leslieruf's blog

This week I have had another try at baking Trevor Wilson's Country Champlain bread (a Tartine style loaf).  As well as this I was making the 1:2:3 loaf with flour milled a week ago (ie aged 1 week as opposed to fresh) and the night before decided to make Champlain sourdough to see the difference between these two breads.

I won't go into detail of method as this was the same as last week, ( http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/55259/country-champlain-comparison ) the only difference being a slight drop of 1% in overall hydration and an unintentional smaller amount of levain in the Country Champlain and a corresponding increase in the Champlain.     I used the bran in the early stage of the build this time.

The results:

Country Champlain :  This dough has 24% spelt & 12 % rye

Part way through S & F

After some tension pulls (saw this on Trevor's instagram)

Then preshaped straight afterwards

The dough was left 30 minutes before shaping and it was really slack - better than last week, but still hard to get it  to hold some tension & shape. Retarded overnight in Fridge.  Bulk ferment was 5 hours.

Champlain: this dough has 8% spelt and 4% rye

After 1st set of stretch and folds

After tension pulls - you could really feel the dough firm up.

Preshape immediately after tension pulls

I was quite happy with this as it went into the banneton and into fridge overnight

1:2:3 repeat using flour I had milled a week ago to see if aging a bit made a difference. This dough is 20% spelt and 10% rye

After 1st Stretch & folds

After tension pulls

Preshaping - sticky and hard to shape into a boule

Retarded overnight.

This morning preheat oven and DOs.  Here are the 2 batards before unmoulding and scoring

Oh dear, a slow careful drop out of the bannetons, they had stuck slightly and this rarely happens for me.

Similarly, Here is the 1:2:3 loaf

All baked 15 minutes lid on at 250 deg C, 15 minutes lid off at 230 deg C

Final result

The country champlain pancaked again, Champlain SD was not too bad, it spread a bit.  The 123 a big pancake.  When I went to put it in the smaller reheated DO to bake, I realised it had spread too much so had to grab the now cooling bigger DO instead.  Darn!!

Here are crumb shots

Country Champlain

1:2:3

Champlain SD - this I am reasonably happy with, not as open as my first try in November though.

So, whereto from here - I really like and prefer the flavour of the Country Champlain but I need some help on what to try next.

Is it the breadflour - should I try a different one? Add more gluten?

More tension pulls?

Less autolyse? 

Shorter bulk ferment?

Help please

Disheartened Leslie 

I wanted to compare the effect of using bran in the levain vs whole flour.  So on Wednesday morning I weighed out a little more spelt and rye berries than I needed (allowing for slight loss during milling) for each levain build then milled them.  I did this a little differently than usual.

I set the Mockmill on 4-5 and milled the first batch.  I sifted this through my kitchen sieve, kept this separate then remilled the remainder on the fine setting 1-2 and sieved this again, adding this bran to the previous bit.   The flour felt a little smoother. 

I repeated this for the second batch but only gave this the first sieving - there was actually very little left in the sieve.

10 am refreshed starter 5 gm starter + 5 gm water + 5 gm flour - standard refresh ex refrigerator

2 pm added 30 g water + 30 flour - again as usual.  Room temperature was 22 deg C

10 pm made the first build of the levain which was then left on the bench overnight.

Bread #1 - 10 gm refreshed starter + 10 gm water + 7 gm bran (all I had) + 3 gm double sifted flour

Bread # 2 - 10 gm refreshed starter + 10 gm water + 10 gm bread flour

Thursday

2nd levain builds at 7 am room temperature 19  deg C - a bit cool, where has my sunshine gone?!!

Bread #1 15 gm from evening build + 15 gm water + 15 gm double sieved flour

Bread # 2 15 gm from evening build + 15 g water + 15 gm bread flour

This was left on bench to hopefully mature.  My formula for both loaves as follows

Freshly milled spelt 38 gm 

Freshly milled rye 19 gm

This was milled together so  bread #1 double sieved, bread #2 minimal sieving

Bread flour 98 gm + 4 gm gluten flour

Water 114 gm

Salt 3.12 gm

levain 24 gm

12:20 pm mixed the ingredients for bread #1 to shaggy dough then left to autolyse 

12:30 pm mixed the ingredients for bread #2 to shaggy dough then left to autolyse

13:45 pm Add salt and bran levain for #1, dimple in, 30 stretch and folds followed by 5 minutes Rubaud method.

14:05 pm Bread #1 5 minutes mixing Rubaud method but using left hand - its hard work!

