Mischbrot variations

In earlier experiments with breads having a higher percentage of rye flour I found that adding spelt, emmer or semolina complemented the rye very well.

With this bake I wanted to compare the effect of substituting the wheat part with emmer and spelt in breads with 70% rye. The flours are all from Shipton Mill.

The outcome:

I used my tried and tested Mischbrot formula as a base, this time using a rye starter with 100% hydration. The starter is made with dark rye, while the remaining rye in the formula is light rye.

Here the formula:

At the current cooler temperatures (about 23C / 73F in my kitchen) the starter took 16 hours to mature.
With 70% rye the doughs / pastes are very sticky and require only a short mix/knead so that all materials are mixed well.

After 100 minutes of fermentation at 23C / 73F I shaped rounds with very wet hands (in mid-air), and put t hem into baskets (floured with light rye) for the final rest..After 60 minutes the rounds showed cracks, a sign that they are ready for the bake.

The bake (on a stone, with steam) started at maximum temperature (ca.  240C / 464F), after 15 minutes I turned the loaves and lowered the temperature to 210C / 410F, After another 20 minutes the bread was ready.

I am very happy with oven spring and bloom. All three breads performed equally well and were indistinguishable from the outside.

After a day I cut into the loaves. The crumb is quite similar in all three loaves, the bread containing wholegrain emmer  is a bit darker and more dense.(The wheat bread got a bit of a shadow - bad photography!)

Although the crumb looks fairly dense, the breads actually feel light.

The crust could be thicker, but that's my oven – not much I can do about this at the moment.

The taste of the three breads is also very similar – quite complex with rye dominating, and a distinctive tangy after-taste. The emmer bread has the most complex taste.

There are a few things I would like to try with this formula:
1. using all wholegrain flours
2. going back to the original German way: using all medium rye and refined flours (which would be called ”Berliner Landbrot”)
3. Reducing the amount of rye sour and using some of the wheat/emmer/spelt in a stiff starter as a second preferment
4. using a wheat/emmer/spelt poolish as a second preferment
5. adding spices

Lots to do!
Juergen

For a while now I was thinking how to incorporate several doughs with different rye:wheat ratios into a single loaf, for various purposes( aestatics, spot the difference ...).

On the weekend I had some spare time and went the whole way (that's the madness component)

Using my single-step Detmolder formula I made 9 doughs with rye:wheat ratios of 20% to 100% and a simple white yeasted 100% wheat dough to wrap it all up.

I decided to bake this in a 1000g loaf tin. The flat rectangular pieces of dough were stacked on a bigger sheet of white dough (lower rye % first), and the white dough wasthen wrapped around, to give this thing some kind of structure.

This is the result, and I am rather pleased with it:

The white bit at the bottom is the seam /overlap of the white dough sheet. Just above is a thin layer of 100% rye, then 90% etc.

With 10 layers the transition between the layers is almost invisible.

An interesting experience,

Juergen

I have been working through an abundance of whole rye flour and strong bread flour lately so I’ve dropped anchor in the sourdough rye section of Hamelman’s Bread.  I couldn’t quite make up my mind this week so I picked two.  First was the Whole-Rye and Whole-Wheat Bread, baked pretty much by the book.  Next was the Sourdough Rye with Walnuts.  I turned that one into something a little different.

This is my second try at the whole-rye and whole-wheat bread.  The first one was terrible.  I didn’t take enough care with the fermentation at any stage and paid the price.  At least I learned my lesson.  This time it turned out much, much better.  I made two changes to the book version – I left out the yeast (and so increased the ferment times) and I changed the bake temps, starting hotter at 500ºF and ending cooler at 425ºF.

I was happy with the result, but I don’t think this will be one of my favorites.  The flour proportions (25% rye, 25% ww, 50% bread flour) kind of leave it in no-man’s-land to my taste.  I think I would prefer it if one of the elements would stand out more.  Maybe it’s just that I’ve been baking more rye lately and my taste is leaning in that direction. 

