bread

The boules are Vermont Sourdough from Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread." I made these using a San Francisco Sourdough starter from Sourdo.com that sat, without being fed, in the way back of my refrigerator for at least 6 months. It had been a firm starter, and while looking kind of gray on the surface, came back to life after 4 feedings at 125% hydration. And by then, was really, really happy to be making bread.

The Vermont Sourdough has a crunchy crust and chewy crumb. The flavor is just about perfect - moderate sourdough tang but not so sour as to mask the complexity of the wheat flavors. 

Vermont Sourdough Crumb

The bâtards are my San Joaquin Sourdough. No crumb shots or tasting notes on these. They are being frozen to take on a family vacation next week.

David

Polish bread is absolutely amazing!  Hundreds of ryes, rolls, street breads; the list is endless.  I will try to get some more pictures, but here's a start:

Link to some of my pictures of authentic Polish bread:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/54352/polish_bread.html?cat=22

This is my first blog post on TFL, although I've been lurking around for nearly a year now. I started getting in to sourdough baking in Spring (southern hemisphere) last year but my poor little starter went on hiatus when we took a couple of months overseas holiday at the beginning of this year. Now it's June and I'm only just reawakening Owen, my starter. Luckily, our housesitter indulged my detailed instructions on feeding Owen while we were away. (Although she said something along the lines of "if I had a baby whose nappy smelled as bad as that bread thingy, I wouldn't change it"...)

I decided I wanted to make some bread with a cold retardation -- this tends to fit with my schedule a bit better than trying to go through the whole process in one day. Because my baking results have been inconsistent, I am also hedging my bets by making a yeasted bread that fits almost the same schedule as the sourdough.

For my yeasted bread, I'm using the Baguettes a l'Ancienne posted by DonD a few weeks ago: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17415/baguettes-l039ancienne-cold-retardation

For my sourdough, I'm using the Pierre Nury Rustic Light Rye posted by zolablue: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5500/pierre-nury’s-rustic-light-rye-leader 

So I mixed up my flour mixture and levain last night. Hiccup one: when I got up this morning, my sourdough levain looked virtually unchanged. I'm not used to using a stiff starter, so maybe it's meant to look like a floury lump, but I wasn't convinced there was enough life in the levain to rise the bread. So I have divided that recipe in half, using half the stiff levain and half my usual wet starter, which I fed last night. 

Here's hoping that I get some success out of one of the three doughs currently fermenting on my counter!

EDIT: the next day

Gahhh! My sourdough has COMPLETELY flopped -- didn't rise at all except for a little half-hearted attempt during baking. I should have known the starter and levain weren't going to do the job, but gosh I wanted them to! Plus I think I got the gluten development thing right this time. 

I haven't baked the yeasted bread yet but I'm reallyreallyreally hoping I get at least one good loaf out of this three-day effort!

Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain

I felt like baking something new this weekend, but I like the breads I make most often. That's why I bake them most often. So, I wanted something I would really like as much as those, but different. I settled on the Vermont Sourdough with Increased Whole Grain from Hamelman's “Bread.”

In the sidebar of this recipe, Hamelman talks about the “two small changes” in this formula compared to the “regular” Vermont Sourdough resulting in “surprisingly large” effects. The two changes are an increase in the whole grain flour from 10 to 15% and in the pre-fermented flour from 15 to 20%. These changes result in “a sharper tang and more or a whole-grain taste.” Well, that sounded terrific.

Then, I recalled the errata sheet for “Bread” that Paul (rainbowz) got from Jeff Hamelman and shared with us. I consulted it and found that the corrections decreased the pre-fermented flour which seemed in conflict with the description in the sidebar. Not having a clear sense of how to deal with this discrepancy, I ended up using the ingredient amounts as printed, resulting in a larger batch of dough than that printed in the book.

The Vermont Sourdough with Additional Whole Grain was made with KAF Bread Flour and 15% KAF Medium Rye Flour. It had 20% pre-fermented flour in the form of a 125% hydration starter fed with a mix of 70% AP, 20% WW and 10% whole rye flour. The total dough was 65% hydration. The loaves were scaled to 810 gms and shaped as boules.

The oven was pre-heated to 500ºF on convection bake for 60 minutes, with a baking stone on the middle shelf, pushed to the left, and a 7 inch cast iron skillet filled with lava rocks at the right front of the lower shelf. The oven was pre-steamed by pouring about 1/3 cup of boiling water over the lava rocks. The loaves were then transferred to a peel, scored and loaded onto the stone. Another ½ cup of water was poured over the lava rocks and the oven door quickly closed. The oven was immediately turned down to 460ºF, conventional bake. The skillet was removed after 15 minutes, and the oven was re-set to 435ºF, convection bake. The loaves were baked for an additional 25 minutes. Then, the oven was turned off, and the loaves were left on the stone with the oven door ajar for another 7 minutes before being transferred to a cooling rack.

I baked this bread as part of an experiment to see if I could reliably produce a crackly crust. My results were most satisfactory. (See Consistent Crackly Crust Conundrum Conquered?)

Crackly Crust

The crumb was fully aerated but without huge holes - good for a 65% hydration sourdough.

The crust was crunchy with a caramel-like nutty sweetness. The crumb was tender-chewy. The flavor had both a sweetness and a moderately assertive sourness. This is a bread that is quite sour, but there is a lot of complexity that also comes through. I'll have to make it again, but based on today's bake, I prefer it to the "regular" Vermont Sourdough.

David

Submitted to YeastSpotting