Long time lurker, first time poster. This was one of the very first breads I learned how to make, from the very first bread book I ever owned. It's been a long, slow learning curve, but I eventually figured out how many times to refresh my starter out of the fridge before a bake, how much steam to use, how to shape, how to score (I've produced many delicious but extremely ugly loaves over the past few years), etc. The one on the left is perfect, but the one on the right had a small blow out that broke the surface tension, ruining one of the scores and slightly reshaping the loaf itself. I suspect that I probably didn't degass well enough before I did the final shaping...  does anyone have any other ideas about what I might have done wrong here?

(Apologies for the bad pictures... I'm a terrible photog, and I only have the camera on my phone)

A few weeks ago, I gave up on the starter I'd been tending and using for over a year, and made a new one from scratch.  Instead of trying to nurse my old starter back to health, I reminded myself that despite the considerable mystique attached to it, it's really not that hard to get a starter going - particularly a wheat one - assuming a sufficient degree of attention and patience.   I finally got it going and I've been baking with it for around 2 weeks.   I have not been disappointed, as I think I had just got used to an underperforming starter and had forgotten how a healthy starter behaves.  

At the same time I've been trying to shed same old same old practices and develop a formula that everyone in the family liked, that was repeatable, and relatively easy, so I could use it as daily bread.    I borrowed from this and that and here and there, and thank gods (I've been watching Battlestar Galactica) I think I've got it.  

The formula has a bit of spelt, a bit of rye, and the rest wheat.   I used wheatgerm and malt powder (Thank you Lumos) which seem to have a good effect but I'm not sure which does which.    The resulting bread bridges the difficult gap between light and substantial, has a light crispy crust, keeps for a few days (assuming it doesn't get eaten first) has a mild balanced flavor and isn't too holey for sandwiches.   I've made it a couple times, and it seems to be repeatable. 

But now, my biggest problem - how to keep from fiddling this to death.   I think the best way to do it is to name it but Sourdough with Spelt and Rye just seems boring.    Ergo Lexington Sourdough which is pretty boring as well.   Any tips on how to name breads?  

And now it's time to switch focus to biscuits, cornbread and pie.   Thanksgiving is nigh!

The formula:

Method:

Take ripe sourdough - around 70% hydration - from refrigerator (should be domed and pitted) and feed as above to 100% hydration.   Ferment on counter (around 69degF) for around 7 hours until very active and bubbly.  

Mix flour and water by hand and autolyse for 30 minutes.   Add the rest of the ingredients and mix in stand mixer for 5 minutes starting at low speed and working up to highest speed.   Dough should adhere into a smooth mass during the mix.   Stretch and fold on counter twice during 2.5 hour bulk ferment.    Cut and preshape into two rounds.   Rest for 20  minutes.   Shape into batards and place in couche seam side up.   Refrigerate for 10-15 hours.   Place on counter and proof for 1.5 hours until dough starts to soften.   Bake at 450F for 20 minutes with steam, 20 minutes without.  

I finally got around to making Hamelman's "Pain au Levain with Whole Wheat Flour." For comparison, I also baked his Pain au Levain. The former was cold retarded overnight. The latter was not. However, I did retard the firm sourdough starter used for both breads overnight, and I believe this resulted in a tangier pain au levain than my previous bakes. 

On to some photos:

Pain au Levain boules

Pain au Levain crumb

Pain au Levain crust

If I were nit picky, I'd say this dough was slightly over-fermented, and I think the loaves were slightly over-proofed. However, it had a thin, crisp crackly crust that I wish I could reproduce at will, and the flavor was delicious, with more of a tang than usual, as mentioned.

Pain au Levain with Whole Wheat Flour

Pain au Levain with Whole Wheat Flour crumb

This bread had a more complex flavor that the "regular" pain au levain when tasted 2 hours out of the oven. There was a slight WW grassiness, which I do not enjoy, and a lingering sourdough flavor, which I do enjoy. This type of bread usually tastes better to me on the day after it was baked, and I trust this bread will follow the pattern.

It's hard for me to say which of the three version of pain au levain in "Bread" is my favorite. Experience suggests it's whichever one I'm eating at the moment. I really, really like all three.