Then came the Sourdough Rye with Walnuts… without walnuts… but with other stuff.  This turned into a big pile of pecans and cranberries (sweetened and dried from the store) wrapped in rye bread.  Oh, yum.  The dough is 50% whole rye as in the book, though I left the yeast out of this one as well.  The pecans are a bit over 20% the weight of the flour and the cranberries about 10%.  Beyond that it pretty much speaks for itself.

Though fairly dense from all the rye and nuts and berries,  there is enough bread flour to keep it soft.  Just add butter and breakfast is served!

Marcus

Hi,

For the harvest festival at my son's school I revisited Andrew Whitley's formula for Russian Rye, an inspired by Varda and JanetCook I used some of the surplus starter to make two variations of his "Really Simple Sourdough", both from his book"Bread Matters".

Both formulas call for baking in tins.

Here the results, from left to right: Wholegrain Spelt, Shipton's Swiss Dark Flour (high extraction), Russian Rye ...

And the crumb, in the same order:

The Starter is a 200% hydration starter wich I had going for over a year  now. I keep it in the fridge; for baking I essentially follow Andrew Whitley's instructions - I make a "production sourdough" with 100% wholegrain rye, 200% water and 25% starter from the fridge (The book recommends 100% starter). My kitchen was about 22C, and I left it ferment for ca. 16 hours. (At the end it was a bit frothy with a slightly sour taste)

I prepared the starter to bake the Russian Rye on Tuesday evening so that the bread would have time to set and develop character until Friday, the day of the festival. I put thje surplus starter into the fridge on Tuesday afternoon after mixing the Russian Rye,

The "Really Simple Sourdoughs" (RSSD) were mixed on Saturday evening (9pm) with the starter coming right out of the fridge - this formula calls for just 40g starter for a 500g loaf. They proved overnight in their tins at about 17C and were  baked on Sunday morning at 10am.

The Russian rye has been slightly underbaked and tasted watery at first, but fr Sunday's supper it was excellent with chicken liver pathe. The spelt variant of the RSSD tasted a bit bitter after the bake, with a distinct nutty note. On Sunday evening the bitter note had disappeared.

The RSSD with Swiss Dark Flour became an instant favourite of my wife - the crumb is springy, the taste is wheaty, but not nominating.

I'll keep this in my repertoire (I hadn't made RSSD since joining The Fresh Loaf, I think)

** UPDATE: The Formulas **

Both breads are shaped with wet hands right after mixing and proofed in tins.

Russian Rye for 2 hours to 8 hours at 24C or more,

Really Simple Sourdough for up to 12 hours at 20C

Russian Rye

Production Sourdough (Dough Temperature 30C)

Wholegrain Rye flour 31%

Water 62%

Yield 92%

Final Dough (DT ideally 28C)

Wholegrain Rye flour 69%

Water 42%

Salt 1%

Production Sourdough 92%

Yield 205%

Really Simple Sourdough

Rye Starter (can be taken from fridge if not too starved)

Wholegrain Rye flour 5%

Water 10%

Yield 15%

Final Dough (DT 20C)

Wholegrain flour (Wheat, Spelt) 95%

Water 66%

Salt 1.5%

Rye Starter 15%

Yield 178%

That's it.

Cheers,

Juergen

Hello all you bakers with far more experience than I!  I love this site for all your tips and notes.  I have my own, which is more about the process and reflection from an amateur perspective. Hope you'll share your comments with me! 

http://sourdoughrye.blogspot.com/

Thanks!

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

-Update 14/09/11: added some photos of 100% WW and 70% WG Rye

-Update 15/09/11: added crumb shots of 100% WW and 70% WG Rye

Initially I only planned to bake two kinds of bread that fitted well into a family holiday schedule:

7.00 being woken by our 5 year old

7.15 to 7.30 preparing pre-ferment (rye sour or biga)

8.30 breakfast

9.30 to 19.00 being busy with having fun

19.30 to 22.30 baking time

As it turned out this schedule worked very well, but peer pressure from TFL and the family made me bake a much greater variety of bread, specifically: Bara Brith, Pain de Campagne with variations, 70% Rye sourdough with variations, Potato Bread, 100% Wholewheat Sourdough, Pizza, White French Bread

Unfortunately I can't post many pictures as the camera charger gave up during the holiday, but I will bake some of the breads again in the near future and post photos then.

