Bitter tasting sourdough bread
new to sourdough baking, but have had success with my whole wheat/bread flour recipe. A friend gave me some barley flour so I tried to bake that. First the dough was terribly dry and I couldn’t stretch and fold so I added more water until it was at least stretchable. I used 100% hydration stater with an overnight Levain. During the rising time after the stretch and folds, it wasn’t rising at all so I put it in the oven with the light on. It finally rose enough to do the final shaping and overnight cold fermentation in the fridge. I baked it this morning. Not much oven spring. The crumb is dense with some rise, but moist. The taste at first was good, but after several hours, I toasted a slice and it Has a bitter aftertaste. I want to make a good loaf using barley, but don’t know what I did wrong. I used WW flour, KA bread flour, and barley flour, also a small amount of wheat bran. I need to know what I did wrong so I can make a decent loaf. I love sourdough baking, so want to make sourdough barley bread. Thanks for any suggestions or ideas on why.
It would be useful for readers to know your barley bread formula. Hopefully you didn't substitute all the ww with barley - that would be a difficult dough indeed. Barley is not wheat. For bread baking purposes, it's a challenge even for experienced bakers. It contains very low gluten and of a quality not conducive to dough development. To incorporate its flavor into a bread, I have soaked and sprouted whole barley grain and added it during the second fold. Use it at about 10% w/w of your total formula flour. I would think twice about incorporating more than 10% barley flour into any bread formula unless you have fairly well developed dough handling and fermentation skills.
I can't suggest anything about the bitterness except to check the sell-by date on the barley flour's packaging. Maybe that's why your friend was willing to give it away. ?
Tom
thank you, Tom.
Total flours were 811 grams. Barley was 280 g; wheat, 400, +121 g in the Levain, 10 g wheat bran. I am thinking this would be about 30% barley.
As to freshness of the barley, my friend works at an experiment farm so it is this summer’s crop, recently milled.
the wheat bran, however, I bought from a bulk bin at the grocery store, so no expiration date.
i like the health benefits of barley and also the health benefits of sourdough, so I will try to find another recipe or experiment with my successful recipe and substitute some barely for the bread flour or for the WW flour.
your comments were very helpful.
Anne
The more I've thought about it Anne, the more I've realized that I've actually very rarely seen barley flour used in bread formulae in books or online. As alternatives to or departures from good old Triticum aestivum flour, people turn to spelt, einkorn, emmer, Kamut, rye, durum, a bit of corn or rice, even mashed potatoes. But barley very rarely makes an appearance. It does show up in quick breads, muffins, scones and other non-yeasted pastries. Maybe the bitterness you experienced explains why it's primarily used in sugar-sweetened products.
Tom
Hi Tom & Anne,
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/55487/barley-rye-bread
Joze, who regularly posted some quite fine bakes, posted the above link for his barley bread.
here's my take and notes on my bake of Joze's formula http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/55612/jozes-barleyrye-baguettes-course
alan
thanks Tom and Alan,
Your comments are very helpful as I am learning about sourdough baking. I have been baking yeast breads for many years, but really like the whole idea of the natural leavening and few ingredients in sourdough breads.
i read with great interest the two links you shared, Alan, and now am very much looking forward to trying barley sourdough bread again. As a beginner, I guess I need a recipe other than the percentages, or at least a total number of grams so I could figure out, for instance, 30% of what number? My current starter is 100% hydration and I understand that, but trying to figure out amounts on your percentages has me very befuddled. I am pretty good at math, but I need more information. You are all so experienced, you just know what it all means.
my other question is, could I use whole wheat rather than rye? Just because that is what I have. Nothing against rye.
Thanks so much for any info you can give me.
Anne
I'm miserable at any type of math, but if you are willing and able, getting the hang of baker's math is an absolute and essential part of the gig. Pardons if you already have a handle on it but from your question "... for instance, 30% of what number?" I made an assumption that baker's math was a foreign concept to you. I am away from home and therefore away from all of my formulas (recipes) but let's try to resolve a bit of the mystery about that 30%
We are always looking for 100% to be the total amount of flour percentage-wise. Therefore all flours must equal 100%. Now, here is where you have to suspend your concept of percentages, as you have learned them. All other ingredient percentages are based on that 100% of total flours.
So to give a simple example
total percentage of all ingredients = 177
BUT what about the levain? It is 100% hydration. At the stated 10% prefermented flour, that equals 100g flour. With your levain at 100% hydration, that also equals 100g water.
So you have to subtract those cumulative 200g (100g + 100g) from the associated amounts of the total dough ingredients. If your levain is all white flour, your final dough ingredients will show as 300g of bread flour, and 650g of water.
Once you autolyse your remaining 900g of all flours and 650g of water you can then add the levain and the salt to begin the real mix.
Confused? Perhaps, but it will become a tad clearer over a short time, and there are a fair amount of others who may explain this more succinctly than I can here.
And yes, you can sub out the Rye with the Whole Wheat gram for gram or any combination that you would like to experiment with. Just remember to keep the total percentage of all flours at 100%. The world of baking is your oyster, so have a measured go at it. Meant to be a double entendre.
And if something screws up? Well, that is part of the learning process. You'll likely still have edible bread and will hopefully have learned something along the way.
Good luck experimenting/baking,
alan
that explanation is so helpful. I didn’t know any of this and was quite confused reading all the percentages, rather than grams.
i guess you have to have a recipe to begin with, in order to know the total weight of the dough. So I could experiment using a recipe I have had success with and substituting barley for part of either the bread flour or the whole wheat flour?
So many variables! But it is fun doing the experiments as long as the result is at least edible.
Anne
...checks in.
So where do you think Anne’s bread’s bitter flavor came from? Those were some typically nice baguettes there Alan.
Anne, don’t be tempted to try 30% barley flour yet. Alfanso has skills.
Tom
Thanks, Tom for the cautionary note. If I knew the total amount of grams, I could experiment with percentages, but I understand flours behave differently so maybe that is not possible. But I have the time and interest in experimenting, I just need some amounts (number of grams) to start with. :)
Anne
Thanks, Tom for the cautionary note. If I knew the total amount of grams, I could experiment with percentages, but I understand flours behave differently so maybe that is not possible. But I have the time and interest in experimenting, I just need some amounts (number of grams) to start with. :)
Anne
Thanks, Tom for the cautionary note. If I knew the total amount of grams, I could experiment with percentages, but I understand flours behave differently so maybe that is not possible. But I have the time and interest in experimenting, I just need some amounts (number of grams) to start with. :)
Anne
sorry this is twice. I couldn’t delete the second one.
Although I kinda like Flaky Foont for formal salutations. I have only baked with barley this one time, and therefore have next to no knowledge about it. I believe that Abe uses barley on more than an occasion, so he may know.
Have you been able to locate any tritordeum in Italy recently?
I've used barley in bread, most recently as a porridge made from home-milled barley grits, and never experienced bitterness. In fact, barley has a very "mild" flavour.
Most barley grain has a husk on until it is dehusked. I'm just wondering if the flour was made by hammer milling grains with the husk on, which would cause bitterness - not a normal milling route though.
Try making a paste of a little barley flour with water and cooking it - see if it tastes bitter. Other sources of bitterness could be the whole wheat flour or bran.
Lance
Thank you. That is a good idea and I will do that, although I am beginning to think it is not the barley, but something I did in the process, or the wheat bran. The taste seems to be mellowing out, or maybe I am getting used to it.:)
I am not sure how it was milled. It was milled at the experiment farm for the purpose of baking with it. They don’t do sourdough, but develop recipes for cookies and such. So I think they would want the best way to mill that preserves its mild flavor.
Anne