bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
What am I missing? We mash grains to extract the more simple sugars for the yeast to ferment, but when I bake bread I don't need to mash the flour and the yeast quite happily produces CO2 and alcohol by presumably fermenting the starches ... or not? How come bread yeast is able to work with no problem on wheat and barley and rye flour but the same strain of yeast needs us to mash the grains to extract the sugars? Is there something about flour that makes the sugars more accessible to the yeast? Where are the conditions that Palmer talks about produced by mashing that exist in bread making? (You aim for a sponge or dough at about 80F in breadmaking)...
