The Fresh Loaf

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Multigrain Sourdough Sprouter

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Multigrain Sourdough Sprouter

For this week’s Friday bake, Lucy came up with another variation on our sprouted grains experiment.  We are trying to increase the whole sprouted grain amount and still get a 12 hour cold retard without the dough over proofing in the fridge or turning to goo.

 

We upped the sprouted whole grains to 30% and the 4 grains used were emmer, rye, wheat and spelt.  We really like this combination of grains flavor wise when not sprouted and we hoped the taste would even be better when sprouted.


We followed our usual schedule of sprouting on Tuesday, drying and milling the grain on Wednesday along with sifting the milled flour to remove the hard bits to feed to the levain.  This time the hard bits ended up being a 20% extraction.

 

The levain was built Wednesday afternoon using our normal 3 stage way - with 3 hours for the first 2 stages and 4 for the last one.  We used a heating pad to keep the temp around 84 F since it is now winter the kitchen isn’t 84 F like the summer

 

In 10 hours, the levain had finished its final doubling and we refrigerated the levain for 24 hours to help bring out more sour since the SD seed was newly refreshed and stored for only 2 weeks in the fridge for this bake.

 

Home made 100% buckweat soba noodles with tofu in a miso / dashi / turkey stock. and below 80% buckwheat ones

The dough flour was autolysed with the dough liquid with the salt sprinkled on top for 1 hour as the levain warmed up on the heating pad.  Once the warm levain hit the mix we did 3 sets of slap and folds for 8, 1 and 1 minute and 3 sets of strtech and folds – all on 20 minute intervals.

 

Lemon Curd Bars and Thanksgiving Turkey with lemon slices and herb compound butter under the skin

After a 15 minute rest we pre shaped the dough into a boule and then 10 minutes later did the final shape and placed the dough in a rice floured basket for a 30 minute rest on the heating pad after bagging it.  Then in the fridge it went for a 12 hour retard.

,

Don't forget that salad.

By the next morning, it had risen nicely but wasn’t quite at the 90% level we like for white bread. So we let the dough warm up on the counter for 2 hours before un-molding it onto parchment, on a peel, slashing it and sliding it on the bottom 500 F stone and covering it with a heavy aluminum pot we found a Goodwill for a dollar.

 

After 2 minutes we turned the oven down to 465 F and continued to stem the bread for a total of 10 minutes.  Once uncovered we turned the oven down to 425 F convection and continued to make for another 25 minutes until the temperature hit 210 F on the inside – our standard temperature for sprouted grain bread.

 

It blistered and browned well but it also spread out 2” in diameter too.  The hydration of 78.6% for a 30% whole grain bread is high but not out of bounds.  I think the reason this spread more than normal is that the half of the white flour was AP instead of bread flour and that sprouted grain bread just spread more by nature.

 

Still, the spreading dough puffed itself up, sprang and bloomed well enough.  The crumb was open, super soft, moist and a bit glossy.  The contrasting bold bake of the crust that was still a little crunchy after cooling along with the soft crumb was a joy but the taste was really superb.  It is one of those fine tasting breads you would want to eat all the time, - if you could only have one bread to eat.

 

My 2 babies.

The crumb shots are a little less snazzy then usual but I was at the dentist this morning as the loaf cooled on the rack.  I took the loaf back up to their office and cut the bread into quarters, one for each of them and a slice that I cut up for us to taste. It is always nice to turn folks onto some good bread they normally wouldn’t eat and see their faces light up when they taste it.  It made my day.

 

Whole Multigrain SD Levain

Build 1

Build 2

 Build 3

Total

%

2 Week Retarded Rye Starter

8

0

0

8

1.57%

80% Extraction 4 Grain

0

0

26

26

5.09%

20% Extraction 4 Grain

8

16

6

30

5.87%

Water

8

16

32

56

10.96%

Total

24

32

64

120

23.48%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Levain Totals

 

%

 

 

 

Flour

60

11.74%

 

 

 

Water

60

11.74%

 

 

 

Levain Hydration

100.00%

 

 

 

 

Levain % of Total Flour

11.74%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dough Flour

 

%

 

 

 

80% Extraction 4 grain

91

17.81%

 

 

 

1/2 AP & KA Bread Flour

360

70.45%

 

 

 

Total Dough Flour

451

88.26%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salt

10

1.96%

 

 

 

Water

342

66.93%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dough Hydration

75.83%

 

 

 

 

Total Flour w/ Starter

511

 

 

 

 

Liquid w/ Starter

402

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hydration with Starter

78.67%

 

 

 

 

Total Weight

923

 

 

 

 

% Whole Grain

29.55%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whole multigrain included equal amounts

 

 

 

of wheat, rye, spelt and emmer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Excellent loaf dabrowny!  Look at the freaking blisters!  I really like all that compound butter under the skin too.  Doing it right all round.

Happy baking.

John

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

of htis bread....it was just the best ever for a white bread.  Those sprouts work magic if you can figure out how to get a long retard using them..

