Durum Buckwheat with Toasted Groats

When I put in my order of grains from Daybreak Mills, I included a bag of Buckwheat. Tartine 3 has a recipe for Toasted Buckwheat Groats with Crème fraîche so I took my inspiration from there. Having a litre of local yogurt in the fridge, I subbed it out for the crème fraîche, used durum wheat and some Buckwheat flour instead of what he called for, and also cut back on hydration.  The formula was also adjusted for 3 loaves.  

 Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

Add-ins

150 g Buckwheat Groats, toasted

Warm water to soak

50 g Yogurt

Dough

600 g strong bakers unbleached flour

400 g high extraction durum flour (500 g durum berries, milled and sifted)

100 g buckwheat flour (100 g buckwheat groats, milled)

50 g freshly ground flax

800 g water

25 g pink Himalayan salt

250 g levain (procedure in recipe)

Extra bran and AP flour to feed the Levain. 

Mid afternoon the day before:

1. Toast the groats for the add-ins in a dry frying pan or the oven, and reserve for the next day.
2. Mill the buckwheat groats for the main dough and place in a tub.
3. Mill the durum berries and sift to obtain the needed amount of high extraction flour. Save the bran for feeding the levain. 
4. Place 400 g of high extraction durum flour in the tub and add the unbleached flour to it as well as the freshly ground flax. Cover and set aside. Reserve the leftover high extraction flour for feeding the Levain in the evening and the next day. 
5. Take 18 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 18 g of filtered water and 18 g bran. Let rise in a warm place. 

The night before:

1. Before going to bed, feed the levain 36 g of water and 36 g high extraction durum flour. Let that rest in a warm spot overnight.

Dough making day:

1. Early in the morning, feed the levain 72 g of filtered water and 72 g of durum/AP flour and let rise 4-5 hours in a warm spot. Mine doubled in 4 hours but I waited 5 hours because I wanted the autolyse to last a couple of hours. 
2. Two hours or so before the levain is ready, put 800 g water in a stand mixer’s bowl and add the flours from the tub.  Mix on the lowest speed until all the flour has been hydrated. This takes a couple of minutes. Autolyse for a couple of hours at room temperature. 
3. At the same time, soak the toasted groats in hot water for a half hour. They soaked up a lot of water. And I mean a lot! After the time is up, drain well and mix in the yogurt. Once the yogurt was mixed in, I started worrying about hydration thinking maybe I’ll be making soup instead of dough. Cover and set aside until the levain is ready.
4. Once the levain is ready, add the salt, the Buckwheat Groats mixture, and the levain to the bowl. Mix on the lowest speed for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on the next speed up for 5 minutes. Amazingly, the dough pulled together nicely and didn’t turn into soup!
5. Remove dough from bowl and place in a covered tub. Let rest 30 minutes at room temperature (73F). 
6. Do 4 sets of stretches and folds at 30 minute intervals, then do two more sets on hourly intervals. Note that the dough was very loose initially , but I just kept folding during the first set until the dough pulled together and I couldn’t do another fold. The dough felt great for the remaking sets. After the last fold, which I did 20 minutes early because the dough seemed to be rising fairly quickly, place the dough in the fridge for 4 hours. The dough rose 50-60%.
7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~885 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 45-60 minutes on the counter. 
8. Do a final shape by flouring the rounds and flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities or big bubbles. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make as tight boule as you can.
9. Sprinkle half rice/half AP flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge for 9-10 hours. 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully but quickly place the dough seam side up inside. 
2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 30 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 17 minutes at 425 F. Internal temperature should be 205F or more.

The oven spring could have been a tad better especially when I increased the amount of flour compared to my usual base amount. I guess all that water that the groats absorbed had a bit of a negative effect. Next time, I need to add just enough water to cover the Groats and not add extra when it gets absorbed. 

One thing I am noticing since we have been getting warmer weather (barely above 0C (32F) but better than -20C!), is that my dough seems to be moving a lot faster than in the depths of winter even though it is the same temperature in the house. I even bulked this one in the counter to try to slow it down. Anyone else notice that the seasons affect bulk and proofing even though it’s the same room temperature?