namadeus's blog

Hi

I am looking for help and advise on refreshing and keeping a Levain going. Having made the Levain from the chef and baked 3 x Pain du Levain i now have approx 500gms Levain which I have kept in the fridge for a week. I refreshed it with 125gms water and 175gms flour on Wednesday and again today being Saturday.

Is this still a Levain ? Or is it now some type of hybrid Chef ?

Thoughts and experience would be greatly appreciated.

Prepared dough for a Spelt, Wheatgerm &Oat Loaf last night at about 7pm. Now Saturday 28 Jan 10am.

Flour mix is 500gms white spelt / 100gms wheatgerm / 100gms pinhead oats / 300 gms dark rye

Put three loaves into our very cold conservatory overnight and this morning the dough looks like this :

Is this cracking more common in certain types of bread ? and does it effect the baking time as the loaf "opens" in the oven. Any comments welcome

I like the look when baked

Thanks for comments

First blog post - like the site very much. I am a keen home baker and been baking since coming across Andrew Whitleys book in Easter 2009 whilst on holiday near Lyme Regis.

Todays bread is a "Millers" Levain - or "lots of bag ends".

Interested to know how many people bake with a Levain and how they maintain / feed it on weekly / daily basis ?