The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Wet mulit-grain dough

ermabom's picture
ermabom

Wet mulit-grain dough

I am using Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads with a wild yeast starter prepared according to his direction. The starter is beautiful. When I bake whole wheat bread, potato rosemary bread, etc. it works very well. However, I am having trouble with his multi-grain hearth bread. This is the second time I've tried it and the dough is way too wet.

Last time, I kneaded in extra dough and the final loaf was bland (too little salt) and dense. This time, I reduced the water used in cooking the multi-grain mix (he recommends 1 part grain to 2.5 parts water; I used 1 part grain to 2 parts water) and the amount of water in the soaker. But the dough is still too wet. I am letting it rest and doing a couple of stretch-and-folds to develop the gluten so I am not adding extra flour.  It is still very, very sticky.

I used a pressure cooker to cook the grains instead of the stove directly as it is easier. I wonder if this makes a difference.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? I'm weighing everything except the salt and yeast which are too small for my scale to weigh. I weighed the water for the soaker and then added as much as I needed to moisten the flour/cooked grain mix. Next time I'm going to try w/o any extra water. It is easier to add water later than to take it out.     

 

Baker_Brian's picture
Baker_Brian

Have you considered the possibility that the pressure cooking system cooks the grain but does not hydrate it enough so that there is extra water.  I would try cooking the grains as recommended and see what the difference is.

 

Baker_Brian

ermabom's picture
ermabom

This time I did not add any water to the soaker but let the water in the grains hydrate the flour that is added. The dough was much more manageable and exactly as Reinhart describes.

It is baking. I'll post pictures once it comes out - assuming I'm successful.

I think the pressure cooker doesn't allow as much of the water to evaporate so the grain retains more water. The 5 oz that Reinhart has in the recipe for the soaker is just too much on top of what the grain is holding on to.

I used the biga (commercial yeast) version instead of my wild yeast version also. Just to make sure it wasn't something in the wild yeast. Now that I know how to adjust for it, I will go back to the wild yeast.

Thank you for your comment!

Jaya