The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

50-50 Hiatus Ender

Filomatic's picture
Filomatic

50-50 Hiatus Ender

After what seems like forever, I finally baked yesterday.  This is a Hamelman-based 50% whole grain bread with a soaker.  Hard wheat, rye, spelt, and kamut comprised the whole grain.  I attempted to sift for a bran levain, but the sifter stopped working.  Therefore the levain was all whole grain, which at least helped somewhat.

The soaker had rolled oats and kamut, toasted malted rye powder, and old bread.  I waited 45 minutes to do the first fold and it had a great balance of extensibility and strength, and after about 2.5 hours of bulk, shaping was easy.  I put them in cold storage at 11 a.m.  Later I decided I'd rather just bake them off, so at 4 I returned them to the proofer and baked at 7:30.

Comments

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Those are some beautiful WW breads that have to be as tasty and healthy as they look on the inside and outside.  The crumb is nicely open making for a soft crumb.  Lots to like about these beauties.

Well done and Happy baking Filomatic

Filomatic's picture
Filomatic

Thank you for the kind words.  Given everything I've learned from you, you are entitled to residuals on my every bake.

Benito's picture
Benito

Beautiful loaves!

Benny

Filomatic's picture
Filomatic

Thanks, Benny!

ifs201's picture
ifs201

When in the process do you add your soaker? Twice I tried adding an oat soaker to the long autolyse with disastrous results. 

Filomatic's picture
Filomatic

Thanks!  I add it during the mix.  Tartine advises adding after the second folds.  I've tried that and it didn't work well for me.  It was too hard to incorporate the soaker thoroughly.

I usually don't use an autolyse, primarily because most I usually use Hamelman recipes, most of which don't call for it and would require adjusting levain hydration.  I haven't seen anyone advise adding it at the autolyse stage, but good that you tested this for us.

ifs201's picture
ifs201

Some people on this site successfully add the soaker to the autolyse, but my dough turned to soup. Agreed that it's much easier to incorporate during the mix.

Filomatic's picture
Filomatic

Yes, soup is what I would fear.  I love how many ways there are to achieve good results.  For the people adding soakers at autolyse, I'm curious to know what conditions make that work for one and not another.