In the nineteen-ninety-two movie, Scent of a Woman, LtCol. Frank Slade, while dinning at the Astoria, commented about the bread.
Colonel Slade —
Try one of these rolls, Charlie.
I buttered it for ya.
– Bread’s no good west of the Colorado.
– Water’s too alkaline.
Is the Colonel correct?
Since it would be impossible to produce a loaf of bread without water, water being a basic ingredient, then perhaps choosing your water is as important as choosing the flour.
Through a bit of research this is what I discovered. We can classify water several ways, hard, soft, alkaline, or acidic. Soft water weakens the gluten during mixing and fermentation. (This can be corrected by slightly increasing the salt.) Alkaline water not only weakens the gluten but retards the fermentation thus is considered the most harmful. Slightly acidic water will let the yeast perform at its best. Thus, hard water that is slightly acidic will yield the best bread.
So, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade’s statement is correct.
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