Notes about the formulae (explicit formulae follow below):

1. Bara Brith: I used Elizabeth David's recipe – it is a very dry dough, so I added a bit more milk. The original uses 150 ml milk per 450g flour, I used 170g milk. I also used a different flour mix: 400g strong white flour (Hovis) plus 50g wholewheat flour (Tesco's strong stoneground organic). Very nice result. Below my first try, with a bit of Welsh countryside:

2. Pain de Campagne after DiMuzio (I have his “Appendix Of Formulas” on my phone). Once by the book and once with biga and 50% wholewheat. Both turned out nice, but the latter one could be tweaked.

3. Potato Bread (after Elizabeth David). I used the original formula – this uses 4.4% salt. As I had no idea how potatoes would affect salinity I went for it. Nice bread (smell, consistency), but too salty. Couldn't eat it. I'll retry with 2% salt.

4. French bread: 300g flour, 200g water, 6g salt, 2g instant yeast. Mixed and proofed in the evening, retarded in fridge and baked before breakfast.

5. 100% Wholewheat Sourdough, inspired by DiMuzio and Andy, great result, formula given below.

6. 70% Rye sourdough with variations. Details given below.

 It was quite amazing to see how all of this baking fit in with our busy holiday schedule, without putting too much strain on family life.

 100% wholewheat sourdough:

 Straight formula:

Wholewheat flour 423g (100%)

Water 317g (75%)

Salt 8.5g (2%)

Yield 748.5g (177%)

 Flour from Soaker: 33% at 75% hydration

Flour from preferment: 33% at 75% hydration

 Soaker (kept in fridge for 12 hours):

Flour: 141g

Water: 105g

 Preferment (kept on bench for 12 hours, at 22C):

WW flour: 141g

Water: 105g

Mature rye starter (80% hydration): 25g

 Adjusted Dough:

Flour: 141g

Water: 105g

Salt: 8.5g

Soaker: 246g

Preferment: 246g

 Bulk proof at 24C: 1.5 hours

Shaped into loose boule,

Final proof: ca. 2 hours

Reshaped boule into loose envelope shape (as in some of the Pane di Altamura videos)

baked immediately at ca. 230C for 30 minutes without steam.

Complex taste and quite open crumb for a 100% wholegrain bread.

Photos of the bake on 14/09/11 (a 750g loaf)

The dough after final proof (could have done a little longer, but started to get fragile)

After shaping (right into the oven from here):

And after the bake:

 Crumb

The crumb of the 100% wholewheat bread is not great, nowhere near the nice open structure of the bread I made in Wales, although I think this one tastes even better. I attribute the crumb appearence to a number of causes:

1. I rushed this bread (a mix of family duties and misjudgement of the dough development)

2. The starter was slightly over its maximum

3. The flours I used here were quite different: I am running out of stock and had to use a mix of Canadian high gluten wholewheat with low gluten wholewheat (both from Waitrose), whereas for the holiday bread I used Tesco's strong organic stoneground wholewheat.

4. I stretched the dough too much when shaping.

I'll work on this and report back in a separate post.

70% Rye with variations

Update 14/09/11: Got the percentages slightly wrong when I wrote my notes - this now reflects what I actually baked. Must have been tired ...

These breads are based on the German Mischbrot formula which I posted earlier

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

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23956/detmolder-sourdough-and-without-yeast-comparison

 Straight Formula:

WG Rye flour: 70%

WG Wheat flour: 30%

Water: 75%

Salt: 2%

Instant Yeast: 0.3% (optional)

WG Rye flour from preferment: 28% at 80% hydration, (using 10% ripe WG rye starter, 12 hours on bench)

WG Wheat flour from soaker: 30% at 74% hydration (12 hours in fridge)

WG Rye flour from scald: 22% at 80% hydration, after cooling kept in fridge

I used different amounts of instant yeast to stagger the breads – I could only bake one loaf at a time.

Bulk fermentation ranged from 45 min to 2 hours, final proof for 1 hour at 22C.

The loaves were shaped with wet hands into rounds for freestanding bake.

