The Fresh Loaf

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Götz von Berlichingen Ancient Age Sourdough Bread

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Götz von Berlichingen Ancient Age Sourdough Bread

Lucy, being a German Baking Apprentice 2md Class in fairly good standing when she isn’t sleeping, came up with what she thinks is a fitting healthy and hearty bread that, if actually baked back in the 15th and 16th centuries would, all by itself, explain this one armed knight’s long life, clean behind and possibly account for his missing arm - especially if he washed it down with too many very dark, high alcohol European brewskies.  Lucy does have a thing for men with Von in their name since she is a real Von Snigglefriz herself.

 

First off, the bread had to be 100 whole grain and sourdough.  No tough, self respecting, one armed knight would be caught dead eating fluffy, white, Wonder Bread.   Second, some of the grains had to be ancient varieties that might have been found around that time, native to Germany or called dinkel which rhymes with dackel.  So Lucy picked, rye, spelt, farro, Kamut, barley and wheat.

 

Third, since the water was poisonous back then, folks drank beer to keep from having ….dirty arses!  But knights didn’t drink woosie low alcohol German lagers, they drank high alcohol dark beers with real oooopphhh to them like the one Lucy chose for the dough liquid -  a very dark Grand Imperial Porter at 8% alcohol made in Poland which itself was part of Germany at the time and several other times too.  This beer is not for the feint hearted nobility and had a very strong, assertive flavor fitting for the toughest knight.

 

Fourth, for a bread to be considered hearty and healthy, especially one that made knights seemingly live forever even with appendages and possibly appendices missing, it needs to have healthy seeds packing the inside.   Lucy picked wheat sprouts, pumpkin and  sunflower seeds, chia and  lots of flax seeds since clothes were made from flax back then too.  Nothing is too small and insignificant for Lucy not to lend a lessened understanding of it in the end.

 

The grilled salmon for the tacos earlier this week were used for today's breakfast schmear below.

With the bread concept set on parchment, the paper of the day that we now use for baking bread, we set about getting it all organized even before we knew what Karin’s challenge was going to be exactly.   We ground the whole berries on Tuesday and sifted out the 15 extraction of hard bits to feed the levain on Wednesday. 

 

The levain was our usual 3 stage build and by using the 15% hard bits for the feed  they would be as wet for as long as possible and hopefully not cut the guten stands as much as they could.   We used our Ancient Age Rye Starter that had been in the fridge for 8 weeks - it was very sour and nearly gone!.  The first stage of the levain build was 2 hours and the 2nd stage was 3 hours when it doubled in volume.  We refrigerated the  levain for 24 hours after it rose 25% after the 3rd feeding.

 

The next evening we autolysed the 85% extraction multigrain flour with the Polish Grand Imperial Porter for 1 hour with the pink Himalayan sea salt sprinkled on top so it would not be forgotten.  It took 3 hours for the levain to warm up and then double again once it was retrieved from the fridge.  Once the levain hit the mix we did 3 stets of slap and folds for 7, 1 and 1 minute each on 20 minute intervals.

 

We then did 3 sets of stretch and folds on 20 minute intervals.  The sprouts were added during the first set and the rest of the seeds were added during the 2nd set.  By the 3rd set, everything was evenly distributed and this dough was well packed with seedy goodness.  This dough was a little stiffer than our usual and could easily have taken another 5% water to get to 90% hydration - no worries. - and what we will do next time.

After a 20 minute rest, we pre-shaped and then shaped the dough into our normal squat oval fit for the mini oven, placed it in a rice floured basket, bagged it and put into the 36 F fridge for a 12 hour retard.  This bread is past the maximum weight and size we usually put into the little blistering beast so we hoped for the best and figured that if the top got too dark we would just turn it over with our remaining good arm.

 

We let the dough warm up on the counter for an hour and half but it still wasn’t proofed enough for these old eyes to be ready for the oven so we gave it another 30 minutes on the counter before firing up the Mini Oven to 500 F and getting (2) of Sylvia’s steaming cups boiling in the microwave.  Total counter proof was 2 hours and 15 minutes. 

 

We upended the dough onto parchment on the top lid of the mini’s vented broiler pan and slashed it twice with an appropriate heavy battle sword which was too big for Lucy to lift.   The steaming cups went on the lid catty corner and then we slid the whole shebang into the tiny oven - it was a close fit.

 

We steamed it for 15 minutes and turned the oven down to 450 F after 2 minutes ointo the steaming process.   Then we took out the steam, turned the oven down to 425 F convection and continued to bake for another 15 minutes until the bread hit 205 F on the inside.  We did turn it over for 5minutesto make sure the top didn't burn.  We let the bread rest for 5 minutes in the now off oven to crisp the skin and then it was removed to the cooling rack.

 

The left over grilled salmon when mixed with cream cheese made for a fine schmear on this bread for today.s breakfast that was served with a ripe banana, mango, strawberries, cherries, blueberries and Denver omelet made with caramelized onion and mushrooms, some fresh red pepper, smoked Gouda and pepper jack cheese.

