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So last week the cool guy who trades me goat cheese requested the sesame levain I made on week three.  I was hesitant as I didn't intend to go back and replicate or improve any recipes but I reconsidered quickly and thought it would be nice to fulfill a request.  I had to make a few changes though.  I cut the lemon idea entirely as I dont' want to find out how much zest I'd need to actually taste it and the loaf was so good when I couldn't taste it.  Secondly I doubled the levain and reduced the final dough ingredients to keep the formula the same.  Finally I used Kamut in place of the spelt.  It's been nearly 2 1/2 months since I made the first variety which I recall being very good but honestly I can't really compare them as I just don't remember the taste well enough.  As far as the dough goes: This dough came out much nicer.  The previous dough had some lumpy flour which I didn't not have a problem with this time.  I actually backed off and gave 1 less stretch and fold and allowed a 4 hour bulk ferment to help with development.  I think this was achieved.  The dough was soft and smooth with great extensibility   It sprang in the oven very nicely and has a lovely shiny crumb. Looking at the previous pictures and the spelt certainly made the loaf browner than the kamut and the kamut added some more red tones.  

The formula can be found at Farmer's Market Week 3 with few revisions:

1)  Double the levain and remove those numbers from the final dough.

2)  Cut the lemon zest.  

3)  replace kamut for spelt 

4) only 2 stretch and folds at 45 minutes and a 3:45 bulk fermentation. 

Happy Baking

Josh

Farmers market is booming with great stuff now.  So they were more giving than usual.  We got sweet corn, brocolli, zukes, carrots, baby cabbage, fennel, variety of pluots, the same most amazing pears (last of em and the new varieties are next), heirloom tomatoes, spring onions, spring mix lettuce, local mushrooms (shitake and maitake), 

Now to build a levain for some 30% ryeguettes to bake tommorrow

Happy baking

josh

Maybe this should be called Hamelman's Pain au Levain, mostly, because there were a couple of small excursions from the formula presented in Hamelman's Bread, 2nd Edition. 

Having enjoyed several days' worth of the Rustic Pumpernickel from Inside the Jewish Bakery, I was ready for a change of pace.  My starter was in need of a good feeding, so I have it a healthy dose of rye flour and water and left it to its own devices overnight.  The next morning, it was ripe and ready for action.  Gotta love these warm summertime temperatures.  At this point, I had no real plan, just a vague notion of something not-pumpernickel.  Remembering that I hadn't baked from Hamelman's book for a while, I started leafing leafing through it and came across the Pain au Levain bread.  Just the ticket, since it has a small portion of rye flour in it.

Since I had fed my starter with rye flour, I calculated that I would have a bit more rye than the formula called for even if I didn't add any in the final dough.  No problem.  It would still be good.  And, the bread flour that I used was the Great River Milling Unbleached Wheat Bread Flour which still contains 20% of the bran.  Again, no problem; just more flavor.  The other thing about the GRM flour is its protein content: 14%.  That's much higher than any French-style flour's protein content.  I mixed the levain, covered it, and left it to ferment at room temperature.  It was ready for use about 3:30 in the afternoon.

Hamelman assumes a room temperature bulk fermentation and final fermentation.  As I looked at the clock, and at the instructions, I decided that I really didn't want to stay up late.  That led to the other deviation: a decision to retard the dough during its bulk ferment.  The rest of the process was pretty much by the book.  The flour and water were mixed by hand and allowed 60 minutes to autolyse.  Then the levain was mixed in.  That was a bit trickier, because the dough was stiffer than the levain, but the dough came together after the initial goopy phase and got even better after the salt was added.  The texture was still fairly firm, so I worked in another 3-4% of water.  The absorptive capability of the flour meant that I still didn't have a soft dough but it felt quite moist and tacky so I called it good enough.  That turned out to be a good decision.

I allowed the dough an hour of bulk fermentation at room temperature, then put it into the refrigerator until the following afternoon, almost 20 hours later.  The dough hadn't doubled in volume, so I gave it an hour or so to warm up somewhat, then shaped it into two batards.  Each was allowed to proof on a piece of parchment paper, covered with plastic.  The dough was firm enough that I did not provide side support for it.  Indeed, most of the doubling was in the upward direction, not the horizontal direction, which is pretty unusual for a sourdough.  When it had grown by perhaps 80%, I preheated the oven with a stone and a steam pan.  After the oven reached temperature, I boiled water and poured it into the steam pan.  The loaves were then slashed and placed on the stone to bake as directed.