14:45 pm Bread #1 stretch & folds * 20 

15:15 pm Stretch & folds * 10

15:45 pm stretch and folds * 8

Repeated all steps exactly for bread #2 (standard levain), just 10 minutes later, so here is #2 after Rubaud mixing

16:45 both breads given stretch & folds * 7 and repeated at 17:30 pm and 18:30 pm.

20:00 pm Bread # 1 preshaped

20:30 pm Bread #1 final shaping then placed on floured cloth in small bowl in refrigerator overnight.

The dough was not wildly poofy but seemed to get more so as it progressed and you can see small air bubbles here.  I don't think I did a very good job of shaping.  The dough was pretty soft but still sticky and I tried hard not to degass.  I oiled the bench and hands for preshaping but chickened out and floured the bench for final shaping. 

Bread #2 preshaped - 

I felt this was a bit softer so only left it 20 minutes before final shaping and refrigerating overnight. It went a little better than #1 did-- I didn't oil the bench this time though, just flour.

Friday 7 am Removed both loaves from fridge, unmoulded onto parchment, slashed loaves (1 slash #1, 2 slashes #2) baked both at same time in different DOs 15 minutes lid on at 250 deg C and 15 mins lid off at 230 deg C

Lunchtime we couldn't resist.

Crumb #1 bran levain

We've had visitors so didn't cut bread #2 until today. Crumb shot standard build levain

I think the bran levain has actually delivered a better crumb although I am not sure if there was a great deal of difference in height i.e volume after the bake.  I still need to get more tension/strength in final shaping.  The 1 slash vs 2 may have had an impact too. 

I had hoped for less spread and more height, so I will try again .. just one loaf but a bit bigger this time.  and I will try to make a batard fingers crossed.  There was definitely some improvement this time.

Leslie

A question to those of you out there doing this - dabrownman, Danni and any others.  How exactly do you do this?

Do you mill the flour required for the bake, sift out the bran then use bran instead of flour for 1st build, sieved flour for remainder

 or do you just mill some random amount of flour, sieve the bran out then take from these two fractions whatever you need you need for the levain part of the bake?

My last bake was so small and I tried adding bran to the levain.  I only made a small loaf so there was not much to play with.  I would like to try again but for a bigger loaf so want to understand process better first.

Leslie

Well, not sure where my head was yesterday, it was perhaps a comedy of errors but I didn't think that as I put the dough in the fridge to proof overnight.  Start at the beginning. Three different bakes, 1 small loaf each. 

Monday 13:30 refresh 60% ish starter 10 g = 20 water + 30 flour

21:30 pm mix three levains and leave overnight on bench.  it was cool overnight - only 18 deg C when I got up next morning/

Tuesday 7 am - put levains in a cooler part of the pantry as I would not need till after lunch.

11:45 am Country Champlain.  Mix together

Bread flour 169 g + 6 g gluten

Fresh milled spelt 67 g

Fresh milled rye 34 g

Water 215 g 

13:45 pm Add 6 g salt and 52 g 100% hydration levain. Stretch and fold until incorporated then approx 10 minutes mixing the Rubaud style

Rest 10 minutes then repeat for another 5 minutes (using left arm this time!) It is now 14:15 pm and left dough to rest.

14:45 pm Stretch and folds * 20

15:15 pm Stretch and folds * 15

15:55 pm Stretch and fold * 9 then 2 more stretch and folds * 5. 

19:00 preshaped dough - it was sticky but  using bench knife managed it, just!

The dough was spreading like crazy and not holding its shape so after 10 minutes, I oiled the bench knife and managed to shape this very poofy dough into a boule - no way could I have done a batard!. Retard overnight 

Baked this morning 250 deg C for 15 minutes lid on, 230 deg C for 15 lid off.

Here it is before scoring and baking. 

Oh dear, another pancake!  But it is light!  This ended up being about 80% hydration, I forgot to account for the water in the 100% levain so it was obviously much wetter/softer than planned.  This is the lead photo

So on to loaf no 2.  Yeast water & sourdough loaf

Monday night I had mixed a poolish (hope that is correct terminology) of 65 g yeast water and 65 g flour.

Tuesday 12:15 pm mixed flours together for autolyse and when I wanted to add water, realised I had added yeast water to it so this would change the plan.  So I threw it out and measured water again, added to the flour and of course it was not sufficient. :( Back to drawing board.  Re calculated recipe based on what I had and so I added extra flour and water at 12:45 pm and could now get a reasonable dough for autolyse

Bread flour + gluten 396 g

Water 194 g

13:35 pm Add levain 35 g (I had forgotten to mix this and luckily had kept left over from evening before so it was 60% hydration)

Yeast water 57 g 

Salt 8 g

Mixed until incorporated.  then left to rest. At 14:00 decided it didn't look mixed enough so I did about 1 minute or so of Rubaud method.

