During the last two weeks I revisited the formula posted earlie in my blog:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23830/german-baking-day

with some modifications in flour composition.

Each time I return to this formula I am amazed about the eae of the mix and bake and the richness and quality of the outcome.

I won't repeat the whole process here, just as a reminder:

1. Preferment with wholegrain or medium rye, 80% hydration, 10% of mature starter, ripe after ca. 12 hours.

2. Fairly short mix, if using yeast the bulk proof is about 30 to 60 minutes, the final is 60 to 90 minutes.

I used the Shipton Mill Irish Soda Bread flour for the first time - it's a high extraction flour which has still bits of bran in it - that is why I call it "almost wholegrain wheat" in my formulas. A miche using this flour only is on my TODO list.

* UPDATE *

Added a comment with another take on this formula (30% rye), now with crumb shot:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25315/revisiting-my-german-ryewheat-formula#comment-187309

Here some pictures:

This bread is based on the "Mischbrot" with 50% rye.

Here the straight formula:

Wholegrain Rye 23% ( used in preferment)

Medium Rye 27%

Wholegrain Spelt 20%

(Almost) Wholegrain Wheat 21% (Shipton Irish Soda Bread flour)

Bread flour 8%

Salt 2%

Instant Yeast 0.3%

The process is as in the above post.

Below a crumb shot:

Very deep, rich flavor, and a surprising lightness.

The following pictures shows the results of another bake, from left:

40% rye with wg rye in the starter, medium rye and bread flour for the remaining flours (scaled at 750g)

70% rye with wg rye in the starter, medium rye and Shipton's Irish Soda Bread flour for the rest (scaled at 750g)

An experiment with desem type starter, 100% wg wheat (scaled at 1500g)

Here the crumb shots, from left:

70% rye, 40% rye, WW

The details:

70% Rye - straight formula

Wholegrain Rye 28% (from preferment at 80% hydration)

Medium Rye 42%

(Almost) Wholegrain Wheat 30%

Water75%

Salt 2%

Instant Yeast 0.3%

40% Rye straight formula:

Wholegrain Rye 20% (from preferment at 80% hydration)

Medium Rye 20%

Water 72%

Bread Flour 60%

Salt 2%

Instant Yeast 0.3%

100% Wholegrain Wheat with desem starter

I built the preferment with wholegrain wheat at 50% hydretion, inoculated with a small amount of rye starter, over two elaborations (24 hours each at ca. 18C ambient temperature).

The straight formula I used:

Wholegrain Wheat 100%

Water 75%

Salt 2%

Flour from preferment: 30%

Bulk proof ca. 2 hours, final 3 hours, at ca. 24C

This was a first try, and I am pleased with it. It developed a great wheaty taste after three (!) days.

Juergen

At my son's school we are starting a German expat's learning group to give our children some idea of German culture, like watching Biene Maja, playing Mau Mau and .. of course... German supper, usually some bread with different toppings such as sausage and cheeses and cold meats.

This gave me the push to start investigating how to make tge breads I miss over here. It's not the multigrain ones - I have a craving for different kinds of "Mischbrot" - bread that is made up of (light) rye flour, and wheat flour. Usually it is leavened with a rye sourdough, and some yeast is added in the final mix.

The overall percentage of rye can  vary from 30 to 99% (100% would be a rye bread, "Roggenbrot") If there is more than 50% rye it's called Roggen-Mischbrot, if it's less than it's a Weizen-Mischbrot.

Meister Suepke gives in his Sourdough blog a general formula for the process called "Detmolder Einstufen-Fuehrung", bread made with sourdough which has been made in a single stage (as opposed to the intricate Detmolder 3 stage process), and he also gives hints how to scale this to different wheat contents.

I found that his formula corresponds very well with many of the rye formulas in Hamelman's "Bread", so I played a bit with the ratios and was very pleased with the outcome.

== Update 23/06/2011: Added some new photos and formulas at the end

Enough words for now - here is a photo of what I made for the supper tomorrow: 80% rye with soaker according to Hamelman (tin loafs, could have baked a bit longer), 60% rye after Suepke (ovals) and 30% rye after Suepke (fendu)

Here the procedure:

All breads use the same sourdough:

100% wholemeal rye

80% water

5% ripe starter

The sourdough has fermented at 23-25C for 14 hours

The doughs (The percentages are in a table below):

The procedure is roughly the same for all breads:

Mix and work the dough, rest for 30 minutes, shape, proof for 40 to 60 minutes, bake at 220C for 25 to 35 minutes (500g loaves)

The soaker for the 80%rye is prepared at the same time as the sourdough: pour boiling water over the flour, mix and cover.