David

I'm a sucker for flour.   Yesterday I went to the local korean supermarket to see if they had less than whole grain durum and I came back with something else.   All I know about it is it's "premium flour," has 3g of protein per 30g serving, and can be used for making noodles. 

I didn't want to make noodles - I wanted to make bread.   And use my new flour.   I  restrained myself from having this mystery flour be the main event and instead limited it to 15% of flour to support my standby King Arthur AP (80%) and Rye (5%).  

The result is a nice mild naturally leavened boule.

I am somewhat disappointed that my scores didn't open more.  

I baked indoors with plenty of steam, but the dough was tacky throughout fermentation and my razor snagged while scoring.   So I'll attribute it to the fact that my starter has still not completely recovered from being abandoned for a few weeks and left to ride out the hurricane (or resultant power failure) alone.   I've been babying it as much as I can, but perhaps not enough.

Anyone know anything about this flour?   Have I just paid an unreasonable amount (ok not so much) to import regular old AP flour across an ocean and a continent?  

Update:   I used this flour in pizza dough last night - 335g KABF, 165g Korean Flour.   It was absolutely and by far the best pizza crust I've every made.   Not sure if this is of general interest since I doubt many people have access to this flour, but I just had to add it to the post. 

This is my second take at Hans Joakim version of Pain au Levain with Whole wheat. Recipe can be found in Hans's Blog here.

The Recipe Differs from Hamelman's in The amount of Rye and Wholewehat added, in addition to the levain. In this recipe, All rye is in the levain, and  is mixed with the remaining ingredients for the 30 min. autolyze. Salt is added thereafter.

(Edit: I've increased % of prefermented flour to 17%)

I loved the idea of Rye Sour being the leavining agent, as it enhances sour flavor, which it did, and allows for faster bulk and final fermentation.

I stretched and folded the dough letter wise, as opposed to the S&F in the bowl in my previous attempt. The Dough was very smooth and lively, and developed extremely fast!

The Flavor was, as expected, slightly sour. This bread fairs really well if cold retarded for 8-12 hours. I like Rye sour levain, as it refreshes faster with 1-2 refreshments, as opposed to white levain's 3 refreshments.

Hi,

I'm at my second attempt making pain au levain following the recipe and instructions from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day. I went easily through building the seed starter and then the mother dough. Every thing went very well, although the activity in the seed starter happened faster than what PR indicated in his bood, sometimes rose and bubled in as little as 4 hours.

This didn't concern me at all since my kitchen is rather warm (24 C) and the seed starter had the fine aroma of the levain I remember from my grand-mother and aunts bread-making when I visited them during summer, a long time ago. I actually was very happy about that because it's the first time I get that typical aroma in a starter I make. I was thrilled actually, since this is at least the 6th attempt at building a starter and all my other attempts failed.

Also, the seed starter did have all the characteristics of an active one, it rose well, developped lots of tiny bubbles, ect. Then I made the mother dough. It was less firm, more shaggy than the one pictured on the book. But I didn't attempt to correct the consistency. I store it in the fridge, as instructed in the book, and used it the following morning.

I decided that morning (Saturday) to make the 2 versions proposed by M. Reinhart, the "purist" version without help of commercial yeast and the version with 7 g of commercial yeast added to the dough ingredients. I wanted to see what would be the outcome of each and then see which version my family and I enjoy most.

I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to take pictures of the breads. It was labor day long week-end and we had family over, some members of which are experiencing very sad events in their lives. I just couldn't bring myself to whip-up my camera to document my bread making while they were confiding and pouring their hearts in tears and sadness, sitted at my kitchen table. Everybody left yesterday, late evening (thankfully after we succeeded making them laugh during and after supper), and by the time they hit the road, both loaves or bread were entirely consumed, no left-overs to show you the results. But I'll do my best to describe the outcome.

Purist version

Flat, heavy loaf of bread. The crumb was mostly dense, with few medium holes throughout. The crust was fine, although rather thick. It presented tiny blisters all over, but no ears or grignes where I slashed. Actually the oven spring was very, very minimal. Excellent taste, delicious actually, despite the undesirable heavy texture of the crumb. All the flavor complexity of levain bread, and a very welcomed subtle acidity.

