SFBI Miche

Miche made with High-extraction Flour

March 20, 2013

I have been meaning to bake another miche for some weeks. Yesterday, I made one. It is quite similar to the one on which I blogged in This miche is a hit!  All the flour in both the levain and the final dough was Central Milling T85 flour. The differences were: I did the initial mix in my Bosch Universal Plus, rather than by hand. I scaled it to 2 kg, and I omitted the toasted wheat germ.

The miche was baked with steam at 450ºF for 15 minutes, then at 425ºF convection for another 45 minutes. I left it in the turned off oven with the door ajar for another 30 minutes. After cooling on a rack for 3 hours, I wrapped it in baker's linen and let it rest for 24 hours before slicing it.

The crust was crunchy and the crumb was tender. The flavor was wheaty and sweet with a moderate sourdough tang. Very tasty. Highly recommended.

David 

This was my second bake of Phil's (PiPs) Desem. His beautiful blog entry on this bread can be viewed here: Honest bread - 100% whole-wheat desem bread and some country bread. As with my first bake, I modified Phil's procedure somewhat, using CM fine ground organic whole wheat flour rather than fresh-ground white WW flour and machine mixing. While I baked directly on a stone last time, today I baked in Lodge 4 qt. Cast Iron Dutch ovens.

Desem crust close-up

The general appearence of the loaves was pretty much the same between the two baking methods. I understand that Phil is contending with the special challenges of a gas oven, but, for me, baking on the stone directly is easier than wrangling hot and heavy DO's. 

Desem crumb profile

Desem crumb close-up

I cut the desem loaves 3-4 hours after baking. The crumb structure was very satisfactory, but it was somewhat gummy. Hansjoakim (see below) raised an excellent question: Would the desem benefit from a 24-36 hour rest before slicing, like a high-percentage rye does? I wonder.

The flavor of the desem, tasted when first sliced was very assertive - sweet whole wheat with a moderate sour tang. The sourness had decreased the next morning when I had it toasted for breakfast. It was very nice with butter and apricot jam.

I also baked a couple 1 kg loaves using the SFBI Miche formula. (See Miche from SFBI Artisan II - 2 kg) I altered the flour mix. The final dough was made using half KAF AP and half CM Organic Type-85  flour.

We had some of this bread with dinner. The crust was crunchy and the crumb was soft but chewy. The flavor was complex - sweet, wheaty and mildly sour. I have made this bread using the original SFBI formula, with all CM Type-85 flour and with the mix I used today. I'd be hard pressed to say which I prefer. They have all been delicious.

I'm happy with today's bakes.

David

I haven't baked anything but some of my personal "comfort food" breads for the past few weeks. These are just good almost any way - plain, with butter, toasted with almond butter and apricot preserves, French toast, as garlic bread, for panini ....

Hamelman's Pain au Levain

Hamelman's Pain au Levain crumb

SFBI Miche (made with half AP flour and half CM Organic Type 85)

SFBI Miche profile

SFBI Miche crumb

We have been enjoying them all week.

David

After the disappointment of the San Francisco Sourdough according to Kline, et al, it was even more of a pleasure than usual to pull this San Francisco Baking Institute Miche out of my oven.

The formula was the same as that I originally posted. (Miche from SFBI Artisan II - 2 kg) I've settled on a 50/50 mix of AP and Central Milling's “Type 85” organic, unmalted flour, as first suggested by brother Glenn. This has always provided a wonderful crust and crumb and a delicious flavor. I did alter the procedure in a few ways for this bake. I mixed the dough in my Bosch (for 5 minutes) rather than by hand, and I proofed the formed loaf at room temperature for a couple hours before retarding the loaf for about 12 hours. It then finished proofing in my Brod & Taylor Folding Proofer for about 3 hours at 85 degrees F before baking. At the end of proofing, the loaf was expanded by about 75%. The “poke test” indicated it was “fully proofed, yet there was great oven spring and bloom.

The crust was very crunchy after 18 hours' rest in bakers' linen. The crumb was chewy-tender, moist and cool in the mouth. The flavor was deliciously wheaty and complex with moderate sourness. What a delicious bread!

David

Besides the Whole Wheat Breads, I also baked a SFBI Miche and Hamelman's "Pain au Levain with Mixed Sourdough Starters" this weekend. 

As I have for the last few bakes, I used 50% Central Milling "Organic Type 85" and 50% Central Milling "ABC" flours for the "bread flour" in the final dough. I haven't tasted it yet, but when I sliced it 24 hours after baking it has a lovely wheaty and sour aroma with toasted nut notes from the boldly baked crumb.

When I last made Hamelman's Pain au Levain with Mixed Sourdough Starters, Andy (ananda) suggested using a more firm wheat levain and a more liquid rye sour for this bread. For this bake, I did that. I just put the amount of water called for in the rye sour into the wheat levain and the amount of water called for in the wheat levain in the rye sour. (Both call for the same weight of flour.) I can't say this accounted for any difference in the final product, although this batch was denser than usual and had a more pronounced rye flavor. This is a delicious bread, in any case. I had it for breakfast, untoasted, with just a little butter and Santa Rosa plum jam (very tart) and for lunch with Toscano salami in a sandwich.

