nzsourdoughman's blog

I am still new on bread making - 4th week in now. And I am learning more and more. I thought I would give the seeded multigrain sourdough a try from wild yeast blog. I subbed in pumpkin sesame sun flour poppy and flaxseeds in the soaker. I also subbed the course rye for fine rye. The mixture was pretty wet... it was sticking to my bench and hands.
But I have learnt to not alter the hydration and go crazy with flour. I kneaded it for two 3min intervals with a min break in-between.  I added the soaker and it went a bit wetter and had to scrape it into my bowl. From my understanding if its higher hydration and not well formed you give it more stretch and folds.
My dough was showing 68F which is pretty low temp for fermentation - she recommends 75. In peter rein harts book he says every 17F doubles the fermentation time. So that’s about 3mins every Degree... so I gave it about 1.25hr for each fold instead of 50min - or until I saw the dough was looking bigger in volume and loose. After two s&f it was still wet but had some shape. I upturned shaped, benched for 20, then degassing...
I'm a little unsure if you should degas a multigrain loaf since you might want to be keeping as much c02 in the dough as you can get since the seeds might make it harder for the dough? Then the question would you degas in preshaping like kingarther says to? or be as gentle as you can like hertz?

I shaped my dough into batards and let them rise for 2.5-3hrs until they barely sprung back with a indent. Does anyone have a video of testing a dough?
I need something to compare my testing to since I’m unsure if I am over proofing my dough’s?

Then when I go to slash the top I always make a mince job, My dough seams to be too gluggy. It rises well and upturns well, but always slashes real badly. I can never slash in one swoop, always takes a couple and it always catches the dough. In my cuts I get good rises but never an ear in my dough like other tflers... I really want to be able to create good-looking ears! What’s the trick to cutting gluggy dough?

Any tips to why my loafs are not rising or puffing up like other recipes? Or is this as high as I can expect to get a multigrain loaf? So far i belive it can be overkneading, overhydrated or overprooved. I'll upload some pics. I really want to make this loaf my trademark bread so any input would be much appreciated! Maybe I can make a video of me making it so you have a idea of what my process is like?

Cheers

Mark

Mondays first try... Not a nice rise

Tuesdays... I thought maybe i wouldn't degas the one on the right as much as the one on the left... it gave it more shape outwards (that i realy like) and an ear (that i realy like) but a big sagging bottom (really want to fix).

Wensdays Bake... shaped... scored...baked.

Ok i have had the internet down for the past week or so... but i'm still baking!

My starter is now about 5weeks old and is still feed twice daily. Bloody kneady!

Here are some of my loaves... i have awnsered lots of questions through trial and error. But i have a few that i'm lining up for you robyn :)

I love the norwich sourdough recipe... its great, bombproof!

Susans fig and fennel atempt one... dough was too stiff. Long story... my falt

fig and fennel take two... higher hydration... much better crumb

Ok

About time I started a blog... I struggle a bit with spelling. I blame it on the autistic/ dyslexia; most say I’m just lazy.

I'm so passionate about making bread at the moment... I started with dean Brettschneider book global baker. Have mastered ciabatta, baguettes, fennel dinner rolls, and puff pastry. I'll post picks. But its now time for sourdough.

I started two sourdough starters. One 100% stone rye organic, other 100% whole-wheat stone organic. I used this website and sourdough ladies bog. I was feeding it 1/4c flour 1/4cwater 1/4c starter for 11days every 24 hrs.

Day 6:

After 10days I really wanted to bake with it and it was bubbling after each 24hrs of feeding. So I upped my feed to 100g starter 100g water 100g flour for a bake on day 13 morning. From reading what I have this means im now on a 100% hydration (1:1:1). It is much firmer using these measures and my starter was more than doubling after each feed. On the morning of day 13 it had doubled and was starting to drop.

I measured off the amount for my bake of each loaf, from the starteeer... the leftovers I measured off 100g of each starter fed on a 1:1:1 ratio and put back on bench to keep starter going. And i though out the extra.
I had no idea what recipes to use, they all call for an overnight stand. But I was hoping to have bread for that night so I used yoke mardewis recipe in "the wild sourdough".

I used here light rye sourdough recipe:
150g – 6.5oz rye starter made with 1:5 flour/water (I just used mine)
250g – 9 oz organic white spelt flour (I used ap flour)
125g – 4.25 water
1.5t – salt
Mixed… rested 15min…kneaded 5min…rest 5min…dough nice and soft and quite wet… passes windowpane…first rise in warm spot 5hrs 3/4 increase in size, maybe metal bowl was a bad idea?… try to shape but way too wet, same consistency of ciabatta, so I stretch and fold it a few times then shape to a boule, back into bowl for final rise… 5hrs still not rising much so turn out and bake…
A baby brick!

Her second whole meal sourdough sandwich bread:
6 oz whole-wheat starterPreview | The Fresh Loaf
4 oz water
8 oz flour
1t salt
I did exactly the same as the first loaf…accept gave this one a longer final rise after shaping into a batard…It went flat…

Both taste real sour! Real nice taste, just no rise