Feeding Sherman's Planet

Once again Captain Kirk has saved the Federation.  A new shipment of quadrotriticale will be delivered to  Sherman's Planet.  But how are they to eat it?  Yes, it can be cooked liked rice or flaked and cooked into porridge.  But what if the good people of Sherman's Planet want sammiches?  What are they to do?

In the spirit of "never give up - never surrender" (uh - a different space epic) I am determined to create a formula to bake triticale bread. Thinking over the dense but tender crumb of an earlier try and determined to apply things that I have learned about dealing with less than "perfect" wheat varieties, I formulated a plan.  I was thinking a mildly enriched bread baked in a pan.  The Bob's Red Mill folks suggested treating the dough like wheat dough except letting it rise only once, shape, proof and bake.  I remembered that the dough really behaved like a rye dough and pondered that I should not do the first rise, but considered that the miller should know.

The formula is as follows:

As you can see from the formula, I decided to preferment what is, for me, a very high percentage of the total flour in a firm levain.  I chose a levain so that the higher acid would bring some strength to the dough and a firm preferment, again, to bring strength rather than extensibility.

I also loaded the dough up with yeast, so that I would get as rapid a rise as possible.  I would depend on the pre ferment for flavor.

I milled the triticale to a fine, whole grain flour in three passes on the Diamant.

I mixed the pre ferment by hand and allowed it to mature about 10 hours.

Since this was a small batch, I pressed the mighty Kitchen Aide back into bread making service.  I am the type of person who has a sensitivity to pitch - and I will have to say that after some time with My Precioussss, the KA sounded like a little buzzing insect.  There was a time when I considered the KA to be a powerful mixer (and really, it sort of is) - what a long strange trip...

Anyway, the dough actually came together quite nicely, but always had the putty like quality of a rye. I don't particularly enjoy that feel but am starting to get used to it (I'd better - I really need to gather myself together and practice rye bread  - or bring shame upon myself later this year....)

Even with all the yeast, it took two hours of bulk ferment to get the dough to double.  Honestly, looking at the risen dough it had a nice, open quality.  For triticale, that is. 

I shaped the dough an put it into a high sided Pullman pan - brought back from Okinawa.

I allowed it to proof until double - 2 hours.  At that time the dough seemed exhausted and I popped it into a 375F oven for about 45 minutes.

As before, when I had proofed it much less (Oh, I don't write up everything I do...), the dough had zero oven spring.

What amazes me about triticale is the aroma.  The plumbing crew fixing up my bathroom plumbing kept telling me how great the house smelled.

The next day, sliced, I had reasonably sturdy bread with a sweet taste and that fine, tender triticale crumb - as pictured below.

I keep mulling over how much more open the texture was after the bulk ferment and have pretty much convinced myself that next time I will treat the dough like a rye and give more of a rest before shaping and capture all of that rise in the proof.  Rye bakers - advice welcome.

The taste - delicious.  Triticale is delicious and I don't know why it is so neglected.

The good people of Sherman's Planet will have sammiches today...