During the bake, the loaves continued to expand upwards, but more sideways than they had during the final fermentation.  The scores opened nicely and gave a good ear.

The crumb is less open than might be expected for this style of bread and this level of hydration.  I think that the amount of kneading that was required to incorporate the levain had an effect, as did the high protein content of the bread flour.  I'm not at all unhappy, since the primary use for the bread is in sandwiches.  That means I don't have mayonnaise or mustard dripping into my lap while eating.

The crumb is very moist, probably attributable in part to the rye flour's moisture-grabbing traits, plus the additional water that I added to offset the dough's stiffness.  More would have been too much, so I am glad that I stopped when I did with the extra water.  The color is a bit darker because of the additional bran content not usually seen in a bread flour.  The crust, which was initially quite hard, has softened considerably as the moisture within the loaf has redistributed.  The flavor is excellent, combining wheat and rye notes with a gentle sourdough tang and the toasty/nutty/caramel notes from the crust.  My hat is off to Mr. Hamelman for devising such an enjoyable bread.

Paul

baked this yesterday... yes, it is for my friends. this time they dropped by my place when i was baking. they were delivering an early birthday cake for me!! 

and i treated them a freshly baked bread from the oven!

home baked blueberry cheesecake :) what a surprised!

 http://www.epikouria.com/issue3/article1-red.php

Saffron "red gold". Saffron threads may also be toasted. Once toasted, these threads can be ground into a powder.

made smaller loaves.. great for giveaways 

had so much fun, drinking dark German beer, long black coffee.. eating cake and fresh hot crunchy and soft bread.

it was a beautiful afternoon with friends.

evon

I used a small amount of organic rye flour, perhaps 10% in my white bread flour starter and that seemed to kick things up a bit.I have reduced the proofing time to 40 minutes on the batard and while a little easier to score, my lame work still needs work.  Next bake I will try a 35 minute proof for the batard/ baguette.

The boule contains about 5% whole wheat and organic rye and it is a tasty loaf, but I liked my last bake with 10% WW and 15% organic rye better -- better flavour, greater volume in less time, better oven spring and my scores held their ears on the last one.  Okay, I was a little sloppy getting the loaf into the hot DO using parchment paper and oven mitts and need to work on that as well.

Perhaps the best part is that the flavours I am getting from my SD loaves is just amazing.  I also have some VERY happy neighbours as I have been in full on experiment and bake mode and simply cannot eat all I am baking!  The long slow SD process, sorry the DMAN process I have been using really brings out the flavours of the grains, very much P. Reinhart's thesis in using time to bring out flavour and explained som much beter by dabrownman!

Tomorrow I am baking up supplies for my upcoming BC road trip.  A couple of nights in Golden with friends to celebrate my birthday Monday and paddle the Kicking Horse River Tuesday, Wednesday to Sicamous for a couple of days beach time and then up to paddle the Clearwater River and have a look around.

Happy baking folks!  Brian

All three loaves are 20% Rye Sourdough.

one with Caraway Seeds, one with Fennel Seeds…..

and one with Rolled Oats on top…..

Crumb Shot…...

Cheers,

Wingnut

Not long ago Varda did a series of posts on her quest to recreate a non SD Pratzel’s Tzitzel.  She had the good fortune of talking to the original owners about the formula for this bread and gained some good insight.  I though I would do a SD one just to be different and I prefer SD any day, any way to yeasted breads

Varda has been modifying her formula as time goes on too as I found out when I messaged her about her recipe.  I think the key to the bread is what flours are used.  Since we can’t get the exact flour, even if we knew what it was exactly, I just sort of tried to home mill a mix of flours that I though might be fairly close and add in some WWW to balance things out.

The formula has the equivalent of 100% whole grains when including the malts, 40% rye and 40% wheat with the flours being home milled and sifted to 75% extraction and 20% additional being KA white whole wheat.  We used 4 times more aromatic seeds, mainly caraway but some anise, coriander and fennel too.

40 g of the sifted out bran and endosperm were used for the 3rd stage feeding of the levain build which make up the whole grain equivalent of 170 g when adding 10g g of malt to the whole grain - if my math is right.

