Sept 22: 60% WG 1-2-3 loaves: durum starter vs oat starter

There were a few things going on here this week, so I figured on keeping my bake pretty simple and straight-forward.  The only “extra” that was in the plan was to build up a bunch of both my rye and durum starters and get them spread out and dried to store as back-up, and to give to some family members who asked for some.

 With the drying in mind, I pulled out 10g each of the rye and durum starters, and started building them up over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, then refrigerated Wednesday night.  My planned bake would only use the durum starter, since I was planning on a simple 1-2-3 with 40% AP / 20% durum / 20% kamut / 20% oats:

Plan was to get the dough mixed at some point on Thursday, bulk ferment in the fridge overnight, and then get it shaped and proofed and baked on Friday morning before heading off to an appointment early Friday afternoon.

 This is exactly what happened!  Well, except that…  the chat on the fora about my oat starter made me realize that I hadn’t ever used it by itself to raise a loaf – and had never done a direct comparison with it.  My planned bake seemed like the perfect opportunity to do this, so I made a last-second decision on Thursday morning to build up an oat levain from my oat starter, and put together a second loaf like this:

I started with 25g of the 80% hydrated oat starter at 7:45 a.m., mixed it up with more oats and water, and it looked like this:

4 hours later, it looked like this:

I added in more oats and water as a second stage of the build at 11:45 a.m., and it looked like this at the start, and then after 4 hours at 3:45 p.m.:

Now, I should have had the basic sense to let the levain mature at this point, but I already had the durum loaf mixed and fermenting, so figured that I might as well see what this totally immature oat levain could do (talk about asking a toddler to do an adult’s job!).  While it wouldn't rise past this point, the large cracks and holes (not really bubbles) would continue to expand if I left it to mature for another 4 to 8 hours, and the aroma would change as the yeast and LAB multiplied.  Instead, I mixed the dough, let it ferment at room temps for 3 hours with 4 sets of Stretch-and-Fold on the 30 minute marks, and then tucked it in to the fridge beside the durum levain dough to ferment overnight.

 In between working with the dough, I also got the fully built-up and active rye and durum starters spread out in thin layers on parchment paper, and tucked safely away in a draft-free room to dry over the next few days.

 When I checked the dough at 6:00 a.m. Friday, the durum dough was perfectly fermented, but there was very little growth on the oat dough.  The outside and bottom showed the development of a lot of bubbles, though, so I figured that it was using the levain too early that was the issue (not enough wee-yeasties bred yet), and that all it needed was a bit more time at warmer temperatures to catch up.

 I pulled the durum levain dough out for pre-shape and bench rest, and put the tub with the oat levain dough in to the oven with the light on and the door propped open.  Sure enough, by the time I needed to start pre-heating the oven for the nicely proofing durum levain dough, the oat one was just about perfectly fermented --- billowy, light, beautifully domed, with tons of bubbles all over the outside.

 This led to an issue --- I had an unbreakable appointment early in the afternoon, so knew that there was no way that I could let that dough continue at room temperatures, or it would end up over-proofed for sure.  The solution was to pop it back in to the fridge, to be dealt with when I got home.  There was just enough time before I had to leave to get the durum levain dough in to the oven and baked.

 I got home around 3:00 p.m., pulled the oat levian dough out of the fridge, pre-shaped it and let it bench rest for an hour, then shaped it and let it proof on the counter for another 3 hours.  The extra fermentation time gave me a really bubbly dough to deal with, so I de-gassed it more firmly than I normally need to, and tried to seal the shaping even more than usual.  It was baked at 450 degrees covered for 25 minutes, and then uncovered for 25 minutes to an internal temp of 202 degrees.

 Once out of the oven, it joined the other loaf on the cooling rack for the night, waiting to be sliced up the next morning for sandwiches.

 The durum levain loaf came out like this:

The oat levain loaf came out like this:

The oat levain loaf suffered slightly in crumb from me not getting out as many of the larger fermentation bubbles as I would have liked, and both could have proofed slightly longer, but I was pretty happy with both the oat levain loaf (on the left) and the durum levain loaf (on the right):

 We had a taste-test when I first sliced the loaves, and agreed that we couldn’t really detect much difference in flavour, although there may be a bit less tang and more sweet in the oat levain dough (a hint, at most).  Not really a true comparison, since there were so many differences in the levain builds and timing, so I might just have to do a better job of planning it next time!

 Honestly, it never ceases to amaze me how forgiving sourdough baking is – and how adaptable bakes are when you remember that the fridge is your friend, and to always watch the dough and not the clock.  After a busy weekend in the back-country, these fun and yummy loaves are almost gone, and the starters are fully dried and crumbled and safely tucked away…

 Time to start thinking about what the next round should be – and hope that you all are baking happy!