I made 4 variations of this bread; all had a wonderfully complex taste:

1. Without soaker and scald, with 20% sunflower seeds

2. as given

3. as given, plus 20% sunflower seeds

4. as given, plus 3% caraway seeds

Despite the quite strong taste these breads go very well with all sorts of foods, even jams. Stilton cheese complements the bread flavours especially well.

Photos of the bake on 14/09/11 (two 750g loaves)

Crumb:

A very pleasing bread.

Juergen

I got a bag full of baking books in the mail. This is my first encounter with Daniel Leader's "Paline". I didn't put the linseeds in the dough, only on top.

greetz from amsterdam

Freerk

A while ago I bought a new baking book full with mouth watering photos of gorgeous looking loaves: "Brot", an introduction to Germany's best bakers and their signature breads. Luxurious as this book is, its principal purpose seems to be promoting culinary travels to the featured bakeries, not giving readers understandable instructions on how to make those lovely loaves at home.

The sourdough starter you simply "buy from a bakery" - no mention of hydration levels - and breads are baked "at falling temperatures". And if you obediently follow the recipes' baking temperatures and times you will end up with howling smoke alarms, crazed pets, and charred bread corpses - the instructions are probably meant for wood fired ovens. The publishers obviously printed the recipes in as they came from the bakers, never bothering with having them edited.

So I was up for a great challenge - would I be able to overcome these handicaps?

The first bread I tackled was one from my hometown Hamburg, "Hamburger Kräftiges", a hearty rye sourdough. In the book it looks like this:

"Hamburger Kräftiges" from "Brot - Deutschlands beste Bäcker"

This is the original recipe (2 breads)

520 g rye sourdough (from a bakery)

500 g rye flour type 1150

350 wheat flour type 550

540 g water (25 - 28 C)

 25 g sea salt

 16 g Bioreal-yeast

Knead all ingredients for 8 minutes at low speed, adding the yeast after 2 minutes. Cover and let rest for 1 hour. Shape into a round loaf, place on a baking sheet and proof for 1 - 2 hours, in a draft free location.

When surface shows distinct tears, place in 260 C/500 F preheated oven (no slashing). Pour 50 - 60 ml water on another hot baking sheet or oven floor. After 20 minutes, drop temperature to 220 C/425 F. Overall baking time: 60 - 70 minutes.

Wanting to start with one bread only, I took half of the recipe. To make the rye starter, I used the 3-step build from Martin Pöt Stoldt ("Der Sauerteig - das unbekannte Wesen) with 60 g ripe rye starter, 100 g rye flour and 100 g water and had a pleasantly sweet smelling active rye sour (100%).

A cold retardation seemed a good idea, and working with P.R.s stretch and fold technique, also. All went well, but when I took the dough out of the refrigerator I wasn't quite sure whether it had overproofed, it seemed to have grown more than I expected.

I shaped a boule and proofed it on a parchment lined baking sheet, waiting for the "distinct tears" to appear. The loaf grew, showing a little cracking, but not anything dramatic. I didn't want to wait until it overproofed, and put it in the oven. I knew that the baking temperatures and times had to be off, so I reduced the heat after 10 minutes, and checked the bread after a total baking time of 40 minutes, the internal temperatures registered already 210 F.

The bread didn't look bad, but not at all like the one in the book:

Was the photo in the book photoshopped? It looked much lighter than my loaf. And why didn't I get those pretty tears in the crust?

The bread tasted pretty good, too, but I wasn't satisfied - I wanted the one from the stupid book!

I posted those pictures, and friendly TFLers made some helpful comments, but nobody could figure out why my bread looked like a disadvantaged sibling.

Revengefully I didn't touch the book for a while and worked on other projects. But since I usually don't give up easily, and so far had managed to adapt many German bread recipes to American ingredients (and better techniques), I started pondering over the recipe again.

What made my bread look so different? Why had it almost overproofed in the fridge? And then, belatedly, I did some research in the "internets". I started with the mysterious "Bioreal" yeast. No wonder it had risen so much - this organic instant yeast contains less yeast cells than regular one, therefore 8 g was too much. For the amount of flour 6 g should be enough.