Happy baking!

David

We've been traveling a lot the past few months, and I haven't had many weekends at home to bake. Now, we'll be home for a few weeks, and I can bake more regularly. This weekend, I baked two of my current favorites – the SFBI Miche and Hamelman's Pain au Levain. (See: Miche from SFBI Artisan II - 2 kg. The formula for the Pain au Levain is found in Hamelman's "Bread.")

After a long, cool Spring, we're starting to get some Summer weather. It's been in the low 90's. Temperatures of 105ºF are predicted for the middle of the coming week. Frankly, I could do without the 105º days, but my starter and doughs are enjoying the warmer kitchen temperature. My old dictum - “Watch the dough, not the clock” - was applied. For example, the pain au levain, which Hamelman says to proof for 2 1/2 hours was ready to bake in 90 minutes after shaping. I feared the bâtards were a bit over-proofed, but the oven spring and bloom I got suggest proofing was pretty much on target.

SFBI Miche

Miche crust

Miche crumb

Pain au Levain

Pain au Levain, up close

One thing I learned and applied for this bake of the pain au levain: The last few bakes of this bread have had many excessively large holes. I suspected this was due to insufficient de-gassing before pre-shaping. So, this time, I de-gassed a bit more vigorously. I like the results.

Pain au Levain crumb

Happy Baking! And Happy Father's Day to all you fathers!

David

This weekend, I baked another miche using the formula from the SFBI Artisan II workshop I attended last December. The SFBI formula and method can be found in my previous blog entry: This miche is a hit!

I amended the formula and methods as follows: For this bake, I used my usual sourdough feeding mix of 70% AP, 20% WW and 10% dark rye for the levain. The Final Dough was mixed with about 1/3 Central Milling "Organic Type-85 malted" flour and 2/3 WFM Organic AP, which is also a Central Milling flour. The SFBI method does not include an autolyse, but I did one. (Mixed the water, liquid levain, toasted wheat germ and flour and autolysed for an hour. Then mixed in the salt and proceeded.)

The bread flavor was the best yet, to my taste. I tasted it about 18 hours after baking. I had left it on the counter, wrapped in baker's linen overnight before slicing. This is the sourest miche I've baked. I like the sour tang and the flavor of the flour mix I used a lot.

SFBI Miche crumb

I also baked a couple loaves of one of the sourdoughs we made at the SFBI workshop. This one uses a firm levain fed at 12 hour intervals at 40% (by levain weight) of the final dough flour weight. After last week's trial of different methods of forming bâtards, I wanted to try the method portrayed in the KAF videos ( See Shaping) I think this method will become my method of choice.

The other loaf, which had an essentially identical appearance, was gifted to a neighbor before I took the photos.

SFBI "Sourdough with 2 feedings and 40% levain" crumb

This bread is meant to be a French-style pain au levain with little sour flavor. My wife's assessment sums it up pretty well: "It's just good bread."

Happy baking!

David

This bake was inspired by the very large bâtards Chad Robertson bakes, but the formula is that of the miche we baked in the Artisan II Workshop at the SFBI last December.

I've now baked this bread using the original formula and using all high-extraction flour rather than the mix of “bread flour” and whole wheat. I've made 1.25 kg miches and 2.0 kg miches. I have been curious how the SFBI miche would be as a bâtard, and I wanted to keep the size large, to be better able to compare crumb structure and flavor to the miche/boule shapes I've made with the same dough.

An additional point: This was my first bake using a large, linen-lined oval brotform for proofing.

1. Dissolve the starter in the water and mix in the flour. Desired Dough Temperature: 78ºF.

2. Ferment for 8-12 hours.

Procedure

1. In a very large bowl, dissolve the levain in the water. Add the other ingredients, except the salt, and mix thoroughly by hand.

2. Cover tightly and autolyse for 30-60 minutes.

3. Sprinkle the salt over the dough and mix thoroughly to incorporate.

4. Transfer the dough to a clean, lightly oiled bowl.

5. Ferment for 3-4 hours with 4 folds at 50 minute intervals. (I did this by the “stretch and fold in the bowl” technique.)

6. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured board. Pre-shape as a log.

7. Cover and let rest for 20-30 minutes to relax the gluten.

8. Shape as a bâtard and place, seam side up, in a floured banneton.

9. Cover with plastic and retard overnight in refrigerator.

10. Remove the loaf from the refrigerator and allow to warm and complete proofing for 1-3 hours. (Watch the dough, not the clock!)

11. 45-60 minutes before baking, pre-heat the over to 500ºF with baking stone and steaming apparatus in place.

12. When the loaf is proofed, transfer the loaf to a peel. Slash the bâtard as desired, and transfer it to the baking stone. Steam the oven and reduce the temperature to 450ºF.

13. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove any water remaining in your steaming apparatus.