The doughs with more wheat should show some gluten development.

/* Update */

On the evening of the bake I couldn't wait - I cut the breads and posted the crumbshots above.

And I tasted them - the lighter breads are very satisfactory - beautiful elastic crumb and a rich taste with a good level of acidity - this is what I wanted.

The 80% turned out lighter color than I expected - I think I baked a bit too early and not long enough, but the taste is very promising (this bread should be cut and eaten at least 24 hours after the bake, it will get darker by then).

For reference here is the table with the percentages following Suepke's formula. I scaled the water down to 70% for 20% rye Mischbrot which works well. Sourdough as above.

Happy Baking,

Juergen

Variations

Using the above percentages and procedures I made 3 different "Mischbrot" variations:

1. 30% Rye using wholegrain rye starter and flour and caraway (about 2%)

2. 50% Rye using light rye starter and flour, and  bread flour

3. 50% Rye using wholegrain rye and wholegrain wheat.  The flours for the final dough and the water have been mixed and left to soak overnight.

Here a photo:

The 30% rye is among the most delicious breads I've made so far. Light and hearty, and goes well even with jams, despite the caraway. (I get the feeling that I will have to bake lots of those in the coming weeks...)

The 50% mixes were inspired by my search for Kommissbrot (German army bread), which has been introduced during WW1, but found its way into the shops (and is still there). Originally it was - according to WiKi - a 50:50 wholegrain rye/wheat mix with sourdough and yeast.

The 50% rye with light flours is not bad, but a bit boring, but the wholegrain version certainly will stay in my repertoire: A very rich, complex taste with a strong wheat component and quite a bit of acid, like a mix between a 100% rye  and a levain with wholegrain. The crumb feels light and springy, despite its look. I'm very pleased.

In the ever-constant quest for a sandwich bread my picky 7 year old will eat, I search and try a lot of breads.  Yesterday I came upon Farmhouse White from A Year in Bread blog.  It sounded good to me, so I entered the info into my sourdough converter (first time using it) that I downloaded from Mike on SourdoughHome.com. I made smaller loaves and ended up with 4 so, so oh darn I made that one cinnimon swirl bread.  My starter is 100% hydration started and I put in about one cup of whole wheat flour and then 5 tsp of Vital wheat gluten since I was using Gold Medal AP Flour along with the C of WW.  I almost broke my Kitchenaid while mixing the dough and had to move to a stretch and fold form of kneading before bulk fermentation for a couple of hours.  I then shaped the loaves and covered them with a damp cloth in the fridge for a slow rise over night. 

So, I start the quest for a good, high-powered higher capacity dough mixer.  But, the bread turned out GREAT!

Most of the content is Susan's from the blog and all of the pictures are hers.  I have included hyperlinks to the 2 websites to which I refer.  Enjoy!

Susan's Farmhouse White Sandwich Bread - from A Year in Bread
Makes 3 loaves, approximately 1-1/2 pounds each

Ingredient US volume Metric Volume US weight Metric
organic all-purpose flour 4 cups - 940 ml - 1 lb, 4 ounces - 566 grams
instant yeast** 2 Tablespoons - 30 ml - 22 grams
granulated sugar 2 Tablespoons - 30 ml - 28 grams
canola oil 2 Tablespoons - 30 ml - 30 grams
warm milk (or water) 4 cups - 940 ml - 2 lbs - 908 grams
organic bread flour (approximately) 6 cups - 1,410 ml - 1 lb, 13-1/8 ounces - 825 grams
salt 1½ Tablespoons - 22 ml - 3/4 ounce - 22 grams

**To bake an even better loaf, you can reduce the amount of yeast to 1½ Tablespoons (or even 1 Tablespoon). This will make your dough rise more slowly, so you'll just need to increase the fermenting and proofing times. You can reduce the yeast in pretty much any bread recipe—a lot of bakers go by the formula 'half the yeast and double the rising time.'

MY Changes were: 

Mixing and fermentation

Autolyse
Autolyse (pronounced AUTO-lees and used as both a noun and a verb) is a French word that refers to a rest period given to dough during the kneading process. When making your dough, mix together only the water, yeast, flour, and grains until it forms a shaggy mass. Knead it for several minutes, and then cover the dough and let it rest for 20 minutes. (I simply leave the dough on the floured counter and put my wooden bowl over it.) During this time, the gluten will relax and the dough will absorb more water, smoothing itself out so that it is moist and easier to shape. After the autolyse, knead the dough for several more minutes, mixing in any other ingredients such as herbs or nuts or dried fruit.

