My attempt at a porridge bread and others

I wanted to have a go at making a porridge bread using Bob's Red Mill 6 grain + flaxseed hot cereal mix.  I added some barley flakes and some wholewheat flour, freshly milled.

Levain: 86 g @ 100% hydration built the day before, with the final build having some bran included. It was left to mature overnight.

Porridge mix:  I wasn't sure about this so I weighed out 54 g cereal mix (20%), 13 g barley flakes (5%) and added 70 g water then cooked it gently.  Straight away I realised I had insufficient water so bit by bit I added water, maybe 30 g but some was lost during cooking. At the end I had 162 cooked porridge. Allowed it to cool.

Mixed the main dough: 202 g bread flour (90%), 27 g wholewheat flour 10% - bran removed and used in levain and 84 g water.  It wasn't enough water so I added another 40 g water and left it for 30 minutes to autolyse. The dough was very firm.  Then added 4.9g salt, 10 g yoghurt and 86 g levain and hand mixed and did a few slap and folds etc until well incorporated.  30 minutes later did 1 set of stretch and folds, adding another 10 g water. Then another 2 sets of stretch and folds before leaving to bulk ferment.  After about 4 hours I preshaped, left for 45 minutes, shaped and popped it in the fridge overnight

Baked next morning 240 deg C for 15 minutes in DO lid on and 15 minutes lid off. 

and the crumb shot.  

The crumb is tender, flavour is good.  First time in a long time that I have added the yoghurt and I am happy with the outcome.  I set out to make this without a known recipe so really winged it.  I need to go back and recalculate my bakers % as they have changed with the additions.  I will make this again, maybe tweak it a bit not so far so good.

At the same time that this bread was bulk fermenting I had Teresa Greenway's Potato Water Blister Crust SD underway.  I love it and the double hydration technique works well.

The crumb is lovely - a delicious bread

I was on a roll, most of it planned. The next 2 loaves were 1:2:3 loaves with 15% freshly milled rye.  One had a firm starter @ 65% hydration and the other a liquid starter at 100% hydration.  Both loaves were mixed, 30 minute autolyse, salt and levain added - slap and fold until incorporated, then 3 sets of stretch and folds at 30 minute intervals.  Bulk ferment was 3.5 hours for the 100% hydration starter, and 4 hours for the firm starter.  Doughs were easy to manage and after shaping were retarded overnight. Baked at 240 deg C for 15 minutes lid on my DO, 15 minutes lid off.  My objective with this bake was to see if there was an obvious effect from the starter.

100% hydration loaf (850 g)

65% hydration loaf (550 g)

So I find that the 100% starter gave a slightly more open, lighter loaf - interesting.  It also bulk fermented quicker.  So although I keep my starter as a 65% STARTER in the fridge, I will continue to build a 100% hydration starter for my breads.

Now for the last bake of the day.  I looked at my container of left over milled flour in the fridge and thought I should use it up.  So I mixed up a 100% levain first thing in the morning using what was left over from the night before.  I popped it in the microwave at 80 deg F and it was ready when i wanted to mix things up.

Flour mix - 187 g of milled, stored spelt, rye and wholewheat and I have no idea of ratios.  I added enough white flour to make the loaf using 250 g so it was 25% white flour.  Just a straight 1:2:3 again.  I was treated as the others and it was the last to proof.  It had a good 12 - 13 hours in the fridge.  I shaped it as a boule and this is what came out.

and here is a crumb shot.  

I am happy with it, it was a total unknown.  Have frozen it so will try it out some time during the week but although it is a little flat, the crumb is ok I think for a 75% whole grain loaf.

It was a marathon day, but as I mixed things one after the other, provided it wrote times down, it worked well and mixes were about 15 minutes apart and stretch and folds 30 minutes so it all coincided most of the time.  The bulk ferments just happened one at a time and there was no drama. I kept my hydrations around 70 - 72% and the dough was good to handle.  Some lessons learnt!

A good day.

Leslie

PS sorry about the photos, don't know how to re orientate them as they were taken with my Samsung phone rather than my ipad.