During last proofing before baking, this loaf stayed cold to the touch and rose very slightly. I left it proof longer than the directions instructed in the book because it didn't seem to be very active despite the warm environment in my kitchen. I proofed in a make-shift banneton (a basket lined with a floured linen towel), seam-side up, and it was covered with floured linen.

Added commercial yeast version

That one was a success. Open crumb with different sizes of holes in it. Good crust, blistered and crackly. Excellent taste, maybe not as complex as the purist version loaf but maybe it's all in my head (kind of "placebo" effect if you see what I mean). Ears developped somewhat but I'm not the best "bread slasher" around I must say so my results are not a reference, far from it. Though I was pleased there was a slight ears formation.

For both versions

I induced steam in my oven pouring water in a cast-iron pan on the lower shelf and the bread cooked on the upper shelf, as I do for my other breads. My pizza baking stone broke a month ago when I throwed the last of my weekly 10 pita breads on it (sigh!). Since that infortunate incident, I had to bake on a regular cookie sheet (I'm saving to buy a good, thick baking stone). For my other breads it works, although not as well as with the pizza stone of course. Since this is my first levain bread experience, I don't know if that makes more difference for this particular bread than for my other breads (lean doughs leavened with commercial yeast).

After these two breads were eaten

Seeing that the added commercial yeast version was a success and the little improvements it needed was mostly technical (slashing) or gear related (lack of proper baking stone) I could postpone them to later. I decided yesterday morning to take a good risk and try again the "purist" version in order to give it my full, undivided attention to improve the results. I usually bake at least 3 loaves of bread at the begining of the week so there's enough for lunch boxes and supper before the middle of the week baking. I increased the risk deciding to make all 3 loaves using the purist version of Pain au Levain.

Yesterday, around 2PM, I mixed 3 separate "sourdough starters" (sic PR in his book for the recipe of Pain au Levain). I took care to put them in 3 separate 1-quart pyrex measuring cups to be able to easily see how much they'll rise.  The recipe instructs to leave the sourdough starter for 6 to 8 hours or until it increases to 1.5 times its original size. I didn't have much choice but to leave them  alone until my guests leaved around 11PM, that's a 9 hours rest. All 3 sourdough starters had doubled in size. Through the glass, I could see a good deal of little bubbles, a good spongy texture. All three seemed healthy looking and at their peak. None had fallen down and none was threatening to do so.

I made the 3 final doughs, separatly, right then, before going to bed. I went through the 3 stretch&fold at 10 minutes intervals. I put the 3 doughs in respective containers, covered them and went to bed. Since my first attempt of this bread proved to stay cold and flat after the refrigeration time, I decided not to refrigerate the final dough after the 2 hours rest at room temperature. But I went through the trouble of setting my alarm clock at 4AM to check on it, just in case. All 3 doughs only morphed from ball to flat in the containers. No sign whatsoever of leavening activity. I went back to bed. This morning I checked them again when I got up at 8AM. Flat again, no signs of leavening activity, cold to the touch, nice freshly mixed dough aroma. I decided to leave them alone a bit longer. Here what they look like at 10:30AM (almost 12 hours after I mixed the final dough):

This is Dough No 1, top view. Very slightly risen, rather flat surface, quite more humid than 12 hours ago.

Same dough, view from the side of plastic container. It developped bubbles throughout, despite the very little rise. I'm shaping this one as soon as I finish this post.

This is dough No2, top view. Medium bubbles/blisters on the surface.

Very little signs of activity when viewed from the sides of the plastic container.

This is dough No3. No signs of activity seen from the top. Not possible to see from the sides (this is my Kitchenaid Bowl). It flattened from ball shape during the night and it didn't rise, as far as I can judge.

When I began writting this post, there was no visible activity when viewing dough No1 from the sides of the container. When I took the pic some activity showed. So I'll shape that one right away and will come back to this post after that.

Meanwhile, please feel free to comment, critique, add your ideas and thoughts about my journey so far.

Thank you.

I baked Pain au Levain (page 158 from Hamelman's book) a while ago, and I wrote about it here.