 

The bread sprang, bloomed and browned OK just barely well enough and developed the little blisters on the crust that the MO is so adept at making on whole grain breads.  The crumb was not as open as we wanted but it was dark,  soft and moist and attractively decorated with seeds.  The taste was exceptional and medium sour as the distinctively assertive porter taste powered through for once.  We estimate the dough was about an hour under proofed but we ran out of time.

With racks of ribs in the smoker,  potato salad and beans to make and my daighter's boyfriend coming into town to drive her to Texas and AP school later tonight - the dough got as much proofing time as life would allow.  We love the taste of this bread.  After reading about Götz von Berlichingen risking life and limb,  I'm positive that knights use to fight over less substantial things thaqn a good bread in the old days.

 

Formula

 

 

 

Build 1

Build 2

 Build 3

Total

%

SD starter

8

0

0

8

2.01%

15% Extraction 6 Grains

8

16

32

56

14.07%

Water

8

16

32

56

14.07%

Total

24

32

64

120

30.15%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

 

Flour

60

15.08%

 

 

 

Water

60

17.65%

 

 

 

Hydration

100.00%

 

 

 

 

Levain % of Total Flour & Water

16.09%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dough Flour

 

%

 

 

 

85% Extraction 6 Grain

338

84.92%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salt

8

2.01%

 

 

 

Porter

280

70.35%

 

 

 

Dough Hydration

82.84%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Flour

398

 

 

 

 

Water 60, Porter

340

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whole Wheat Sprouts

50

12.56%

 (dry weight)

 

Pumpkin & Sunflower Seed

50

12.56%

 

 

 

Chia Seeds

25

6.28%

 

 

 

Ground Flax Seed

25

6.28%

 

 

 

Total Add Ins

150

37.69%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whole Grain Equivalent %

100.00%

 

 

 

 

Total Weight

896

 

 

 

 

Hydration w/ Adds

85.43%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 6 whole grain mix is 50 g each of: spelt rye,

 

 

 

Kamut, farro & barley and 150 g of wheat

 

 

 

 

Lucy says not to forget the salad 

Comments

lepainSamidien's picture
lepainSamidien

Talk about prescience . . . I'm still rolling over ideas as to what to do for a loaf worthy of old Götz and here you've already popped out a gem ! Great call on the pumpkin seeds, as they are a great source of nutritional IRON, which I'm sure our German knight would appreciate immensely.

Great write-up and beautiful loaf !

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Karin asked if I had heard of this knight and that she was going to do a challenge on him or his castle or something to do with one handed people.  I looked him up and then started gathering the ingredients that might work for a bread made for this knight - especially the Grand Imperial Porter.  Lucy then put together a good formula.  So when Karin put out the challenge we were lucky enough to be ready for it: buy guessing wisely and being lucky enough not to lose a hand or paw baking it-)

I got the rest of the pictures up for the crumb,  Glad you liked this bread - we do too. 

hanseata's picture
hanseata

you join! Looking forward to your contribution!

Karin

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

and this post is her contribution :-)  Thanks for another great challenge Karin.  We loved researching this fine knight for the past couple of weeks so Lucy could get her recipe just the way she wanted it.

ExperimentalBaker's picture
ExperimentalBaker

Wow! Nice!

Pass me the beer as well!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

was a very strong one. http://www.browar-amber.pl/en/products/grand/ so it actually came through in the bread.  I give it a 4 out of 5.  The bread was better for having it.  Glad you liked them both!

Happy baking

 

 

limmitedbaking's picture
limmitedbaking

Beautiful bake! Fits right in with the ancient german knight theme. Very inspired use of seeds and sprouts. I should really try to sprout some grains and toss it in a bread. Is the porter taste apparent? I tried an ale bread before but while the bread was good, it was hard to tell that a bottle of ale was used. Maybe something darker and stronger would do the trick!

-Tim

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

but the taste of the beer is so strong it also adds to the bread's flavor.  The seeds also make the crumb something special as well - not to mention adding to the flavor too.  Any Knight of yore would love this bread and be ready for a long and difficult battle!  Glad you liked it and

Happy Baking  

golgi70's picture
golgi70

So quickly.  And a fitting loaf taboot.  I was caught in a thought about what bread i might make for this and I figure the bread of that age would be of various grains/seeds (using up everything) and be capable of standing alone as a meal while at the same time of a quality only a knight might deserve.  

Nice Bake

Josh

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

knights in Germany pretty much ate rye bread since that is what grew there the best.   But, since this knight's castle is near the French border, explaining  why he was fighting them all time, he probably was exposed to white bread too.

White bread probably reminded him of the hated French so he wouldn't have eaten it and killed anyone who did :-)  He could have afforded a rustic seeded loaf.... instead of the plain rye though!.   It was a fun challenge and you will come up with a beauty - no doubt.

Glad you liked the bread Josh and

Happy baking

hanseata's picture
hanseata

do participate, Josh!