14. Continue baking for another 30 minutes or until the loaf is darkly colored, the bottom sounds hollow when thumped and the internal temperature is at least 205ºF. (If you have a convection oven, switch to “Convection Bake” and reduce the oven temperature to 425ºF at this point.)

15. Remove the bâtard to a cooling rack, and cool thoroughly before slicing.

Bloom and Ear

Crackly Crust

I rested the loaf overnight, wrapped in baker's linen, before slicing and tasting.

Sliced loaf profile

Crumb close-up

The crumb was moderately open. She crust was crunchy, and the crumb was chewy. The flavor was moderately sour with a lovely wheaty flavor but without any harsh grassiness from the whole wheat. This flavor is as close to my notion of a "perfect" sourdough bread flavor as I can imagine. Those who prefer a less assertively tangy bread, might enjoy it more without the cold retardation.

David

Submitted to YeastSpotting

This weekend, I returned to my roots, tweaked a new favorite and baked a new bread.

When I started baking bread again after a 25 year hiatus, my motive was to make two favorite breads I was unable to obtain locally – Jewish Sour Rye and San Francisco-style Sourdough. My initial achievement of these goals was with the Sour Rye formula from George Greenstein's Secrets of a Jewish Baker and with Peter Reinhart's Sourdough Bread from Crust & Crumb. These remain among my favorite breads.

Yesterday, I baked Greenstein's Jewish Sour Rye. The “authentic” NY-style deli bread is made with a white rye sour and first clear flour. As my taste for heartier rye breads developed, I began using whole rye flour rather than white rye and found I preferred it. For this bake, I used KAF Medium Rye though, and found it a very good.

Greenstein's recipes all use volume measurements. Some time back, I converted a couple of my favorites from his book to weights. (See Sour Rye Bread from George Greenstein's “Secrets of a Jewish Baker”) Although I'm a firm believer in weighing ingredients and do so even when feeding my stock sourdough starter, I have to confess I feed my rye sour by feel. The sour I built for this bake must have been firmer than usual or the medium rye thirstier than the BRM dark rye flour I've been using, because the dough ended up drier than usual. The effect was the cuts opened up much more than they usually do. The loaves were also under-proofed, and they had major bursting.

The flavor of this bread is wonderful. When tasted right after cooling, it was intensely sour. It was less sour on the second day. I believe I'll stick with medium rye for this bread for a while.

The miche we baked during the SFBI Artisan II workshop (This miche is a hit!)  is a new favorite. I've made it four times now, I think, each time with a different flour mix. Today, I picked up on brother Glenn's bakes using half Central Milling's “Organic Type 85” flour and half one of CM's baguette flours. I used CM “Organic Tye 85” flour to build the levain and KAF AP flour for the final dough. This results in 13% high-extraction flour and 87% white flour in the total dough. I scaled the miche to 2 kg for this bake.

I was inspired by Breadsong's scoring of her Teff miche (SFBI Teff Miche - 1.5kg) and attempted to do something similar. I bow to her superior artistry, but I'm not unhappy with my result.

SFBI Miche crumb

SFBI Miche crumb

I left the miche wrapped in baker's linen overnight before slicing. The crust remained crunchy. The crumb was moist. The aroma was quite wheaty. The flavor of the crust was dark and sweet. The crumb was moderately sour but with a complex wheaty, sweet flavor. 

Recall that all the high-extraction flour in this bread was pre-fermented. I really like the effect. The higher ash content results in more active fermentation and acid production, both of which I appreciate. The impact of the Type 85 flour on the flavor profile was greater than one might expect from its 13% presence in the total flour. In the original SFBI formula, the whole wheat flour is also in the levain, and constitutes only 3.33% of the total flour. This bread was very good made entirely with high-extraction flour, but, at least at the moment, I believe I like it best using the original formula. It's a hard call, because all the flour mixes I've used have made delicious breads.

The new bread I baked was the “Vienna Bread” with Dutch Crunch from BBA. The TFL members' bakes of this bread (Latest Bake: Dutch Crunch) really inspired me, especially the rolls, since we planned on making hamburgers for dinner.

Vienna Bread with Dutch Crunch Bâtard

Vienna Bread with Dutch Crunch Rolls

Reinhart's Vienna Bread formula makes a lovely dough, and the Dutch Crunch topping is visually striking on both larger loaves and rolls. I really had no idea how thick to apply the topping, so I “laid it on thick.” From the results, I think I got it about right.

Vienna Bread with Dutch Crunch at start of proofing

Vienna Bread with Dutch Crunch at finish of proofing

Vienna Bread crumb

As advertised, the crust is crunch and slightly sweet. The crumb is very light, delicate and tender with a lovely balanced flavor. The flavor is like brioche but much more subtle. Words like "delicate," and "finesse" come to mind. I anticipate that this will make outstanding toast and French toast. Actually, I think I could just sit down right now and eat the whole loaf as is.

So, would "delicate" and "subtle" bread be your choice for a hamburger bun? No?

Caramelized red onion with balsamic vinegar and roasted New Mexico Green Chile hamburger on Vienna Dutch Crunch roll

David