Durum Buckwheat with Toasted Groats (revisited and tweaked)

It was time to redo this recipe with a few tweaks. I toasted the buckwheat groats prior to milling into flour. And a few things were changed on the fly. I decided to use a set amount of water to soak the groats rather than soak them in an undetermined amount of water and drain them. I was very conservative with the water as my notes from the last time said that my dough was way too wet. Well that swung things in the other direction. I decided to add some honey as the main dough was quite stiff. Then the dough was still very firm after putting in the add-ins, so I thought I’d try my hand at a bit of bassinage. This seemed to work very nicely and I had a gorgeous feeling dough to shape. 

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

Add-ins

150 g Buckwheat Groats

200 g hot water

50 g Yogurt

55 g honey

Dough

700 g strong bakers unbleached flour

300 g freshly milled durum flour (or durum berries)

50 g buckwheat groats, milled into flour

50 g freshly ground flax

720 g water + 10 g + 10 g +10 g

25 g pink Himalayan salt

250 g levain (procedure in recipe)

Extra wholegrain and AP flour to feed the Levain. 

Two mornings before:

1. Take 2 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 4 g of filtered water and 4 g of wholegrain flour. Let sit at cool room temperature for the day. 

The two nights before:

1. Feed the levain 20 g of water and 20 g of wholegrain flour. Let that rise at cool room temperature for the night. 

The morning before:

1. Feed the levain 100 g of filtered water and 25 g of wholegrain flour as well as 75 g of strong baker’s flour. Let rise until doubled (about 6 hours). 
2. Place into fridge until the next morning. 

Mid afternoon or the night the day before:

1. Toast 200 g of buckwheat groats in a dry frying pan or the oven
2. Weigh out 50 g of the toasted groats and mill that into flour. Place the buckwheat flour in a tub.
3. Reserve the remainder of the toasted buckwheat groats for the next day.
4. Mill the durum berries (if using berries) and place the necessary amount of this flour in the tub. 
5. Add the unbleached flour to it as well as the freshly ground flax. Cover and set aside. 

Dough making day:

1. Early in the morning, take out the levain to warm up. I usually give it a good stir at this time.
2. Using a stand mixer, mix the water with the flour, and mix on speed 1 until all the flour has been hydrated. Let this autolyse for a couple of hours. 
3. At the same time, soak the toasted groats in the hot water for a half hour.  After the time is up, mix in the yogurt. Cover and set aside.
4. After the autolyse, add the salt 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 8 minutes. 
5. Add the buckwheat groat mixture and honey, and mix another minute or two until incorporated.
6. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place in a lightly oiled covered tub. Add the first 10 g water on top. Let rest 30 minutes in a warm spot (oven with light on). 
7. Do 2 sets of stretches and folds (adding an extra 10 g water each time) at 30 minute intervals and then 2 sets of sleepy ferret folds (coil folds) at 45 minute intervals, and then let the dough rise to about 40%. It should have irregular bubbles visible through the sides of the container and bubbles on top as well. Things were moving along nicely so it only took another 30 minutes. 
8. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~850 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter. 
9. Do a final shape by 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. Finally stretch the two top corners and cross 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 a nice tight boule.
10. Sprinkle a  mix of rice flour and all purpose 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 overnight. 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 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 25 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 22 minutes at 425 F. Internal temperature should be 205 F or more.

These had great oven spring and smell amazing. Can’t wait to cut into one.