And the bread doesn't have to be genuinely medieval (with a high weevil count in the flour), but just WORTHY of a famous knight.

Looking forward to your contribution,

Karin

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Awesome challenge bread Lucy and DA!  You've used some of the ingredients I was already planning on, but I know my take will be a little different but not sure as good.

This looks like a real nice hearty stick to your ribs bread perfect for them ribs.

Max and Lexie and the gang of five say hi to your apprentice.

Ian

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Lucy on her formula was the sprouts.  I told her knights don't do sprouts but used to drop boiling oil from the towers on their besieging foes to cook them really well done.   So, the sprouts should have been scalded berries made into a middle age porridge or gruel  instead :-)  Sounds like a Tartine 3 whole grain porridge bread would work well too.

This bread was fantastic toasted with a grilled salmon schmear for breakfast.  You would like this one Ian.  Good luck with you challenge bread - we had a lot of fun with this one and you will too.

Lucy says Hi to to her fellow baking knights in their seaside castle so far away.

Happy Baking 

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Hey don't ruin my surprise!  A version if Ian's Porride bread is in the makings.  Have to finish milling some flour later today.

Happy Baking!

Thaichef's picture
Thaichef

Your breads and foods are awesome as usual. I have a question please. On your ingredients list : What is 15% extraction 6 grains and 85% extraction 6 grains? don't understand. I haven't bake anything for a month now. No time. Waiting for  winter when thing slow down-so I can bake bread again.

Thaichef.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

different grains were used.  Then i sift out the hard bits and bran to feed to the SD levain.  My particular sifting sieve seems to sift out 15% of the larger harder bits almost every time leaving 85% that passes though as a high extraction flour.  Professional millers usually sift out 28% of the hard bits to make what they call ' straight flour' that all other patent white flours are made from with straight flour having the most bran and other stuff in it and the patent flours having extraction rates less than 72% where more bran adn other stuff is sifter out.

The 85% extraction flour makes a great bead all on its own and the SD levain loves the 15% extraction bits.  The hard bits are wet the longest when fed to the levain and they are much softer that way and hopefully cut the gluten strands less..  When the 15% extraction SD levain is used with 85% extraction dough flour I end up with a 100% whole grain bread.

Glad you like the bread Thaichef!  

Hope you cooking school goes well and

Happy baking when you get the chance. 

emkay's picture
emkay

A perfect bread for a knight. BTW, it's the size of a very large miche...

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Monty Python must be i around here somewhere - very cool:-) The sprouts should have been a scald but any knight would love this bread just for the battle energy and stamina it would provide:-)  Lucy says it might even grow back hacked off limbs!  Glad you like the bread and

Happy Baking

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

Have you noticed that Lucy will only sleep in royal purple cloth, or maybe the purple flowers in the garden? With this bread it can no longer be a secret. She is a true princess. Any Knight worth his armor would fall under her spell and love whatever bread she created.

The bread is so packed with goodness and just beautiful too. Best wishes to your daughter for a safe journey to Texas and her newest adventure. You must have prepared her well for whatever comes her way.

Keep on baking and think of how much fun you will have the next time she comes home.

Barb

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

2nd class i have noticed she is a 'Royal Pain in the  Arse' (another name for a future bread no doubt) especially when acting as the Master's Royal Food Taster and she upchucks on his toes when she is displeased with the fare:-)  She never misses the toes!  But, you are right.  She is a very spoiled rotten Princess Lucy Von Sniggfritz - just barelysweet enough not to get banished to the dungeons:-) 

Lucy wouldn't eat her breakfast yesterday after my daughter (and Lucy's sister), left for Texas.  Lucy knew she was leaving again with all the packing the last few days/.  She was anxious and out of sorts.  I was worried her recipe for the knight's bread would be infected with the plague or worse:-) Thanlfully it turned out OK.

I told my daughter i couldn't wait for her to home in a couiple of years and she said..... she wasn't coming home but probably moving to Colorado as her fine boyfriend will still be in dental school in Denver finishing up his last year  She was a little distraught when I yelled ' Praise God' as loud as I could. 

Glad you liked the bread Barbara -it is delicious and

Happy Baking 

hanseata's picture
hanseata

I just worked your first bread in my round-up and transcribed your recipe and procedure - OMG, I think I never saw any process that sophisticated! Lucy must be a virgo - to be so organized ;)

One question - when you leave your bread in the switched-off oven for the last 5 minutes, I assume you leave the door propped ajar?

Happy baking,

Karin

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

oven the door was closed while the oven was off for the last 5 minutes.  Now that we are grinding sprouted grains too, the process has one more step in it so thankfully, for this more simple recipe, we just tossed them into the mix without grinding them:-)

hanseata's picture
hanseata

i will bake this bread now - soon as I'm recovered from a dental surgery that allows me to chew only gingerly on one side.

I wonder if I manage to sift the whole grain to the same extent as you are able to. But that's the fun of it - the challenge!

Karin