For the wheat in the recipe i had used bread flour - I know it's approximately the equivalent to German type 550. But what about the rye? Without thinking I had taken what I had: whole rye flour. And there it was! With help from Wikipedia I found out that German rye type 1150 was an "in between" white and whole rye. After some calculations I believed I could substitute type 1150 with a mix of 52% whole rye + 48% white rye. (I had some white rye from testing NYBakers recipes, but didn't use it).

Finally, why had the bread on the photo such dramatic cracks, and mine only puny little tears? I found the answer to this question in a TFL post, about proofing a boule on a baking sheet seamside up, not down - to achieve just such a distinct pattern!

So I tried the "Hearty Rye from Hamburg" again, with these modifications. I also changed the temperatures and baking times to the ones I use for "Feinbrot" and many other lean German mixed rye wheat breads.

I liked this result much better:

It also tasted better - according to my husband this was: "the best bread you ever made"! (He is the best of all husbands - he says that every time, when he likes a new bread).

Hearty Rye from Hamburg - crumb

This is my recipe adaptation:

HEARTY RYE FROM HAMBURG

STARTER
60 g rye sourdough starter (100%)
100 g water, lukewarm
100 g whole rye flour
 
DOUGH
270 g water (95 F)
6 g instant yeast
all starter
110 g whole rye flour
140 g white rye flour
175 g bread flour
13 g salt

DAY 1
Prepare starter.

DAY 2
Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add to all other ingredients in mixer bowl. Mix at low speed for 1 - 2 min. until all comes together. Let rest for 5 min.

Knead at medium-low speed for 2 min., adjusting with water, if necessary. Dough should still be sticky. Resume kneading for another 4 min., the last 20 sec. at medium-high speed.

Transfer dough to lightly floured surface. Stretch and fold 4 times, with 10 min. intervals (total time 40 min.) After last S & F, refrigerate overnight.

DAY 3
Remove dough from refrigerator 2 hours before using.

Preheat oven to 500 F/260 C, including steam pan.

Shape dough into boule, place seam side UP on parchment lined sheet pan. Proof at room temperature for 45 - 60 min., or until dough has grown 1 1/2 times, and surface shows distinct cracks.

Bake 10 min. at 475 F/250 C, steaming with 1 cup boiling water, then reduce heat to 425 F/220 C and bake for another 10 min. Rotate bread and remove steam pan. Continue baking for 20 - 30 min (internal temperature 200 F/93 C).

Let cool on wire rack.

UPDATE 10/15/11: in the meantime I made a side by side comparison with American medium rye (a lighter variety, not a medium grind!) and imported (so to speak) German Typ 1150. American medium rye is a perfect substitute for German medium rye types 1150 or 1370, and my sample tasted even better: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25482/who-winner-medium-rye-comparison

First let me say this is a great site and I've found allot of useful information. I've got a week old starter that to my untrained eye seems to be doing well thanks to what I've read here.

This leads me to my current question, is my starter too thick? I've read about how there are different levels of hydration and while I'd like to move to a 67% starter for it's versatility I'm currently trying to mature a 100% starter first as not to rush things.  From my reading the starter should be a thick batter consistency but mine seems to be more of a cookie dough consistency. I can form a ball with it, if I make an impression it will remain, and it pulls together from the sides of a container. It's a week old now and I'm feeding it a 1:2:2 mix with no problems getting a rise. The starter starts rising and doubles at the 4hr mark, triples if not close to by ~20hrs, then starts to fall between the 20-24hr mark but it doesn't fall much.

(each square on the jar is ~2cm)

This is 24 hours at room temperature after the last feeding. I think things look ok, there are allot of bubbles and I can get it to double in the suggested 4-6 hour mark. I'm using rye flour for my mix at a ratio of 100g (~1/2 cup) starter : 200g rye flour (~2 cups) : 200g water (~1 cup) every 24 hours. 

This is what I'm guessing and would love some confirmation;

• Because it can double within the 4-6hr mark is it nice and healthy
• Because it still rises and doesn't collapse much after 24 hours there is enough food for my starter during this time
• Although it seems thick (I can hold a spoon full on it's side and it doesn't go anywhere) it is normal for a 100% starter
• The scent should smell like wine (pleasantly but reminds me of wine)