The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Most bookmarked

August 2, 2019 - 6:35pm
JBT's picture
JBT

Purple Bread

Recently I encounter someone attempting to make a beet infused bread. It was greatly disappointing for the baker to discover that the beautiful color of beets did not survive the baking process. 

Well, this got me thinking about what vegetable could be incorporated into bread to make a purple loaf. One answer is the mighty purple sweet potato. I have successfully used a potato water sourdough recipe from Northwest Sourdough before, so when I saw that she also had a Purple Sweet Potato sourdough I was decided. After a special trip to the upscale grocer to find a purple sweet potato and feeding up my fridge-napping starter I was ready to go. 

Purple Sweet Potato Sourdough from Northwest Sourdough

Levain: 150 grams starter + 75 grams AP Flour + 75 grams water

Dough: 600 grams AP flour + 360 grams water + 420 grams pureed sweet potato + 18 grams salt

I created a levain mid-afternoon and when it was vigorously bubbling away (about 5 hours in my warm kitchen) I added the flour and water for autolyse. An hour later the pureed sweet potato and salt were added, squishing and folding everything together until the dough started to stiffen. Then bulk ferment about three and half hours with stretch and fold every 45 minutes. It was well into the evening when I pre-shaped, shaped, and put in the refrigerator for a 9 hour overnight retard.


Early this morning I heated the oven to 500F along with the pizza stone and my stainless steel mixing bowl cloche. Baked the loafs one at a time, turning the oven down to 450F, covered for 15 minutes, then 18-20 minutes uncovered. The loafs hung out in the oven with the door propped open while it cooled, in attempt to dry out the crumb a bit more.

 


 

The color held in the baked bread very well. The crumb is soft and moist, and the crust has a bit of chew. There is a distinct and unique flavor. Overall a fun bake. My dough handling could be improved as I think I deflated one of the loaves taking it out of the proofing bowl, and probably they needed to go in the fridge a bit sooner.  Also, I think the dough could have really benefited from some additional gluten either with a stronger flour or with the addition of VWG. My tendency to try everything with AP flour is probably not ideal for a bread with so much added vegetable.


Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
August 2, 2019 - 8:47am
algebread's picture
algebread

Champlain I

 

A version of Trevor Wilson's Champlain bread.

Thank you to the community bake thread for this bread for a lot of good advice.

Process

Ambient temperature was 80--82F throughout.

Two days before:take starter from fridge, leave out on counter, feed at 1:3:3 around midnight

One day before: feed 1:3:3 around noon, then 1:3:3 at midnight with 5g start, half whole wheat, half AP

945 Mix dough: 315g water at 90F, 200g KA AP (11.7% gluten), 189g KA bread flour (12.7% gluten), 38g spelt, 19g rye, 315g water. Rubaud to develop. Took 100g of dough and mixed with 50g leaven.

1115 Add leaven to dough

1145 Add 9g salt and 10g water

1215 Fold

1300 Fold

1330 Fold

1400 Fold

1515 Preshape. Care was taken to avoid deflation, and the ball was a little bit looser than usual.

1550 Shape. The round had mostly flattened, but there was noticably tension left in it. Used careful letter folds, then tightened on the counter, then let stand for 5 minutes to seal the seam. It seemed a little bit soft when in the proofing basket, so some light stitching was done to fix it.

1845 Bake. Dutch oven preheated to 475F and lower temperature to 450F. Bake for 20 minutes, then uncover, then bake for 20 more minutes.

 

Results

I normally bake at 500F, but in an effort to avoid scorched crust, a lower temperature was used. The bottom crust is golden but not burnt. The crumb of this loaf is light and had a noticable chew due to the bread flour. The flavor was mild, with only a hint of sourness.

 

interior

  

Future work

While the crumb was fairly light in this loaf, it would be nice to make it lacier. To this end, it might be worth lengthening the bulk a little and perhaps pushing the folds back, since in this schedule, only the final hour of bulk is fold-free.  More generally, my preshaping and shaping skills need work. I think that being more careful than usual on both of those steps was very helpful for this loaf.

I am also unsure of about the impact of the "pseudo-preferment" that was allowed to ferment for just 1.5 hours during the autolyse. The goal was to kick-start the bulk fermentation a bit without having to add more leaven. At the very least, the impact does not seem to have been negative, although further testing is needed to see if it is actually beneficial.

 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
July 30, 2019 - 7:58pm
cyber's picture
cyber

The strange science inside your sourdough

https://bbc.in/2KcLLVG

 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
July 30, 2019 - 6:05am
MichaelJ's picture
MichaelJ

Less yeast vs colder temp

I know that longer fermentation produces better bread, and there seem to be two main methods of slowing the fermentation:

1. Fermenting at a low temp, in the fridge, with a normal amount of yeast or starter

2. Using a much smaller amount of yeast or starter and fermenting at room temp.

I realize there are all sorts of variants of these, but my question is: given an equal length of fermentation time (say 12 hours) using these methods, is there a significant difference in the result with one or the other method?

