The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Hamelman's 5 Grain Non-Levain

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Hamelman's 5 Grain Non-Levain

This is my non-levain Jeffrey Hamelman's 5 Grain Levain bread.  Wait, non levain?  I don't know if that is techincally correct.  I did of course use some yeast - dry active.  However, I did not do a levain build overnight as his original recipe calls for.  I am giving my starter a nice vacation in the fridge for a while.  Anyway, a couple questions I have for you experts out there.  How did the crust turn out so shiny and almost pretzel-like?  I did not intend for that to happen.  Also, the loaves turned out a bit oval and not a round boule as I proofed it.  When I tranfered it to the pan, it did shake up a bit, but still looked quite round when it went in the oven.  Also, crumb photos will follow when its cooled and I get to a local grocery store this evening to sneak some slicing on their machine.

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Looks good to me!

-Floyd

AnnieT's picture
AnnieT

Hi Song of the Baker and welcome to TFL. I can't help with the crust but I know that if I slash my sourdough boule with 3 parallel slashes I get an oval loaf. When I make 2 crossing cuts I get a boule. Lovely loaf, by the way, A.

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Here's the crumb.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

The crust looks very nice to me and the crumb is tempting as well.  I cut squares or T-Rex footprints on boules but my slashing is horrible so don't know if yours caused an oval loaf.  Interesting question though.  Someone will know and confirm  I'm guessing.

 

Nice baking. 

 

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

I believe it probably had to do with the 'pulling' that occured during scoring.  I find it more difficult to score dough with a multi-seed topping such as this one.  The blade would not just glide through but pulled through, causing it to slightly sag.  It had no ill effect on the overall structure, but just made it slightly oval.  Which now after slicing, sort of made better sized slices to fit in the toaster.  Love when a convenient mistake happens!

Any advice on scoring with multi-seed toppings?

 

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

you should score the bread before putting your seeds on.

Nicw bake

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Thanks for the advice isand66.  I did try this method, however, the seeds do not stick to the bread as good as they do if I proof the bread with the seeds on the bottom of the banneton, or couche.  When the dough proofs with the seeds, the dough sort of grows around the seeds a bit, almost making them part of the dough.  Plus I heard that the scoring should happen quickly and immediately before being placed in the oven.  Getting the seeds on after the scoring would take up valuable time.  Actually, I am beginning to think I have too much time on my hands when I am debating seed sticking to dough :)  Wow, never thought I'd be spending time talking about these kinds of issues.

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I have never proofed a loaf with the seeds on the bottom of the baneton or couche.  That sounds like an interesting idea for sure and if it works for you that is great.  The problem you have realized is that it is difficult to score your bread when the seeds are already on it.  I suppose if you practice with quick slashes you may be okay.  Your loaf on this post looks pretty good to me so maybe it's not such a big deal.

As far as the time between slashing and putting the seeds on, you have more than 10 seconds to get this done.  As long as you are not leaving it for 15 minutes before you put it in the oven or longer you should be fine.  I have read some recipes where you roll the dough into a towel with the seeds but I don't recall when you slash.

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

In the end, the loaf came out quite nice, so I can't complain.  As mentioned before, they just came out sort of oval shaped instead of a perfect round boule.  I actually preferred the oval shape as it gave smaller slices that fit into my toaster.  When I scored the dough, there was quite a bit of snagging and pulling with the blade, and I had to go over the scoring a few extra times to make them a uniform cut.  The seeds didnt allow the blade to just go through in one nice slice.  I also don't think I am using the best blade.  It is a retractable contractors blade tool.  Super sharp but doesn't have a curve to it which would decrease the chances of snagging.  If you haven't tried the seeds on bottom of baneton or couche method, I suggest you try this as the seeds almost become part of the bread structure as opposed to just a flakey, unsecure topping.  It took me a few tries to get the system perfected.  The problem I had the first few times was that I laid out the cloth in my baneton or glass bowl, then sprinkled it with the seed mix.  As you can imagine, the seeds roll down and congregate to the bottom of the cloth.  This is ok if you just want seeds to be on the very top of your bread, but I wanted a nice spread along the top and sides, like in my photos.  To get around this problem, I simply laid the cloth out flat on my countertop and then sprinkled the seeds in a nice large surface area of the cloth.  When I placed the dough on top of the cloth, I gently roll it around the area of seeds before wrapping it up and around the dough.  To make the seeds stick to the dough a lot better, I give the dough a light mist of water before placing it ontop of the seeded cloth, so the surface of dough acts like a glue to the seeds.  I found this method to be the best so far.  I can't claim that any of these steps do not technically hurt the dough.  I don't notice any ill effects from these steps.  Let me know if you end up trying this and how it works out for you.

