The Fresh Loaf

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Joze's Barley-Rye, as Baguettes of course

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Joze's Barley-Rye, as Baguettes of course

Earlier this month, Joze (joc1954) posted his Barley-Rye Bread, a lovely dense nutty boule.  Having a bag of barley on hand but never using it before, I decided to give it a go.  But, as with my usual linear uncircular bread self, as baguettes.

According to Joze's write-up the dough takes no autolyse, has a long bench rise for a warm kitchen (3 1/2 hours) and a long retard (20 hours).  At 75% hydration this dough is quite dense and was difficult to French Fold without the flours soaking in an autolyse for at least 30-60 minutes or more.  Letter Folds every 45 minutes.  The dough remained stiff and fought being stretched and eventually shaped at every moment of its existence.  Neither extensible nor elastic, it just was...

Halfway through the bulk retard I shaped and placed it on a couche, still dense and stiff, but workable and required only the slightest amount of flour on the bench and couche.  Back into retard and baked about 21 hours after it first entered he refrigerator.  Scoring was simple.  450dF, 13 minutes with steam, and another 13 minutes after rotating, with a final 2 minutes venting.

And like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, I didn't know what I'd get, how the bake would turn out, how much grigne or how open the crumb would be.  Oven spring was somewhat minimal but with a fine grigne and the crumb remained particularly dense.  I'll say that was due to having to be manipulated with heavy hands in order to pre-shape and shape the dough - a lot more so rather than to simply ball the dough up for a boule.  A lot denser than Joze's boule. 

A very "wheaty" taste, a bit addictive in fact.  40% bread flour, 30% rye, 30% barley.  75% hydration with 10% pre-fermented rye flour in 100% hydration levain.  I would have preferred a darker bake, but for a first foray in the barley-rye playpen, I remained on the cautious side of the playground.

4x300g baguettes/long batards

Comments

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

It's also amazing how just a little bit can change the dough drastically. But it sure is tasty. I believe that before wheat came on the scene that barley the "in" grain. It was only when wheat came along and it's easier to handle gluten did barley fall out of favour. But taste wise it sure is nice.

Lovely as always Alan. That barley did nothing to alter your perfect scoring.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

for that bag from Laurenzo's.  It sat in the corner awaiting a "need" and when I saw Joze's post, I knew it had its calling.  Now I have to figure out the appropriate hydration, because 75% just isn't high enough for a dough like this that needs to be handled as much.  And the low gluten content explains why Joze settled on high protein bread flour.

The flavor of the barley just dominates the bread to the point where the rye is completely submissive, and the whole thing come off tasting an awful lot like a WW bread high in WW%.

thanks, alan

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Just beautiful! Thank you for my baguettes fix!

alfanso's picture
alfanso

The last months we've either been gone, or when home making baking-tin breads, for the most part.  A few too many times as part of a learning curve with trials and errors.  Which also means that much more bread needing to be toasted up before getting on and getting back to (my) basics.

So, yeah these are the the first in a while, for the most part.  Plus I've mentioned that I typically don't post the same breads more than once, maybe twice, unless they have adjustments or some other reason (or shape - as in batard) to repeat. 

thanks, alan

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

because it was used for beer instead and it is much better as beer:-)  More barley used in bread means less beer and that would be horrible.  0nly 40% bread flour means that you probably could have gone to 78% hydration and got the dough feeling a bit more like normal and larger holes too.  Still, they sure look grand and the crumb shot will seal the deal.  

Happy baking Don Baggs

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Heavens to Mergatroid, can't have that.  Years ago me nephew presented me with the following, which in part is somewhat true...

 

Not knowing what to expect from barley, I kept the hydration at 75%, but will add a few more percent to it the next time, else will run into the same denseness issue.

As far as a crumb shot?  Not a chance.  So dense that as with black holes, virtually no light can escape, and makes the crumb on Chorlywood and Wonder Breads look fantastic by comparison.  But is surely does taste good and managed to get a grigne in the process.

thanks dbm, DB 

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

and I am like Danni. I have missed your baguette posts, beautiful indeed!

Leslie

alfanso's picture
alfanso

getting back to shaping and baking them.  Now that I have a few more breads in the queue lined up to bake in the near future, I should have my engines firing up on all (or at least some) cylinders again.  Just need to keep that waistline in line!

thanks, alan

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

I also plan to bake with barley flour after reading Joze's post! But I want to change things up a bit by substituting whole spelt flour for the rye and wheat. I still don't have the guts to bake baguette... I always think that only the finest can bake up beautiful baguettes like yours

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Anyone can bake baguettes or in my case, as Msr. Calvel notes in his seminal book, "long batards".  What it takes is either a gifted hand or, for most of us, a lot of practice.  As the shaping and particularly the scoring seem to "intimidate" many, it is a product that far too few practice here on TFL.  I decided on them for two reasons.  I liked the challenge of the craft and I like a high ratio of crust to crumb.

One of the finest practitioners on TFL is kendalm, who entertained us with his long unwavering and disciplined journey on his road to making as close as possible, a perfect baguette.  And something that puts to shame the majority of what we see in bakery store windows.  He keeps a blog of his trials and errors on TFL.  His earliest attempts, and there were a lot, were not posted as blogs but rather as just comments and now "lost" to time.  Unless, that is, you search for his work by name and look for his earliest postings, somewhere about two years ago at most.

So if you feel that you need the inspiration, guts or whatever to do it, take some time to relive his timeline of arduous experiments. That should give you the needed gumption and have you on the road to baking some fine baguettes in short order.

And thank you for the lovely compliment, alan

pul's picture
pul

Solid beer and liquid bread! They all taste good to me

Nice bake Alan

alfanso's picture
alfanso

as I was finishing up a mix and the last of the letter folds.  Likely I'll keep my distance from another brew when it comes time to divide and shape.  That will be early morning tomorrow, and a brew at 6 or 7 am may not be the best way to start the day!

thanks, alan

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I've been using barley flakes in my porridge breads and love it.  I haven't used the flour in a while.  It does require a higher hydration which you've discovered.  I need to mill my own and give it a whirl again.

Happy Baking

Ian

alfanso's picture
alfanso

very finely ground.  I've already adjusted the formula to 78% hydration for the next time around.  The dough hopefully will be wet enough to be more "manageable".

thanks, alan

BreadBabies's picture
BreadBabies

I was looking in the expanded blog post view. In that view, it doesn't say who the author is, but it does show the image. The moment I saw this image, I knew they were yours. I actually haven't been on the site in months, but I still recognized your work.

And...they're gorgeous.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

And thanks for IDing the handiwork.  About two years ago. I posted about finding consistency.  And how it was an important goal for me to find it from bake to bake, and especially when it includes differing bread formulas.

so it especially nice when someone - the one in this case being you!, recognized the work just by the look.  I'll take that as a compliment of the highest order, and wear it on my sleeve for a few days...

thanks, alan