ifs201's blog

I had never used a recipe from The Perfect Loaf before, so I decided to try the beginner sourdough recipe. Not being able to help myself, I decided to add 16% seeds (poppy, sesame, sunflower, and pumpkin). This recipe was 78% hydration and only 7.5% starter inoculation. 

My loaves last weekend came it well, but different from what I expected in terms of crumb. It turns out it was because I bought locally milled half-white, also know as T85, flour and didn't fully understand its properties. My loaves were 80% T85 and 20% whole wheat, which resulted in a very high whole grain percentage. For these loaves I decided to try 48% BF, 48% T85, and 4% rye. 

I used the Smoky Chili Sourdough recipe from Sarah Owens, but added 2 tbsp tomato paste and 180g of chocolate stout to replace some of the water content. The dough was great to work with. I got a bit distracted trying to work 2 recipes at once so I ended up shaping earlier than I had intended. I usually put the loaves right in the fridge after shaping, but because the bulk was on the short side I left the dough out for about 45 minutes before putting it in the fridge. Great oven spring although my attempts at new scoring methods were funky. This was my first time using T85 flour for 80% of the loaf and resulted in a denser crumb. 

These loaves were 75% hydration and 80% high-extraction T85 flour and 20% whole wheat. 

I tried to make Shiao-Ping's recipe for chocolate sourdough and I added walnuts and 160g chocolate stout to replace sone of the water. This recipe had a 37% starter % inoculation so I was really curious about how it would work. It smells amazing, but the oven spring was a little underwhelming. In the fridge, the dough kind of cracked which is something I hadn't experienced before. I think in part it was because the dough was lower hydration and much stiffer than I'm used to, but also maybe it was a sign of overproofing - not sure. 

I think I made  a mistake when incorporating the chocolate and walnuts during lamination is I ended up tearing the gluten. Next time I would probably use slap and fold to add the chocolate and really develop the dough. I feel like this dough could have used even more mixing/gluten development as the cocoa powder really impedes the process. The crumb is definitely different - a bit crumbly and moist in parts although I'm pretty sure it's fully baked. The taste is very good, but it's more like cake than bread. At first I thought it was overproofed, but now I think that maybe there just wasn't enough gluten development and that I did some damage during lamination. What do you think my looking at the crumb? 

Fun to try something new! This was also my first time using coil folds and I enjoyed it. 

I used the Honey Spelt Oat recipe from Sourdough by Sarah Owens. I followed her ingredients exactly, except I swapped out the spelt for whole wheat. The loaves in her book are a little small for my liking, but given my poor prior attempts with this recipe, I was happy to make less dough. 

I used slightly lower hydration than in prior attempts, but the main difference in process was not including oats in the autolyse. Something about doing a long autolyse that included the oat soaker just destroyed the gluten structure for me and turned the final dough into a stringy mess. I was also very nervous about over proofing the dough based on prior results, so I let the bulk go only 3 hours (versus 4 the day before). Glad I finally figured out (I think) the source of my porridge bread sorrows! If it tastes as good as it looks I'll definitely make this again (plus I have 9lbs of oats)! 

Next time I think I won't do an autolyse of flour + water and instead do a very short (20 min) autolyse with everything but the salt. I'll make this change because there wasn't enough water without the soaker so the autolyse created hard bits. 

Build #1 was extremely slow and I started to think that my mango yeast water didn't work. I ended up letting it go 15 hours (eeek!). My Build #2 seemed to go extremely fast so I called it after 7 hours as it looked domed, puffy, and had risen abut 3x. Approximately 80 degrees inside. I did 2.5 hours for the bulk ferment and 2 hours for the final as it wasn't passing the finger dent test. The dough felt great to work with. This is pretty much my typical crumb. Would have liked it to be more open, but it tastes good. Not sure what happened to all of the fruit! 

The loaves had a nice expansion in the oven, but then crust definitely looks different than all of my other loaves. Very fun to try using YW. Thanks to Danny for leading the community bake! 

Build #2

Final proof:

After an epic failure Saturday (I decided to create my own porridge sourdough recipe and it was pancake batter), I decided to try the Sarah Owens recipe for Seeded Turmeric and Leek Sourdough from her book Sourdough. I made some slight modifications. I did 1.5x the recipe since her loaves are on the small side. 

The recipe was 75% hydration, but closer to 80% including the olive oil used to sauté the leeks. I sautéed 275g of leeks with 1tsp turmeric and black pepper. Once browned, I took off heat and added 20g poppy seeds, 30g flax, and 1 diced shallot. The add-ins were incorporated in the 2nd set of mixing. I really focused on improving my shaping method this time and also used an oiled bowl for the bulk since I felt I was tearing the gluten removing the dough from my 6qt Cambro container. One of my scores was awesome and the other one not so much. The crumb was pretty standard for me, but trying not to worry too much about a fairly closed crumb and instead focus on how moist ant tasty it is! 

Hi,

This was my attempt at a 77% hydration sun dried tomato, kale pesto, and seed sourdough using 25% whole wheat flour. It was 100 degrees outside and about 85 in my apartment, so I tried to make sure that I didn't over do the proof time. I ended up doing 4 hours for the levain and 3.75 hours for the bulk ferment followed by a 12 hour overnight proof. 