Thanks

Michael

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
July 29, 2019 - 10:25pm
jey13's picture
jey13

Adding Levain Stage...How Flexible on the “When?”

I know there are those who dissolve starter (levain) into the water, add the flour, and there’s your dough (salt to be mixed in a little later). But there are also those who mix up flour and water, let it rest, then add in the starter (levain), and a little later the salt. 

Imagine you’re going to do it the latter way: create flour/water dough, then add in an overnight levain. You make the levain at, stay, 8pm. It’s ready to go at 8am...but you have to put off making the dough, and the levain isn’t going to be added till, say 1pm....

What do you do? And yes, I know the float test tells you if the levain is good to go, so maybe you test it...but will it still pass the float test several hours after it’s reached it’s high point? And if it doesn’t...what do you do? Do you have to feed it and wait another 6 hours? 

How flexible is the overnight levain when it comes to scheduling? If you have to adjust your schedule, will the levain be forgiving? 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
July 29, 2019 - 8:12am
Kernman's picture
Kernman

Semolina

Hello.. quick question. If I re-milled semolina will I have durum flour... thanks

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
July 28, 2019 - 12:55pm
dndrich's picture
dndrich

Increasing the fiber in my bread

Sourdough Pals:

I have been very happy with my daily loaf. Just terrific and easy to do. I use the Joshua Weissman recipe with slight variation as seen on YouTube. I've got it down. 

But now my wife really needs more fiber. That bread is maybe 20% Whole Wheat flour. So, I am thinking of increasing the whole wheat to 50%, but am also considering adding some 9 grain steel cut for more fiber. I am considering using something like this:

https://centralmilling.com/product/organic-steel-cut-cracked-9-grain/

How do I use this product? Do I need to soak it first? How much to add by weight or volume? 

My typical dough is 1000 gm for 2 loaves.

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
July 27, 2019 - 10:55pm
JohnAka's picture
JohnAka

reducing waste for sourdough

hi all, I'm a novice bread baker, trying to tackle sourdough and levain recipes. I have had modest success and am trying so hard to follow the directions exactly, but still not getting my Tartine levain breads right....

So now I I am trying the levin recipes from Flour Water Salt Yeast. Do you know why these starters and recipes call for so much to be thrown out? It is in grams, so why not just specify levin/flour/water in specific amounts to get to the proper amount? Does levain prefer to be made in quantity, and smaller amounts just don’t work as well? 

For example, let's start with the original recipe for the starter. Instead of thawing away 750 grams of starter on Day 2, why not just start with 125 grams each of flour and water (total 250 grams)? Or for the Pain de Campagne, instead of only keeping 360 grams of the 1000 grams of the newly-fed levain, why not just feed the enough mature levain with enough flour and water to get 360 grams? 

I understand how in a large bakery, none of this goes to waste, but this book and most other bread books are written for the home. I'm using some premium flour (Thanks local growers!), so this really adds up. 

thanks! 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
July 27, 2019 - 1:21am
Theairportrun's picture
Theairportrun

Help with new recipe idea... Rye Leaven included!

hi all,

i’ve been successfully baking low hydration sourdoughs with large amounts of leaven (i like to speed up the process as i dont have all day!).

i want to start upping the hydration , autolysing and doing stretch and folds to achieve more open and softer crumb.

can anyone comment on the potential issues I might have in changing methods etc? I use high proofer temp to speed the process up a bit (brod & taylor) and also use a lot of leaven for the same reason...

 

previous method was;

 

Pain dé Campagne

 

900g White Flour (weak)

100g Wholewheat Flour

400g Rye Leaven 

20g Salt

550g Water (warm)

 

 

  • Set proofer to 30 Degrees C
  • Mix and knead ingredients until windowpane 
  • Prove for 2 hours
  • Shape - prove for 1 hour (pre-heat oven)
  • Bake 210 degrees c(fan) 20 mins with steam, 25 mins without

 

 

proposed method is;

Pain dé Campagne

 

900g White Flour (weak)

100g Wholewheat Flour

400g Rye Leaven 

20g Salt

700g Water (warm)

 

 

 

  • Set proofer to 30 
  • Autolyse flour & 650g water for 1 hour
  • Mix in leaven, salt and remaining 50g water
  • Stretch & fold 4 times w/ 30 min intervals (2 hours total)
  • Pre-shape - wait 20 mins
  • Shape - prove for 1 hour (pre-heat oven)
  • Bake 210 (fan) 20 mins with steam, 25 mins without

 

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
July 26, 2019 - 1:51pm
the hadster's picture
the hadster

The Challenger Bread Pan - has anyone tried it other than our own Trevor Wilson?

I was just glancing through Trevor Wilsons Instagram and I came across this bread pan, and I want it.

My problem with the Lodge Combo Pot for baking bread is the size, its small and so the loaf can only be so big...

THIS bread pan looks fabulous.

I was wondering if any of you were on the advanced distribution list and what your thoughts were.

Hadley

Share
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo

Pages

more