Joyofgluten's blog

The week started off well, this batch of flaxy oat porridge bread tasted some kind of fine.
This is from a formula that's developed into a regular item here, it's made with type 1050 wheat flour from a nearby regional mill, from across the Rhein on the German side. A seperate levain, poolish and flax soaker, each make up 9% of the flour bill, oat porridge comes in at 5%. A 0.5% fresh yeast addition is added to the final dough, approx. total hydration is 78%ish. I slide these into a 240C oven and steam them well, the crust action is pretty decent.
cheers! Joy of gluten 

A wee burst of summer
Buttermilk Aromastück brot fueled by the grainy sweetness of an Aromastück concoction, prepared from rye&wheat, straight off the grinder stones. This comes together with oatmeal porridge, buttermilk and a dark wheat flour levain for a full spectrum of aroma/flavour. Hybrid leavened, 0.4% fresh yeast. 20% buttermilk.

The term  Aromastück comes from out of the German baking trade lexicon, basically it is a grain preparation of 1 part  cracked grains to 2 parts water. A little enzyme active malt(or lab. Amylase) is dissolved in the water and the concoction is carefully brought up to hold in the 60c. to 65c. range. This works well in a double boiler, it must be stirred fairly often though and it's very important that the temperature not exceed 65c. Over the course of 2.5 to 3 hours, the preperation's colour darkens considerably as the enzyme amylase, converts the starch into a sweet grainy porridge. 
The next step is to deactivate the amylase, this is achieved by increasing the temperature into the 80c range.   
This all requires time to cool, so should be prepared at least one day in advance. It may also be refrigerated for several days. Typically an Aromastück addition of 10%, based on total flour %, is calculated into a formula.
Due to the preperation time and care involved, the Aromastück is a seldom practised method in todays world of commercial baking short cuts. The rewards in aroma and eating qualities are there though and for the craft baker or serious home breadhead it's all quite feasible.  http://joyofgluten.weebly.com/bread-blog-gallery

Zopfbrot
A simple braid made with a milk and AP whiteflour dough. 
10% butter, 3% sugar, 2% salt, 2% fresh yeast.
Milk made up 100% of the liquids, this I made extra cold by placing it in the freezer for a half hour before mixing the dough.
The target end dough temperature is approx. 22C, it's quite firm and is given an intensive kneading before adding the cold butter.
The dough was given a 20 minute bulk then divided and rounded into balls, then slowly formed step by step into strands, braided, egg washed once, placed on pans and set uncovered overnight at 12C in the basement cold room. By morning the loaves were fully risen, a second eggwash application was given and the braids were loaded into a 180c convection oven, bake time 40minutes. I allow the eggwash to bake on for 3 minutes before applying steam, this makes for a brilliant shine, at the 10 minute mark, the steam is released.  
This is all very Swiss, the centrepiece of the traditional sunday breakfast, it's heavenly served with butter and homemade apricote jam. 
A wonderful year end to you all, peace and good eating.
cheers daniel

Here is an interactive formula, simply scale to the desired yield

joy of gluten

The nights are getting colder here, my thoughts have been turning to overnight outdoor proofing schemes. 
For this bread, I started with a 45 min. autolyse, then minimal machine mixing in stages. The bulk  ferment was in the five hour range.
The loaves spent the night, seam down in baskets, and coved up inside of a large plastic box outside in the cold.
Outside the temp. dropped to +5c, I suspect that inside the box it was closer to +9.
At 3am, i got up to plug the oven in, at 6am, I felt sorry for them, brought them into the house and pealed them directly into a good hot 250c oven. 
They were clearly proofed to a delicate state, scoring them wasn’t a consideration, one did a stick and collapse on me, the other three were fine. 
The flour bill was quite simple on this one; 80% swiss bread flour (Halbweissmehl), 20% rye flour.
The rye built the levain, roughly half of it was fresh off the mill, unsifted.
0.5 % fresh yeast went into the final dough, the total water was around 75%, salt 2.1
Flavour wise, the acidity was somewhat up front but still polite, the crust was well caramelised and it’s aroma made itself known deep into the crumb. 
The crumb was well gelatinised and held it'd freshness well dispite the high white flour content. 
It was a decent enough batch and gave me a few ideas for the next round.
cheers

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I sliced a loaf from mondays bake in half and discovered a hole big enough to park the 2CV in. I was after large holes but not quite to this degree. I've since cut into another loaf from the batch, it was much tamer.

This is from a hybrid batch,12 loaves with a baked weight of approx. 550g.  The sour culture fed on home milled unsifted wholegrain rye (10% of total flour). A separate poolish was made with home milled unsifted wholewheat(12% of total flour), with a pea sized piece of fresh yeast. Both of these where at 100% hydration, the flour had been milled 3 days previously.

The main dough contained; Swiss Ruchmehl(high extraction wheat flour) at 53% and Swiss halbweissmehl(white bread flour approx type 750) at 25%
The salt was at 2.2%, fresh yeast in final dough 1%, total hydration 72%. dough temp., after mixing 22c. 

I gave it a bulk rest of 80 minutes with a stretch&fold at half way and a  50 minute final proof.                                                                                          

The loaves were pealed into a good hot 270c oven, given a good blast of steam, after 10min. the damper was opened and the temp. dailed down to 230c for the remainder of the 55min. bake. The crust was nicely carmalized the bottom had a bit of characoal development, just how i like it. The week got off to a reasonably good start.

cheers    

daniel