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Here is the recipe.  I do not claim this recipe to be anything close to baker professional standards.  It's dumbed down for myself, so please take from it what you can.  If not using a bread maker for the mixing and part of the kneading, simply mix and knead using your own method until a medium gluten development has been achieved.  If you have any questions please let me know!  I would love to see the results.

Multigrain BreadSoaker
  • 60g instant oats, roughly crushed by hand
  • 20g 9 grain cereal mix
  • 50g flax seeds
  • 20g pot barley or sunflower seeds
  • 125g boiling water
  • 9g salt

Final Build

  • All of soaker
  • 390g bread flour
  • 110g whole wheat flour
  • 20g rye flour
  • 310g water at room temperature
  • 3g dry active yeast

Seed Topping Mix

  • Equal parts sunflower seeds, rolled oats, flax seeds

Directions

  1. For soaker, combine all ingredients and stir to combine.  Let sit covered for 30 minutes or until room temperature.
  2. For final build, put water, flours and yeast (in that order) in bread maker and start artisan dough program.  Let machine mix until all ingredients combined into a wet shaggy mass.  When kneading cycle begins, press pause button and let the dough autolyse for 30 mins.  Allow kneading cycle to begin.  When Mix-Ins signal alerts, add in the soaker ingredients.  Bring together to ball of dough with a wooden spoon if needed.  When cycle is done, remove dough from machine onto a lightly floured surface and knead fro approx. 5 mins.  Dough should be at a medium gluten development and when windowpane test is performed, should be able to stretch the dough to translucency without tearing it.
  3. Let the dough rise in a lightly greased bowl, covered, till it doubles in size, at least two and a half hours.  Stretch and fold at 45 minutes and again after another 45 mins.
  4. Ready a banneton or line a bowl with a cloth.  Dust it with rice flour and seed topping mix.
  5. Shape the dough.
  6. Put the dough top side down into the prepared banneton or cloth-lined bowl. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let it rise for an hour - hour and half.
  7. Preheat oven to 475 degrees.  If you’re baking on a sheet pan with roaster, put this in the oven as well.
  8. When the final proof is done, gently upend the dough onto baking surface, slash it 3 or 4 times and bake for 25 minutes with steam.  Turn the oven down to 375 degrees F., remove the steam and continue baking till done, another 10-15 minutes.  If unsure about doneness, use a thermometer and remove the dough when its internal temperature is 200 degrees.

Note: My steam method was with a roaster.  See my forum post on My Steaming Method.

Good luck!

 

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

When you score a loaf, it will expand during oven spring at right angles to the cuts. So, if you make multiple parallel cuts, as you did on this loar, the loaf, which starts out round, ends up an oval. This is covered in more detail - the effects of various scoring patterns are discussed - in the TFL Handbook The Scoring Tutorial.

David

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

Seeds should generally be applied after proofing in a banneton and before scoring. Your scoring problem should be solved by using a thin, super-sharp blade, e.g., a razor blade.

If proofing on a couche, you could apply the seeds before proofing, but they will be less densely clustered as the loaf expands.

To get the seeds to stick, you should wet the surface. If you want a crisp/crunchy crust, water is best. You can brush water on or spray it. The way seeds are applied at the San Francisco Baking Institute is pretty effective. They take two sheet pans. One, they line with wet paper towels. The other, they fill with seeds. Each loaf is rolled on the wet towels, then in the seeds. These loaves are generally seeded right before baking, as I recall.

BTW, the very shiney crust you got is generally the result of steaming the oven for too long.

David

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Thanks for all the comments David.  Finally got some answers to my queries.  I will adjust for the future and see how things turn out.  Also, I think you are right about the shiny crust.  I do believe I kept it covered, steaming, too long.

jkandell's picture
jkandell

It's kinda funny you made the 5 grain levain without levain, cause Hamelman has a straight dough version of 5 grain the book too, :)  A little like my old roommate who used to always get a "bean and cheese burrito, no cheese." :)