George_AZ's blog

I've made a variety of breads in the last few weeks.  First of are a couple types of whole wheat bread.

This one is a 100% whole wheat bread at about 90% hydration.  The bread had a nice whole wheat flavor with minimal sourness.  The crumb felt dense but was not dry.  I would have liked more flavor contribution from the starter.

Next is a whole wheat ciabatta at about 95% hydration.  The crumb was nice and open, but the bread was still chewy from all the whole grain bran.  I noticed that all the bubbles were larger toward the outside of the loaf.  My guess is that the gluten development was weakened from the whole grain flour, so the outer bubbles expanded outward rather than raising the loaf evenly.  The next time I make a loaf like this I will probably use 25% high gluten bread flour so that the loaf holds the bubbles all the way to the center.

Third, I have a couple of 50/50 rye and wheat loaves.  They are made from the same dough, but they were baked on different stones at different levels in my oven.  The better-looking loaf on the left also had a more open and tender interior.  It was interesting to see the effect different placements of the loaves within the oven can have on the final outcome.

Lastly, I baked the Altamura loaf from Leader's Local Breads.  It is made with 100% semolina flour and has a unique crescent shape.  It had an interesting flavor and golden color, but my loaf didn't expand open like the book explained it would.

My next breads will be experiments on low or no salt doughs, like in a Tuscan bread.  I am interested in seeing how the removal of salt will affect the flavor, tenderness, fermentation, and keeping qualities of various loaves.

This first bread is the dark Silesian rye from Leader's Local Breads.  I like how the loaf looks, and it tastes and smells wonderful like good rye breads do.

This next loaf was a whole wheat and rye sandwich loaf that I brushed with olive oil.  It had a nice texture and was great spread with hummus or used for sandwiches.

Finally, I made the whole wheat sandwich bread from Reinhart's Bread Revolution.  I made a few substitutions: soy milk instead of cow's, maple syrup instead of granulated sugar, sourdough instead of instant yeast. While I didn't like the dense texture, they tasted nice.

The process of making this loaf moved me from a sense of worry and frustration at the low point to a state of surprise and wonder at the finish.  I baked the rice porridge loaf from Tartine 3 this week (25% whole wheat, sourdough, brown rice).

Schedule:

• Wednesday AM: Mixed levain, mixed flours and water for a long autolyse
• Wednesday PM: Mixed all ingredients, bulk fermented 2 hours with stretch and folds every 30 minutes, retarded in fridge
• Thursday AM: Bench rest, shaping into boule, second rise (3 hours time from fridge to oven)
• Thursday Noon: Transfer to peel, disaster, reshape, bake

The bread making procedure went as expected until i transferred the dough to the peel.  The dough partially stuck to the basket cloth, and it spread out immediately on the peel.  Feeling optimistic that the dough would regain it's shape and height during the bake, I vigorously shook it off the peel onto the preheated stone.  However, it lost even more shape and spread into an amorphous blob about 10"x12".  After looking at the mess of dough for a few moments, feelings of frustration, confusion, anger surging through me, I decided to reshape the dough.

I floured the counter, pulled out the stone with mitts, and scraped the dough off the stone with a metal spatula.  After picking off a 1/8" thick layer of baked dough that had touched the stone, I reshaped and scored the dough and put it back in the oven with a roasting pan cover.  I expected that the bread would be dense, but at least it would look like a loaf and would still taste good.  When I removed the cover, the dough looked decent and didn't appear to have risen much.  After baking it until it looked decent, I let it cool and didn't cut it open until the next day, Friday.  I feared that the loaf would be so dense inside that it would be practically inedible.

Big Surprise:

This is one of the best looking crumbs I've attained for a loaf with whole wheat and mix-ins.  The loaf isn't perfectly round, and the scores (a square shape) didn't open at all.  However, I am pleasantly surprised that the crumb is so open and the shape pretty good for a dough with no proofing time after the second shaping.

The end of the matter, the bread tastes amazing and I'm glad with how it turned out. :)

A whole wheat sandwich loaf with blueberries and rolled oats. It made delicious toast :)

The Old World Baguette Redux from Leader's Local Breads.

Based on the same recipe as above with more whole wheat flour and baked lighter like an Italian bread.

Oat porridge bread from Tartine 3. I would've liked more height, but it tasted delicious :)

The barley porridge bread from Tartine 3.  I would have liked a more open crumb, but I probably didn't shape or proof it as well as I could have.

I've been baking bread at home for about 5 years.  I mainly use recipes from Leader's Local Breads, Robertson's Tartine 1 and 3, and a few of Reinhart's books.  I like making a variety of breads, but I tend to favor those using sourdough and whole grains. My starter, Tom, is about 5 years old and is currently fed with AP flour.

I've enjoyed reading the blogs and recipes on this site, and I look forward to learning more about bread making with everyone!