Varda’s latest recipe has 41% un-sifted home milled rye mixed with KA’s Sir Lancelot at 80 % hydration with .8% caraway seds.  She says that Taitzel has a lower hydration than one would suspect.  I don’t have any high gluten wheat flour so I made my own by using the milled and KAWW wheat and adding 15 g of VWG to get the protein up a bit.  I didn’t bother to calculate what it might have been protein wise.

Varda used 80% hydration for her Tzitzel but I upped it to 85%.   The 80% home milled flours are very thirsty and at 80% hydration the dough was too stiff to do any decent slapping and folding.  Plus the extra 25 g that was added after the autolyse, was used for a 2nd hydration and to get the pink Himalayan sea salt  incorporated – so hold back some liquid to do this.

The stiff (66% hydration) rye and whole wheat starter had been in the fridge for a week.  We used 15 g or it for the levain.   The first 2 feeding were on 3 hour intervals and it doubled after the 2nd feeding   We made the last feeding of bran and 1 hour later it had risen 25% when we refrigerated it for 24 hours to improve the sour.

We want a higher than normal amount of SD levain, 20% this time, since it is the acid that keeps the rye enzymes in check and when doing a long retard with rye  it pays to up the levain and don’t let the dough sit out on the counter too long.

When we retrieved the levain from the fridge to let it warm up and finish the doubling for the 3rd stage, we started the autolyse, which included everything else but the aromatic seeds, the salt and the held back 25 g of water.   We did sprinkle the salt on top of the autolyse dough ball though.

Even leftover Pad Thai looks pretty good.

Normally we would do at least a 4 hour autolyse and prefer 8 if using whole grains but, since the whole portion of the grains was in the levain we did a 2 1/2 hour autolyse which coincided with the doubling of the levain.

After squishing the held back water through the fingers in the bowl to get it incorporated and spread the salt around, we did 10 minutes of slap and folds.  After 7 minutes the dough was no longer sticking to the counter and by 10 minutes the dough was smooth and elastic. After a 15 minute rest, we incorporated the aromatic seeds with the first of (3) sets of S&F’s where one set is 4 stretches 4 folds for the compass points.

We let the dough rest 15 minutes between the S&F’s and after the last one before shaping into a batard and pulling it tight.  We rolled the batard in corn meal that was dusted on the counter as it was plenty sticky enough.  We lined a basket with a rice flour impregnated towel and then dusted the bottom with a little more core meal.

The batard was dropped into the basket, placed into a trash can liner and immediately retarded it in the fridge for 18 hours - a little longer than normal.  We planned on letting the dough rise and proof completely in the fridge and then bake it in the mini oven still cool about 45 minutes out the fridge in the morning.

This cool dough made the scoring easier and kept it from spreading too much like it would want to do at room temperature.  This plan seemed to work OK as the dough proofed well in the fridge and the mini oven only takes 15 minutes to get to 500 F.

We micro waved (2) of Sylvia’s steaming Pyrex cups containing dish rags and half full of water until, they were boiling.   The bread was un-molded diagonally on the mini oven’s vented, broiler pan top that had been covered with parchment paper.

The batard slashed and the steaming cups were placed on the opposite open corners of the broiler pan the whole thing was slid into the mini.  A 1/2 C of water was tossed into the bottom of the oven as the door was closed to give the bread a nice burst of initial steam.

We turned the oven down to 475 F after 2mintes and allowed the batard to steam an additional 13minutes.  At the 15 minute mark, we removed the steaming cups returning the bread to the oven with a new temperature of 425 F, convection this time.

The baby apprentice is all ready for a nap under her blankey 

In 10 more minutes it was done and read 205 F on the inside.  Not the prettiest loaf of bread on the outside so we hope it tastes better than it looks.  Have to wait to slice it since it is a rye and they need time to redistribute the moisture.  Couldn't wait and wanted this bread for a lunch sandwich today.   It tastes like a very good deli rye.  i like the fact that it is over a third whole grain and has 40% rye instead of the usual 30%.  The sour really comes though too and the aromatic seeds are there in the background telling you this is a typical American S Rye.  The crumb is soft, most and open but the taste is it's calling card.

A nice breakfast of apple wood smoked bacon, a sliced peach and plum, a few strawberries, a couple pieces of this fine bread toasted with medium caramelized, minniola marmalade and a fine Denver omelet of mushrooms, red pepper and green onion with habanero jack cheese inside and Colby jack on the outside.