14:30 Stretch & fold * 20

15:00 Stretch & fold * 15

15:30 Stretch and fold * 10 and at 15:55 stretch and fold * 8.  The final stretch and folds *5 were at 17:00 pm

18:00 pm preshaped.  Dough very poofy 

18:20 pm Very soft, hard to shape.  Did just manage to get a not very tight batard.  Into fridge to proof overnight.

This morning when others were baking I popped it into the freezer to firm it up.  Made it hard to get out of the banneton.  Baked 250 deg C lid on for 15 minutes, lid off at 230 deg C for 15 minutes.

This dough ended up being about 80% hydration - I miscalculated when recalculating the formula. No wonder it was hard to shape!!

A bit flat, but it too is light.  Better than I thought it would be.

Finally bake no. 3, a simple 1:2:3 loaf

 12:30 pm yesterday Mix flours and water for autolyse

bread flour 190 g incl extra gluten

Spelt flour freshly milled 67 g

Rye flour freshly milled 33 g

Water 250 g

14:25 pm add 97 g 100% hydration levain and 6.6 g salt.

Stretch and folds to incorporate.

14:25 pm stretch and fold * 20

15:00 pm Stretch and fold * 17

15:30 Stretch and fold * 10

15:55 pm Stretch and fold * 7 leave then 5 stretch and folds at 17:00 pm and 18:00 pm

18:30 pm preshape. - very sticky, hard to shape, 

18:45 pm  final shape.  Could not hold shape of batard so made a boule. Retard overnight.

Baked this morning at 250 deg C for 15 mins lid on, 15 minutes lid off at 230 deg.  When I removed lid, I removed parchment and this was a bit early so the scores closed up again  and it became a bit of a funny shape because I interfered with the loaf. :(

Well after all that, I was a bit down - really disappointed with my bake.  Apart from the YW mix up the mixing and stretch and folds had gone well.  It went pear shaped at shaping.  We couldn't resist by lunchtime so we cut the loaves .  Crumb shots

Top 2 slices - Country Champlain bottom 2 slices 1:2:3 loaf

Ok very pleasantly surprised by Country Champlain. Nice open crumb.  If it had held its shape, I would have been happier.  1:2:3 - crumb is good, but it feels a lot heavier and it is obviously not as open.

Yeast water / sourdough loaf

Now I am pretty happy with this crumb, would have been better if it hadn't spread so much but it was pretty high hydration for me.  I couldn't resist this last shot

At first I couldn't figure it out, why so all were so hard to shape.  I rechecked calculations today and some of the reason is the high hydration.  Too high for NZ flours.  Lesson learned! 

Also going to repeat the 1:2:3 loaf in a week, then 2 weeks using the same batch of milled flour and see if that makes a difference. i.e fresh vs aged flour

Tomorrow I am going to try Country Champlain again - just a small loaf  - two ways.

1. As I did this bake but with much lower hydration.  I have double checked my figures so will try at 74% hydration

2. I have milled the spelt and rye and sifted it.  I will build the levain tonight using the bran and then in the morning some of the sifted flour for the levain and see if this helps too.  This will also be at 74% hydration.

This is such a challenge, so many variables but hopefully I can figure it out.  

This week's bake was Trevor Wilson's Tartine Style Country Bread, along with a basic white to use up levain.

Monday 3 pm refresh starter 5 g + 10 g water + 15 g flour. mix and leave on bench. room temperature 26 deg Celcius

Monday 8:30 pm added 30 g water and 30 g flour. room temperature now 23 deg C. Leave overnight on bench

Tuesday 8:45 am add 45 g water + 45 g flour.  Room temperature back to 23 deg C,  Not a standard build, just wanted to keep it going till after lunch

Formula Tartine Style Country Bread

340 g bread flour (incl 12 g gluten flour) (63.4%)

131 g freshly milled spelt (24.4%)

65 g freshly milled rye (12.2%)

449 g Water (83.8%!!)

12 g salt (2.28%)

102 g Starter (19%)

This is way over my comfort level, but bread looked awesome on Breadwerx site!! I just used the levain I had built even though it wasn't 100% hydration, more like 95% perhaps.