I used 171g of 80% hydration levain that was 50/50 bread and wheat flours.I made sure to keep the pre-ferment flour inoculation low because of the heat. 

I did a 4 hour autolyse with 636g bread flour, 50g rye, and 170g whole wheat and 655 grams of 50 degree water at the same time as the levain build. I added 18g of salt when I made the final dough. 

I mixed in 1 cup sun dried tomato, 50g sunflower seeds, and 50g pumpkin seeds during my second set for 40 slap and folds. (I did two sets of 40 slap and folds and 4 stretch and folds). I added my 1 cup of homemade kale pesto during the last (4th stretch and fold).

I did a pre-shape and final shape 15 minutes later (was scared to do the full 30 minutes because it was so hot in my kitchen). This dough felt really great and easy to work with, but then one of the two loaves kind of fell apart during the shaping process because all of the pesto started to fall out of the bottom. I ended up baking this one leaf seam-side up. It definitely didn't get the same rise during the bake as if it had been shaped properly.

The bread tastes good, but I am not sure the pesto really comes through. I don't think I'll be adding pesto to bread again. This bread was also a bit more sour than my prior loaves because I did a 3-stage levain build. 

Hi,

This was my attempt at a 77% hydration walnut and green olive sourdough using 25% whole wheat flour. It was 100 degrees outside and about 85 in my apartment, so I tried to make sure that I didn't over do the proof time. I ended up doing 4 hours for the levain and 3.75 hours for the bulk ferment followed by a 12 hour overnight proof. 

I used 171g of 80% hydration levain that was 50/50 bread and wheat flours.I made sure to keep the pre-ferment flour inoculation low because of the heat. 

I did a 4 hour autolyse with 636g bread flour, 50g rye, and 170g whole wheat and 655 grams of 50 degree water at the same time as the levain build. I added 18g of salt when I made the final dough. 

I mixed in 1 cup walnuts, lemon zest, herbs, and 2 cups chopped olives during my second set for 40 slap and folds. (I did two sets of 40 slap and folds and 3 stretch and folds). 

For the bake I did 25 minutes with lid on, but I think I should have left it on for another 5 minutes. Overall, decent looking split, but I wish I'd gotten a bit more rise in height. 

(The image above is 1 loaf of my olive bread and 1 of the tomato/pesto bread. The pesto bread opened up better, but not sure why)  

Hi,

I followed Hotbake's lovely recipe with my own process and I also increased some of the amounts to get a larger loaf (in the future I'll probably make the loaf even bigger)

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/60618/chai-and-double-chocolate-chip-sourdough

340g bread flour

30g whole wheat

20g rye

325g chai concentrate

60g honey

60g salt

80g starter

Method

1. Mixed 26g starter/26g water/13g bread flour/13g whole wheat flour to make levain and let it sit for 4 hours at 85 degrees

2. Make the Chai concentrate

- 300g milk

- 100g water

- 1 cinnamon stick

-1 tbsp ground ginger

- 3 slices fresh ginger

-3 cardamom pods

-1 tsp vanilla

-2 English breakfast tea bags

-20g sugar, 1/8 tsp salt, black pepper

Put everything but the teabags together and bring to a simmer, turn off heat, add teabags and 60g honey, and cover for 1 hour

3. Autolyse the flour and chai concentrate for about 3 hours

4. Do 70 slap and folds, wait 30 minutes and do 40 slap and folds (incorporating chocolate chips and 1 tea bag), wait 30 minutes and do 10 slap and fold. Now do 3 sets of stretch and fold over the next 1.5 hours. Total bulk fermentation of 4 hours.

5. Preshape, wait 20 minutes and did final shaping and put in fridge overnight (7 hours)

6. 1 hour fermentation on counter in the AM

7. 25 minutes at 450 degrees with lid on (on parchment paper on cornmeal as per the recommendation) followed by 20 minutes without lid and with dutch oven on a baking sheet

Hi,

I took inspiration from this fig and anise levain, but then swapped out the mix-ins and followed

my own process:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30486/comfort-food-%E2%80%93-fig-anise-levain-meringues

Levain

50g starter

58g water

100g flour (50/50 whole wheat and bread) 

Final dough

208g levain

787g bread flour

138g whole wheat flour

375g Mix of dried cranberry/golden raisin, apricot/walnut

15g fennel

712g water

50g schnapps used to soak dried fruit

20g sea salt

Method

1. Cut up fruit and soak in 50g of peach schnapps. Toast the walnuts. 

2. Mix levain and let ferment for 4 hours at 85 degrees

3. Mix flour and water and let autolyse over the same 4 hour period

4. Use pincer method to combine the flour, salt, and levain

5. Do 70 slap and folds, wait 30 minutes and do 40 slap and folds (incorporating fruit and nuts at this point), wait 30 minutes and do 10 slap and fold. Now do 3 sets of stretch and fold over the next 1.5 hours. Total bulk fermentation of 4 hours.

6. Preshape, wait 20 minutes and did final shaping and put in fridge overnight (7 hours)

7. 1 hour fermentation on counter in the AM

8. 25 minute bake at 450 degrees followed by 15 minutes without steam