is no correlation between use of AP flour and one's degree of baking seriousness.

[cookieguy]

Now don't get all upset. Sorry it took me so long to get back, I travel alot. I've been searching through Pyler's Baking Science and Technology (considered by many to be the bible of the baking industry) and couldn't even find a reference to all-purpose flour. Perhap's my statement was an attempt to get beginning bakers to get away from AP flour to a patent or bread flour to make bread. What I forget is that users of this web site range from beginning home bakers, to experienced retail bakers, to pastry chefs and to R&D scientists of very large commercial bakeries. I realize many recipes are written with AP flour in mind. Typically the home or beginning baker will buy AP flour (at a supermarket) to make pie crust or bread but it isn't really suited for either. Too much protein for crusts, not enough for "bread." If you experienced guys have specific uses for a specific AP flour that works for you - that's super. But I have seen no large, commercial bakery that silos "all-purpose" flour. They have cake flour, "cookie" flour, pastry flour, clear flour, patent flour (I'm talking wheat here) and straight flour. I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings; I'm still getting used to this site - please forgive me. I'm one of the dumb scientists.

[panini]

Well you get one time and then we get the kitchen whips out!!! In retail shops you will usually find APF. I absolutely agree, store bought apf is pretty lousy. Do check into some good hard wheat apf, I think you will be pleasantly surprised especially for scones, cookies and such(not all). Most bakeries will not even store pastry flour. They'll just mix cake and hard. Now you are probably right that large bakeries will not silo apf, thats because they use that silo for the presersitives, mold inhibitors, stablizers and bleach Take this board with a grain of salt. There are very few who post maliciously. I really enjoying reading your posts. I also agreed about getting the home baker away from the grocery store products, that's why I make the King Arthur reference. Scientist? What do you do?

[cookieguy]

I appreciate your humor. I develop new products, formulas and processes for a very large baking company here the US. Can't say who or how long I've being doing it.

For reference:
1. Preservatives and mold inhibitors usually come to about 0.1 or 0.2% of a total product. Without them there would be no mass made cake products. I would worry more about the pesticides and herbicides sprayed in the fields. They are in everyone's ingredients including yours.

2. Stabilizers, such as gums and starches, are from basically natural sources. They may undergo some modification, however, which can turn some people off. Gums are mostly extrudates of trees or made from seaweed, etc.

3. By bleach I assume you mean bleached flour (cake).
About 2 to 5 ounces of chlorine are used to bleach 100 pounds of flour. Just don't inhale while you eat. No, just kdding. Some countries in Europe don't allow bleached flour. We would have a real problem making commercial hi-ratio cakes without it. I haven't heard of any movement in the US or Canada to ban it.

See you next time.