11:45 am Mix flours and water for Tartine style Country Bread and leave.

2:25 pm add salt and levain, dimple it in, then stretch and folds and mix by hand until all incorporated.  This was one wet dough!!  Then did 15 minutes of what Trevor calls Rubaud method of scooping (to mimic diving arm mixer).  I let it rest for 10 minutes then did another 10 minutes.

This was followed by sets of stretch and folds every 30 minutes, the last one just before we went out for dinner.  Left the dough to bulk ferment.  On returning home at 7:45 pm I did another set of stretch and folds. 20 minutes later gave a few more folds before tipping onto bench.  Oh boy! I think it went a little too far.  Divided into 2 lots and  managed to preshape.  30 minutes later struggled to do final shape with any degree of tension.  Placed in banneton and retarded over night.

Baked this morning at 250 deg C for 15 minutes lid on, 15 minutes lid off my DO (preheated).  Result: 2 pancakes. Disappointing, obviously I didn't build enough strength  so next time will work on that.  Crumb is nice but not what I was aiming for.   A slice from each loaf.  It will taste good for sure, but I wish it had more volume!  Next time, I will be sure to shape a little earlier.  

To use up the levain I had over (can't waste this stuff!!) I just mixed up a basic 1:2:3 sourdough.  

Formula

67 g levain

325 g flour 

200 g water

6.5 g salt

12:30 pm mix flours and water

2:10 pm add levain and salt and incorporate with stretch and folds.  Left to rest then added another 25 g water and slowly incorporated it over next couple of hours as it felt pretty low hydration (not as much levain left as I anticipated) but it was still a firm dough. I did 4 sets of stretch and folds.

5:30 preshape  5:45 final shape, into banneton then the fridge overnight.  Baked at 250 reducing to 230 deg C.  DO already hot so 15 minutes lid on 15 minutes lid off.

Crumb is ok but would have liked it a bit more open.

I think it needed a bit longer bulk ferment and this morning when I baked, I realised I had meant to make 2 x 300 g boules, not 1 larger one.  Never mind, it will taste fine.

Happy baking

Leslie

Here is the link to my recipe, as requested by bread1965

https://www.dropbox.com/s/418xctpf74nxnrh/Multigrain%20loaf.xlsx?dl=0

Starter was refreshed for the Experimentation - the next step bake (posted on 17th January)  so I had allowed sufficient for this bake as well. 

Levain was built the night before and left at room temperature until 13:25 pm

Soaker was mixed the night before as well.  I use boiling water, add the salt, mix and allow to cool before refrigerating overnight.  It was removed from refrigerator mid morning.

12:25 pm The remaining water was added to the soaker and this added to the bread flour, wholewheat (freshly milled), and gluten flour . This was mixed until all ingredients were incorporated then left 1 hour to autolyse.  

13:25 pm  The levain was dimpled in and incorporated using stretch and folds.  At this point I realised I had forgotten to add the honey, which I usually add with the water.  I spread it out over the dough and carried on with stretch and folds. I didn't count how many but until everything is well mixed in.   Yes, this is a wet mix but not unmanageable.

13:55 pm first set of 10 stretch and folds in bowl as per Trevor J Wilson's method

14:35 pm 2nd set of 10 stretch and folds

15:15 pm 3rd set of 10 stretch and folds

17:00 pm 4th set of stretch and folds.  left to relax

17:30 pm removed dough from bowl, divided into two pieces and preshaped into batard

18:00 pm  Final shaping into batards, into floured bannetons, popped into ziplock bags and place in refrigerator overnight.

Next morning, oven preheated along with my 2 DOs to 250 deg C.

Dough removed from fridge, unmoulded onto parchment, slashed and dropped into hot DOs.  Baked 15 mins lid on and 15 mins lid off.  Temperature was reduced to 230 deg C about 10 minutes into bake otherwise I get singeing on the bottom.

It was a good bake.  In past I would probably tried slap and folds, but I am getting good results with this more gentle method.

Leslie

To those who tried to follow my write up, my apologies.  I have added a new comment further down in that post following alfanso's comments.   I hope this gives an easier read than the original post.  Also added a dropbox link to my spreadsheet. 

If you had the patience to wade through the original post, thank you.  It was hard to know how to write it up and with hindsight I should have gone with the dropbox link at the start. but, we live and learn, and I still have much to learn.

Leslie

Following on from my last experimental day inspired by Mariana, today's bake built on that but also heavily influenced by Trevor's book Crumb Mastery which I am presently re-reading. 