We like this bread very much but have to say we prefer the Prince George's Chacon that  a good stout for the liquid and rye sprouts.  Add in the whole grains and some aromatic seeds and the Royal Baby Chacon would be over the top.  This bread does not remind me of Prazel's Tzitzel though because it is a sourdough - and on a whole different level with the home milled flour.

Formula

I've used Reinhart's Portuguese Sweet Bread recipe to make Hawaiian Rolls for a friend on a couple of occasions.  I modify the recipe in his Bread Baker's Apprentice book to use a poolish at 100% hydration and to include more flour as I find this recipe very sticky for some reason.  The original recipe's overall hydration is not that high, but maybe I screwed up the measurements somewhat.  Next time I may try Floyd's Hawaiian Rolls recipe which is similar but includes pineapple juice.

I had enough orders this week so I have some crumb shots and some not as most was going toward orders. I made my usual 100 % sourdough bagels from Wild Yeast blog but I used whey from my kefir for all of the liquid including feeding the staters..I use 1/2 rye starter and 1/2 white staters for the formula. They were all spoken for but the fragrance and shape are lovely so I have high hopes for the reviews on texture and flavor . I also had more orders for the Oatmeal Bread. I made 2 5 oz rolls from the extra dough...Grand son and his Momma and Papa ate those with peach jam we made this afternoon !   Made 8 Challah seeded buns and 2 Challah braids, a huge batch of peanut butter granola and 3 semolina sourdough boules. I ran out of semolina so added a touch of spelt. They turned out beautifully...baked in my DO's. That's it...oh and I made a small pan of lasagna from the last of my husbands sourdough pasta. We have always made our own pasta dough but have just lately started using starter for the lasagna. It gives a wonderful texture and lightness to the whole dish.  

oatmeal loaves and 5 oz oatmeal buns, Challah and Challah seeded rolls: semolina crumb: big ears ! : retarding in the "all fridge" boules and bagels: boiling bagels: baked and ready to go : granola : lasgana:

Yesterday, I baked the “Field Blend #2” bread from Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast. It is a mixed grain and mixed leavening formula with 30% whole grains (wheat and rye). It is similar in method but quite different in flavor from the “Overnight Country Blonde,” which was the first bread I made from this book.

My experience with two bakes of the Country Blonde prepared me for shorter fermentation times than Forkish specifies. This week is significantly cooler than it was when I baked the Country Blondes, however. My times for ripening the levain and for bulk fermentation were actually pretty close to Forkish's.

The result was a dark, crusty bread with a tender crumb that is somewhat less open than the Country Blonde because of the whole grain flours and the lower gluten in the rye. It has a complex flavor and moderately pronounced sourdough tang. On the day after baking, the rye flavor was quite present, although it is just 17.5% of the flour.

I like Forkish's approach to time management a lot. I am currently fermenting the levain for an “Overnight Pizza Dough with Levain,” but with a different timeline than he suggests for that dough. I'm going to cold retard the levain tonight and mix the final dough tomorrow morning and make pizzas for dinner.

We took 4 short vacations last month, so I baked less than usual during July. I did get back in the swing starting last weekend with some San Joaquin Sourdough Baguettes and San Francisco-style Sourdoughs with increased Whole Wheat.

Looking forward to Fall and cooler weather.

 Happy baking!

David

I got the book "How to Bake" by Paul Hollywood for my birthday recently, have been baking some bread from it; I like the sort of breads that are in it, though I don't like the "vagueness" in the recipes. Especially in the sourdough ones. For instance, the amount of hydration of the starter is not even mentioned. With my 100% hydration starter, the recipe below has a total hydration of 71,4%. Which I do not find that very high, considering the original recipe uses part whole wheat flour. And that is with the maximum amount of suggested water

So I kind of freestyled it, using wholemeal flour (cause I thought I still had wholewheat, but didn't), not sure what the distinction between the two is in English. It basically a wholewheat flour that is not as wholewheaty as usual , but not quite a wheat flour :P.

Anyway; this is what I used:

225 grams of flour
175 grams of wholemeal flour
250 gram sourdough starter, very active, refreshed day before
8 grams of salt
250 grams of water
50 grams of sunflower seeds
50 grams of flax seeds
50 grams of sesame seeds
50 grams of poppy seeds, half in the loaf, half on top

Mixed it all, kneaded with dough hooks, let rise for 5 hours until double, shaped, rolled in poppy seeds, put in proofing basket, proofed for 2 hours (original recipe said 14 hours!), baked 45 minutes at 190 degrees C with steam.

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