Grass Roots Sourdough 

This is Cedar Mountain’s Grass bread with a few minor tweaks. The last time I made this, my notes has several comments about how wet this dough was so I cut the water back by 25 g and the yogurt by 10. Initially the dough seemed pretty stiff but it loosened up when I added the add-ins and as it fermented. I was also careful to cook the porridge until it was very thick. This time I ended up with a beautiful elastic dough. It resulted in nice well sprung loaves. 

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves. 

Add-ins

25 g hulless oats

40 g wild rice

boiling water

25 g barley flakes 

50 g large flake oats

175 g water

Dough

75 g rye berries

75 g spelt berries

75 g kamut berries

75 g Red Fife berries

750 g unbleached all purpose flour

700 g filtered water

22 g pink Himalayan salt

30 g local yogurt

250 g 3 stage 100 hydration levain (procedure in recipe)

All purpose flour and a mixture of wholegrain flour for feeding the levain

Add-ins

25 g hulless oats

40 g wild rice

boiling water

25 g barley flakes 

50 g large flake oats

175 g water

Dough

75 g rye berries

75 g spelt berries

75 g kamut berries

75 g Red Fife berries

750 g unbleached all purpose flour

700 g filtered water

22 g pink Himalayan salt

30 g local yogurt

250 g 3 stage 100 hydration levain (procedure in recipe)

All purpose flour and a mixture of wholegrain flour for feeding the levain

before:

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

2. Place the hulless oats and the wild rice in a heatproof bowl and add boiling water to cover by a couple of inches. Cover and let soak overnight. 

The morning before:

1. Feed the levain 100 g of filtered water and 100 g of whole grain flour (a mix of rye, spelt, kamut and red fife). Let rise until doubled (about 5 hours). 

2. Place into fridge until the next morning. 

3. Drain the wild rice and hulless oats. Add fresh water to cover by an inch and cook gently until the wild rice has bloomed and both grains are tender. Drain well. Cover and set aside to cool. Then refrigerate. 

The night before:

1. Mill all the berries for the dough on the finest setting of your flour mill and place in a tub with the unbleached flour.

Dough making day:

1. Take the levain out of the fridge and place in a warm spot.

2. Mix the water with the flour on the lowest speed in the bowl of a stand mixer until all the flour has been hydrated. Autolyse for at least a couple of hours.

3. Take the wild rice oat mixture out of the fridge to bring to room temperature. 

4. Cook the barley flakes and the rolled oats in the 175 g of water until the water has been well absorbed and the porridge is very thick. Add to the hulless oats and wild rice.

5. After the autolyse, add the salt, the yogurt, and the levain to the bowl. Mix on lowest speed for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on speed 2 for 7 minutes. 

6. Add the add-ins to the bowl and continue mixing another 2 minutes or longer until well distributed.

7. Remove dough from bowl and place in a covered tub in a warm spot (oven with light on). Let rest 30 minutes. 

8. Do 2 sets of coil folds at 30 minute intervals, then switch to hourly folds for another 2 sets.

9. Let the dough rise about 50%. The dough was there by the fourth coil fold so I just gave it another half hour after that.

10. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~825 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter. 

11. 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. 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 considering how wet this dough is.

12. Sprinkle barley and oats flakes in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons and cover. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge until the next morning. 

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 205F or more.