Soon after that, I made another pain au levain, this time the formula with mixed sourdough starters (page 162). I didn't achieve the big-holes-in-the-crumb I was looking for, but the bread was good, it had a good oven spring, and the crust was delicious. I used whole-spelt flour instead of whole-wheat flour and I mixed the dough by hand. I kept the hydration at 68% and retard the dough overnight in the fridge. This bread was a guest post, and the formula is given here. Here are some pictures:

After that, I made another pain au levain, this time a combination of Whole-Wheat Multigrain and Whole-Wheat Levain. I used 31% whole wheat flour and a soaker of roasted black sesame seeds (for colour and texture), oat bran and (old fashioned) rolled oats. The hydration was 79.8%, but a lot of water is absorbed by oats. I liked working with this dough: is so pretty, smells so nice and I could shape it without problem.

My boyfriend's sister, who lives in Paris, and her husband, who has an italian origin, they were visiting us the next day I baked this bread. They both eat a couple of slices with evident pleasure, and they comment that my breads are getting better and better (we only get to meet each other twice, maybe three times a year, so they don't taste my breads very often. Their comments were welcomed and appreciated). Here are the pictures from the beggining

and the final product:

I have the complete formula on my romanian blog Apa.Faina.Sare. The automatic translation is very bad, but if anyone is interested, I can translate it for you.

UPDATE:

Overall  formula:
- Bread Flour: 310 g ………………………………....... 69.4%
- Whole-Wheat Flour: 17 g …………………………… 30.6%
- Water: 357 g …………………………………………….. 79.8%
- Rolled oats: 45 g ……………………………………… 10%
- Oat bran: 22 g …………………………………………… 5%
- (black) Sesame Seeds, roasted: 13 g ……………. 3%
- Salt: 9 g ……………………………………………………. 2%
dough: 893 g ………………………………………………. 199.8%

Liquid levain build:
- Whole-Wheat Flour: 64 g
- Water: 81 g
- Sourdough starter (100%): 6 g
  = 151 g liquid levain 125%

For soaker
- Rolled oats: 45 g
- Oat Bran: 22 g
- (black) Sesame Seeds: 13 g – roasted
- Water: 100 g
  = 180 g soaker

For the final dough:
- Bread Flour: 307 g
- Whole-Wheat Flour: 73 g
- Water: 173 g
- Liquid Levain: 151 g (all of the above)
- Soaker: 180 g (all of the above)
- Salt: 9 g

I followed Hamelman instructions (from page 168), but I let the dough autolyse for 40 min (all the ingredients except salt). After the final shaping, I retarded the dough overnight, and I baked it next morning, directly fom the fridge.

Codruta

Pain au Levain with Red Fife 75% Sifted

Last week I posted a bake of this bread, http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/24636/sweet-amp-sour that although a good loaf, I wasn't entirely happy with it because of it's close crumb and slight under baking. The finished loaf however resulted in a flavourful combination of the three different flours used in the mix, which I felt had good potential for an even greater flavour profile. One of the things I wanted to change from the last bake was the level of sour flavour, which was not as strong as I like. Since then I've been building my starter to a fairly stiff consistency to bring more acidity to it. With the warm temperatures we've been having here on Vancouver Island recently it's become a very active and tangy community of yeast cells. The mix, bulk ferment and final rise for Pain au Levain went well, giving me enough dough for two 800 gram loaves, one of which was shaped as a boule and placed in a brotform, and the other as a batard of sorts. I'd lined a wicker bread basket with linen and very clumsily sewn it into the basket to make a brotform, all the while suffering through stabbing myself repeatedly with the needle and hearing the occasional burst of laughter from across the room. It's not a thing of beauty but it does the trick, giving the dough a shape that's somewhere between a boule and a batard, or as David Snyder called a similar one of his, a 'boutard'. Both loaves went into a 500F oven turned down to 460F after 5 minutes and baked for 35-40 minutes with steam system in place during the first 5 minutes. With this bake I didn't have to rush off to a golf game, so the breads had a thorough bake, checking the internal temps for a 210F reading before I removed them to cooling racks and wrapped in linen. The loaves have a more pronounced flavour this time and a good sour tang that stays on the palate after eating. The crumb is more open than the previous loaf and with a bit of gelatinization as well. A good result for both loaves that I'm satisfied with.