In a very large bowl, stir together the all-purpose flour, yeast, and sugar (I use a wooden spoon). Make a small well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the canola oil and then the milk. Mix well, then continue to stir vigorously, slowly adding 1 cup of the bread flour at a time, until you've added about 5 cups, or until you have a soft, slightly sticky dough; this should take several minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about 6 or 7 minutes, adding more flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to your hands or the work surface.

Place the mixing bowl over the dough, and let it rest for 20 minutes. This rest period is called the autolyse.



Remove the bowl, flatten out the dough with your hands, and sprinkle about half of the salt over it. Begin kneading the salt into the dough. After a few turns, sprinkle on the rest of the salt and continue to knead for 5 to 7 minutes, until the salt is completely incorporated and the dough is soft and smooth.

Sprinkle flour in the dough bowl, place the dough in it, liberally dust it with flour, and cover it with a damp tea towel (not terry cloth, as it will shed lint on your dough). Or put it in a straight sided plastic container with a snap-on lid and mark the spot on the container that the dough will reach when it has doubled in volume.

Set the dough somewhere that is preferably between 70°F and 75°F until it has doubled in size, about 60 to 75 minutes. Ideally, the dough should also be between 70°F and 75°F. It's fine if your dough is cooler; it'll just take longer to rise and will end up even tastier. It's easy to check the temperature of your dough and ingredients with an inexpensive instant read thermometer.

When the dough is ready to be shaped, you should be able to push a floured finger deep into it and leave an indentation that doesn't spring back. Unless your dough is rising in a straight-sided container, it can be difficult to judge whether it has "doubled in size" which is the guideline most recipes use. I find the finger poking method to be more reliable, though lately I've been letting all my doughs rise in plastic containers.

Shaping and final rise (proof)
Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, flattening gently with your hands to break up any large air bubbles. Divide the dough into three equal pieces.

Shape the dough into loaves and dust the tops with flour. There are dozens of ways to do this; for the way I like to do it, check out this post on how to shape dough into sandwich loaves. Place loaves seam side down in greased loaf pans. I like my sandwich breads to be tall, so I use smaller loaf pans. I can't say enough good things about these commercial loaf pans from Chicago Metallic. They call this size a 1-pound loaf pan, and it measures 8-1/2 inches x 4-1/2 inches and is just under 3 inches tall. For the price of a few loaves of bread, they're definitely worth the investment—and with a 25-year warranty. Chicago Metallic also makes this larger 1½ pound size pan for those of you who prefer a wider, shorter loaf.

Cover the loaves with a damp tea towel and let them rise for 45 to 60 minutes. When you lightly poke the dough with a floured finger it should spring back just a little.

If you let the loaves rise too long, they may not have enough energy left to rise once they're in the oven--and they may even collapse. I was always so afraid this would happen that for years I unknowingly under-proofed my loaves of Farmhouse White.



While the bread was still delicious, you can see that the dough had so much 'oven spring' that it basically blew apart the side of the loaf. I finally started letting the loaves rise a little longer and was rewarded with the more evenly shaped and visually appealing bread that you see in the top two photos.

Bake at 375° for 35 minutes or until the loaves are golden brown and the bottoms sound hollow if tapped. Remove immediately from pans and let cool on a wire rack. Try to wait at least 40 minutes before cutting into a loaf. Store at room temperature or freeze in zipper freezer bags. Make sure loaves are completely cooled before sealing in bags.

Update: I've started baking all of my pan loaves on a heated baking stone (in order to simulate the ceramic hearth deck of my 7-foot wide commercial deck oven in the someday-bread-bakery-to-be), and the results have been wonderful. The bottoms of the loaves are nice and evenly brown, and I think that extra initial burst of heat makes the loaves end up even taller. Just like with pizzas and freeform loaves, you need to preheat your stone so that it's nice and hot when you put the bread in. Since Farmhouse White bakes at just 375°, 30 to 45 minutes is usually enough.

Mike Avery said it so well, so I thought we should make it a topic.  I hope he doesn't mind that I quote him:

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I like the term "mischbrot" and wish there was, or we could come up with, a term in English that was similar.  "Multi-grain" might be as close as we get, but I'd have trouble using the term "mult-grain" or even "mischbrot" to describe a bread that was part white flour and part whole wheat. 

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Now there are plenty if words for Mix (Misch) in English, we just need to use one often enough to "make it so."

Suggestions: 

Mingled Bread    Combined Bread  Jumbled Bread    Fused Bread   Fusion Bread    United Bread   Joined Bread    Amalgamated Bread    Melded Bread    Harmony Bread     Blended Bread    Compounded Bread    Bread Medley    Bread Me'lange    Potpourri Bread   Miscellany Bread  

What do you think?  Any votes or other suggestions?