The Fresh Loaf

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12 Grain Cereal with Poolish

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

12 Grain Cereal with Poolish

Back home now, with all my baking equipment, so I thought I'd re-create the no-measure bread I made on holiday last week, only measuring stuff this time so I could bake it again, and scale it for different sized batches. The original adventure is recorded in my blog post here.

This time, just for something a bit different, I made the poolish with white whole wheat flour. It's 100% hydration, 100 grams each of flour and water and about 1/4 tsp of active dry yeast.

Next, the soaker - 50 grams of bulk 12 grain cereal (a blend of mostly cracked grains and seeds, with a few flakes) and 100 grams of boiling water. Both the poolish and the soaker were made in the morning and left to sit for most of the day.

Later afternoon / early evening, I mixed the poolish and soaker with 450 grams of bread flour, 250 grams of water, 1/2 tsp dry yeast and 11 grams of salt. The dough itself (just counting the dough water and flour) was 56% hydration, but if you count the 12 grain cereal as flour and calculate hydration with all the flours and water from dough, soaker and poolish, it's 75%. That was probably the main difference between this batch and the no-measure batch, as the latter was probably much higher hydration (I ran out of flour!).

The other difference was that I could happily mix the dough in the Ankarsrum, rather than dealing with the sticky mess by hand. The roller and scraper did a fine job of mixing and kneading. I should have recorded it, actually, as it was a very good demonstration of how dough develops nicely with the roller. Medium-low speed for 8 minutes made nice, stretchy, soft dough that was still a bit sticky.

I let the dough sit for about an hour then did a few stretch and folds, and it looked very nice, starting to form a nice round shape. In hindsight I could have done two sets of S&Fs, 30 minutes apart, and had an even nicer dough, but, after 1.5 hours on the counter I put it in the fridge for the night (it's pretty warm in the house right now).

Nice bubbles in the dough, so it's got a good start on fermenting.

This morning I took it out; it looked very nice. I turned it out on the bench and divided it into two 500 gram pieces, pre-shaped and let it sit for about 15 minutes, then shaped into rough batards. I was debating baking it in pans, or rising in baskets but decided to just put it right on the peel on parchment to proof. I let it proof for about an hour and 45 minutes but that was probably a bit too long. The slashes didn't open up too much but oven spring was fairly respectable. Five minutes at 475F with steam, then down to 425F for another 20 minutes, turning halfway through the bake.

I'm very happy with the crumb on this one. It's quite even in consistency but still open, soft and moist. If it keeps like the no-measure version it will stay this way for two or three days. Very nice flavour with just unsalted butter, so I expect it will also be nice with a lot of other things! All in all, a keeper and one for the bread customers.

 

Comments

IceDemeter's picture
IceDemeter

more "professional", but I think I might actually like the first version better!  ;)

I'm all about flavour first, and then crumb - and this crumb is just what I always shoot for.  Light, airy, moist but still some chew in the mouth-feel --- and can hold sandwich fixin's (including condiments) without me wearing more than I get to eat.  Definitely worth putting on the "to buy" list!

Nice job in creating a measured version - and in keeping baking happy!

Best,

Laurie

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

It really pulled itself off the stone trying to get away form all that heat!  Can't can't help but like this one. Well dine and happyy baking LL 

yozzause's picture
yozzause

Hi LL i like this one too the twelve grains is that in some kind of a commercial mixture or did you have to assemble those yourself, and what were those grains ?

Kind

regards Derek

 

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

It was from the bulk store, so I don't even have a package and didn't take note of the ingredients. However, it is a cooked cereal kind of blend, with a lot of cracked grains and seeds and a bit of flakes. If I decide to make this one regularly I'll have to go find the cereal again and make note of all the ingredients so I can label it.

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

The 12 grain cereal is from Bulk Barn; here are the ingredients:

Cracked wheat, rye meal, steel cut oats, cracked triticale, hulled millet, barley flakes, thick flaked oats, brown flax seeds, buckwheat grits, white sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, golden flax seeds

yozzause's picture
yozzause

Thanks for that  LL everything but the kitchen sink

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Very nice bake.  Looks like it will be great for some grilled bread with some EVO!