Attamura Loaf

Somewhere along the way during the 3 builds of the levain I over- scaled and wound up with more levain than I needed for the Pain au Levain mix I was doing. Hmmm... Well rather than return the excess to the starter, I decided to try making an Altamura type bread using Atta flour, or Attamura, a project that Varda http://www.thefreshloaf.com/user/vhaimo has been working on over the last few weeks with some good results to show for her efforts.

The mix was made almost entirely with Golden Temple durum Atta flour except for the standard wheat flours and rye in the levain, roughly 67 grams total or 13.4% The levain was 27% of the mix, hydration was 70% (not counting the levain) and the salt at 2% for 500 grams of Atta flour. I did the mix using my new toy, a Bosh Compact, as it has a very gentle folding action when used on 1^st speed that I felt would be just right for slowly developing the fragile gluten of the durum flour. The dough came together almost identically to ones that I've made previously using Extra Fancy finely milled durum flour, making a very smooth and supple dough. The dough had a temperature of 79.3F going into a 2 hour bulk fermentation and stayed in the mid 70'sF range throughout. Stretch and folds were done every 30 minutes and it was clear that the dough was gaining strength and fermenting well at each of these intervals. After the last S&F the dough was rested for 20 minutes and then shaped in a cap style by pressing the dough into a disk and folding it to almost meet the opposing side of the disk. The shaped loaf was placed fold down on floured linen and covered with another piece of floured linen for a final rise of 2 hours, then tipped on to a parchment covered peel and slid into a 450F oven on a stone.

So far so good, this might actually work I thought. The door of the oven was left open for the 1^st 15 minutes, then closed for the duration of a 40 minute bake. No steam was used during the bake. After checking the loaf for an internal temperature of 210F, I left the loaf on the stone, turned the oven off and propped the door ajar to allow the loaf to cool gradually over the next hour.

 The final result of this bake is something that looks like an Altamura type bread but has a deeper flavour than the one I made with Extra fancy durum flour a few weeks back. I actually prefer the flavour of the durum Atta flour over the X Fancy, which works out well as it's considerably less expensive and readily available here in B.C. I think two of the key factors in the success of this loaf was the high level of acidity contributed by the levain, as well as steady temperature during the bulk fermentation phase. Both Hamelman and Suas mention in their books 'Bread' and 'Advanced Bread & Pastry' respectively, that increased acidity and use of preferments will help strengthen the fragile gluten network of high ratio durum mixes. I'm satisfied now that a reasonably good loaf can be made using 100% (or very close to) Atta flour keeping these two factors in mind as critical to success.

Formulas and photos below.

Best wishes,

Franko

Well, I'm back from a lovely week at the beach with family. I surely enjoyed the week, including Glenn's fabulous pastrami and corn beef with his and my rye breads. Glenn's Tartine BCB and my SFBI miche were also appreciated. 

Yesterday, I thawed dough made for pizzas 4 and 6 weeks ago and frozen. I made a couple of pies, one with each of the doughs made with Maggie Glezer's and Jeff Verasano's recipes.

Pizza using Maggie Glezer's dough

Pizza made with Jeff Verasano's dough

Glezer's pizza dough retained its distinctive crispness. Verasano's dough was still more elastic than Glezer's but not as chewy as it had been before freezing. I would say that neither was quite as good, but both were better than any you could get at the chains.

Today, I baked a couple bâtards of Pain au Levain from Hamelman's Bread. This has become a favorite. Today's tweak was to shape the loaves using the method portrayed on the KAF videos but proofing the loaves in cotton-lined oval brotformen rather than on a couche.

The loaves assumed a rounder/less elongated shape during baking. I wonder if, en couche, with lateral support but no support at the ends, the loaves spread longitudinally more. Hmmmm ….

I have dough for my version of Gosselin's Baguettes Tradition in the fridge to finish tomorrow. I'll update this entry accordingly.

David

I have baked my very first loaves of bread today....a pain au levain and san francisco sourdough bread from Peter Reinhart's Artisan breads every day.

The crust is nice but dissapointed that the crumb is not as open as I would have liked. I suppose that will come with more experience. The crumb of the pain au levain looks a little bit better, but they both taste very good. Any advise on how to obtain the desired open crumb?