I have attempted to repeat my first bake for 2018 and do it better.  

Starter refresh Friday morning

mixed 10 g starter 20 g water 30 g flour and left on bench. Room temp was 23°c

8 pm took 7 g from this added 28 g water & 28 g flour mixed and left on bench overnight.

Saturday 9:30 am mixed up levain for

bake #1 1:2:3 with 20% freshly milled rye 10% freshly milled spelt

27 g starter 118 g water and 118 g flour. leave to mature 

 bake #2 1:2:3 with 20% new season yeast water (raspberry)

levain: 9 g starter 41 g water 41 g flour mixed and left to mature

Poolish: 65 g yeast water 65 g flour  mixed and left to mature. this was a pretty pink!

Final doughs

Bake #1 1:2:3 with yeast water

2 pm autolyse - 208 g flour and 116 g flour. This was a low hydration dough

2:50 pm add yeast water poolish and levain. Dimple in and incorporate into dough with lots of folds.leave 20 minutes.

3:20 pm 50 turns - very challenging as not very extensible

4 pm 50 turns and still a challenge

4:30 pm 50 turns incorporating 6.3 g salt

5:30 preshape leave to rest.

5:50 pm final shape into batard, retard overnight in banneton

Bake #2  Final dough 1:2:3 with spelt and rye

5:45 pm mix flours (518 g bread flour, 91 g spelt, 182 g rye), add 527 g water and autolyse. Went out for dinner so this was a little longer than planned

7:30 pm add levain and 18 g salt. I incorporated this with lots of stretch and folds. rested 30 minutes and did 30 s&f, repeated another 2 times.  rested 15 minutes, divided dough into 2 and preshaped (now 9:30 pm) rested another 30 minutes.

10 pm final shaping into 2 batards, into bannetons and into fridge for overnight retard.

Sunday morning

Oven set to preheat to 250°c by 7 am.  

Bake #2 is first up as I was trying to stick to dabrownmans suggested schedule. The 1:2:3 spelt and rye loaves were unmoulded, slashed and baked in DO s 15minutes lid on 15 minutes lid off with temperature dropped to 230 after 10 minutes. Happier this time as better oven spring

Bake #1 - oven and one DO reheated, yeast water loaf unmoulded, slashed and baked 15 minutes lid on 15 minutes lid off. lovely surprise when i took lid off half way through bake. Love the blisters, never had such big obvious blisters before.  Crust is thin and crisp!   Interesting colour to this loaf, it is a white loaf but dough was pink. after baking it is a light brown with a very slight tinge of pink, nice flavour.  The yeast water is only about 10 days old so was really just checking what impact it had on a simple white loaf.  

I found the stretch and folds for the YW loaf quite difficult and worried about getting a dense crumb.  Still not confident with less than 50% increase during bulk ferment but it seems ok.  I did less stretch and folds with spelt and rye because of this.  I am a a bit undecided on my approach - gentle gentle as per Trevor or lots of stretch and folds which ate difficult because dough is pretty firm.  would it be better to increase hydration a little?

Still lots to think about.  try different flours, add gluten flour to make flour stronger? 10 stretch and folds vs 100? 

2018 offers many challenges

Leslie

Decided to mill some spelt and rye and use it in a simple 1:2:3 loaf and concentrate on open crumb and great oven spring.  My flour mix was 70% bread flour, 20% freshly milled rye and 10% freshly milled spelt.  

 I started off with a starter build of 1:2:3 late sunday afternoon.  Monday morning I built further 1:2:2 intending to use water at about 30°C but misjudged it and when I mixed it up it was more like 26°c. This was left at room temperature to mature.  Room temp started at 23°c.

 At 11 am mixed flours and water and left to autolyse until I was ready to carry on.  2 pm room temperature was 27°c, levain was ready so added the salt and levain to dough using Trevor Wilson’s gentle method.  left it to rest 15 minutes and did another round of gentle stretch and folds which were then repeated hourly (3 times) with a final one half an hour later before dividing and preshaping dough. After 30 minutes did final shape and placed in bannetons then retarded over night. Baked this morning at 230°c straight from fridge. One batard with 2 slashes, one with a single.  

 It is frustrating - it all went well but whilst I got a little oven spring, the dough spread more than I wanted!  Tastes really good though.  

Question #1:  did I not build enough dough strength? (was going to check for window pane but forgot)

Question #2:  is this a result of using freshly milled grain?  should I have reduced hydration a little - loving being able to mill grain with my Mockmill100 but still learning about how freshly milled grain responds.

Leslie