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33% Rye Levain Batards ala WoodenSpoon

alfanso's picture
alfanso

33% Rye Levain Batards ala WoodenSpoon

Inspiration comes from a few places.  I almost never crack open either of my two bread baking books anymore, as the world of TFL is the best on the market!  My main interests in the next loaf to tackle are usually spurred on by something in the Bread Browser, the Also on TFL or someone’s Recent Blog Entries posting.

For a while I’d been eyeing WoodenSpoon’s Rye Levain batard in the Also column.  Having delved into the world of rye flour dough recently, the time had come.  Especially since I had some still potent stiff rye levain from recent breads I made this past month.  I very much like the Greenstein-Snyder method of gauging the maturity in the rise of a rye sour levain.  Sprinkle some rye flour on top and watch for it to dome and separate into “islands”.  With a very stiff levain build such as used here, that rise is minimal, but the “cracking open” of the loose flour sprinkled on top is a sure-fire indicator that the levain is active and healthy.  

Changes from the original formula:

  • adjusted for 1500g, three batards at 500g each
  • No milling of my own flours – I use off-the-shelf products
  • I wouldn’t know a “rye chop” if it came up and bit me from behind, so that was out
  • I took WoodenSpoon’s word as is when he states “Bread Flour”.  Not having any on hand (apparently too lazy to git me sum), I used a combination of AP flour and Vital Wheat Gluten, using my now handy Pearson’s Square to accurately calculate the (somewhere around) 13.3% total protein that using bread flour would provide.
  • Bulk ferment for 2 hours with letter folds at 40, 60 and 80 minutes and a final 40 minute bulk bench rest.
  • Refrigerate for ~1 hour, then divide and pre-shape, 10 minute rest, and final shape.  
  • Onto a couche, then slipped inside plastic bags to preserve moisture and prevent any surface drying.  Retard for ~18 hours.
  • Scored directly from the refrigerator and put into the 500dF oven, already under steam, add 2 cups very hot water to the lava rock pan, and pull my face back quickly!
  • 15 minutes of steam at 450dF, rotate and continue baking for another 22 minutes with 5 minutes of venting at the end.

Retarded overnight, a light shower of raw flour, scored and ready for the oven

 

Steam released and rotated after 15 minutes

The Kids are Alright

A little denser than I was expecting

alan

Comments

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

Scoring, ears, colour and crumb. What delicious looking breads.

Your scoring is consistently great!

Bon Appetite.

- Abe.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Hummed to the tune of It's Getting Better All The Time.

Actually I go in and out of nightmare scoring phases, although not often anymore.  Usually I'm on the good side of the ledger, but occasionally not so adept.  Thanks for the good thoughts.

As stated in my OP, I'm finding so much inspiration on TFL, there is little reason to explore elsewhere.  I know what my areas of interest are and therefore my comfort level and confidence is continuing to grow.  The issue is that I'm now rarely getting back to my stock favorites.  Oh, the horror!!!

alan

Edo Bread's picture
Edo Bread

Beautiful loaves - well done!

alfanso's picture
alfanso

who thinks that baking isn't fun - needs to find another hobby.  We're all in this together.  Thank you,

alan

Colin_Sutton's picture
Colin_Sutton

These look amazing!  Oh to get a rise like that and to be able to score so adeptly!

Best wishes, Colin.
alfanso's picture
alfanso

Actually on first reading of your comment, it sounds suspiciously like a comment overheard in a pick-up bar ;-)

alan

Colin_Sutton's picture
Colin_Sutton

I assure you, Alan, than my intentions were entirely honourable. I shall be much more restrained in future, for fear to damaging my otherwise impeccable reputation. :-) Colin

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

That's some good rye bread.  Love the shape color bloom and crumb. Well done all the way around and

Happy baking

alfanso's picture
alfanso

are all confidence builders.  I'm starting to believe that I can pretty much take a lot of other folks' formulae and get something within the ballpark.

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Very nice baking.  Love the shine you have on the crust and great ears.

If you want to open up the crumb I suggest increasing the water amount.  When using someones recipe who is using different flour than you it is a good chance you will have to adjust the water content based on feel. 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

When running a formula for the first time, I like to stay with the stated amounts (however much I can).  Procedurally is where I go off the tracks and stick pretty much to my own set of steps.  Next time through I might bump the hydration up from this 77.4 to something like 80 or more and see where that takes me.

alan

FrugalBaker's picture
FrugalBaker

Alan...those ears are impressive. May I know how did you achieve that? It is almost the first thing that I noticed every time I read your blog. Do you have to score deep? Appreciate some pointers.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

As mentioned to Abe, most of the time I can get a pretty good score on the dough, although that still occasionally eludes me.  If you have seen virtually all of my posts in the last year since I joined TFL, you would note that I concentrated solely on baguettes for the first year and switched over to batards for a change these past few months.   So here is a rundown: 

  • With baguettes, I had a lot of opportunity to practice scoring and every one of those 3 or 4 baguettes per bake were taking 3 or 4 scores per baguette.  So, lots of practice there.  If you have the urge, you can peek here at an early blog entry which has a set of baguette pictures.  That was all prior to my current "cold scoring" method.
  • I use a curved razor blade as a lame on a handle.
  • I follow similar edicts to those posted by David Snyder in his TFL tutorials on scoring breads - relating to angle and depth of cut.  The higher the hydration, the less deep the cut with a slightly sharper angle.
  • An easy method to ensure that the blade is positioned in one's hand "correctly" is to hold the blade handle between thumb and forefinger in a way that has the radius bone of the forearm straight up at the wrist.
  • I turn the oven peel with the dough on it at an angle to my body instead of being straight ahead "vertically" or sideways "horizontally" with reference to my body.  This is my attempt to emulate what professional bakers do when the have the batards, etc. already loaded on the loader in front of the oven door.  See the Ciril Hitz video on this.
  • I recently began to shape and couche my dough on the same day as mixing and fermenting.  The dough sits in the refrigerator overnight and cools down while doing an overnight proof.  I will pull the batards out of the refrigerator mere minutes before they get scored and go into the oven.  This has the effect of giving me a cold firm batard to score, much easier to run a blade through firm chilled dough than that at room temperature.
  • Steam the oven with Sylvia's steaming towels 15 minutes prior to loading the batards.  Then 2 cups of hot water on lava rocks in a pan just after loading the dough.

Loading the cool dough into the oven allows the body and surface of the dough to remain cooler much longer than had the dough been at room temperature.  I believe that this will give the dough a much better opportunity to open with the steam before setting.  Better ways?  Probably dozens of other methods out there to get a good ear, but these seem to really be hitting the mark for me.

thanks for the kind words,

alan

FrugalBaker's picture
FrugalBaker

Thank you very much for writing up such a lenightly but informative piece of work. I have watched David's video on scoring a couple of time. As usual, things seems easy on videos and that doesn't apply to reality most of the time :( 

Though, I agree on practice makes perfect. I too, have gotten used to,scoring on cold doughs nowadays. I shall work on this area more whenever possible. Just have to get done with the sprouting now before moving onto the next venture. 

Regards,

Sandy