We slice lemons and put frozen herb compound butter on them and then they side easily under the skin without making a mess and getting all over your hands.   My daughter is known for her gravy but this year's was about as good as it gets.  I put some turkey stock in the pan before the turkey went in the oven. Then let the pan caramelize until it was dark brown before adding more turkey stock.  My daughter  got miffed when Lucy put in some brandy as she was stirring the gravy but it was just terrific in the end.  Here is a picture of the cooked bird - we couldn't wait to have a piece of the skin before the picture was taken:-).

Happy Baking John. 

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

I wouldn't call this a white bread.  Perhaps to your typical whole grain loaves, but it certainly isn't white!  It's dabrowny!

John

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

bread naming scale.   Anything less than 30% whole grain (like this one at 29.55%) is a white bread. Any bread that is more than 30% whole grain but less than 50% whole grain, it  is what ever the major grain is - 40% whole spelt or 35% Jewish deli rye. If it is more than 50% whole grain it is called the percent then Dabrowny then the major flour like -  75% Dabrowny Kamut Bread or 100% Whole Dabrowny Multigrain bread :-) I say anything that is 70% white flour is a white bread!  I suppose if it is 100% white flour you could call it 'Pure White'....or Snow White....oooppppssss that one is already taken.   

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Beautiful bread and beautiful "Babies"!

this one must taste fantastic.

Funny, I just roasted a chicken last night and used some butter under the skin.  Love this technique for all the birdies.

Max's tail was wagging a million miles an hour when he saw your two beautiful girls :)

Happy Baking!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

inside and out but I don't let them walk all over me..... too much!   When you are out numbered 3 to 1 you can't win no matter how sneaky and evil you are :-)  We had a nice if uneventful Thanksgiving.  All the cooking was a piece of cake and my daughter;s rolls came out perfect too.  That summer of baking training really paid off.

Happy baking Ian and enjoy the new job too.

squarehead's picture
squarehead

Absolutely beautiful, the blistering is superb. I want to begin sprouting grains but until I get a mill I'll only be able to add them whole.  Wonderful job as always. 

-aron

squarehead's picture
squarehead

Absolutely beautiful, the blistering is superb. I want to begin sprouting grains but until I get a mill I'll only be able to add them whole.  Wonderful job as always. 

-aron

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

You don't need a mill.  For 2 years, i ground my berries in a Krupps, cheapo coffee mill.  Made great bread and sprouted berries aren't nearly as hard.  It just takes longer is all but no worries.

Happy baking

SCruz's picture
SCruz

Beautiful loaf. How do you get the blisters?

Jerry

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

It used to be a rule that blisters were a real no no and considered a flaw - but no more - my how things change!  I haven;t seen any scientific  explanations why blisters happen but i think there are 4  things required.  Preheating to 500F or higher and baking at 465 F seems to work the best temperature wise.  The dough has to have a high hydration with lots of water to vaporize under the skin.   The dough has to have Mega steam and confined to a small space for it to really work its magic - like in a DO, under a cloche or in my tiny mini oven.  The third thing that helps is for the dough to be cool.  It think, if it is cool, the steam can really galvanize the crust and that helps keep the vaporized water under the skin better making larger blisters - so retarding helps.  That is what I think anyway but... maybe some others will chime in with their thoughts.

Happy baking 

Kiseger's picture
Kiseger

beautiful loaf and babies, what afeast for the eyes and I bet that loaf was excellent too!  Great crumb and I love the blistering.  It all looks good, it must be great to have your daughter back for the holidays, lucky you!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

for my wife, Lucy and i.  We get to have our daughter home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas- twice in 30 days -  yea!  Lucy really misses her sister and she goes nuts when our daughter comes home. Another person to rub her belly and behind her ears.  I have been blessed with beautiful women around here most always.

This was some pretty good bread all around.  One of the girls asked how I ranked it and i told her that is it was a 93 out of a 100.  I didn't tell her that I have never ranked a bread higher than 92 before.

Enjoy the Holidays and happy baking - Lucy can't wait for the new Year's panettone bake day....

CAphyl's picture
CAphyl

dabrownman:  This looks like a wonderful bread.  Lucy looks fab as always, and your daughter is beautiful.  

You cooked up quite a feast as well; I am impressed by the homemade noodles.  Congrats on a wonderful bake.  Best,  Phyllis

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

cooking episodes.  Made some turkey stock, some prickly pear jam, some aranchello and limoncello where the skins had been steeping in grain alcohol for nearly a year.  then I saw this Japanese lady teaching Hilary Duff how to make Soba noodles on the Cooking Channel so i recorded it part of it,  I  always buy them at the Chinese market and they are not cheap as far as noodle go.  I said,  heck I an do this since I have  a mill and buckwheat groats.  i didn't see the part where they added flour and missed that 20% of it should be AP flour and the buckwheat should have the hard bits sifted out of it:-(  But, I did get the 50% hydration.

It seems that it you use 100% whole buckwheat, you have to be a soba noodle master with 40 years of experience to get them right since the noodles require a higher hydration, will be very sticky, hard to roll out thin, brittle and difficult to cut into long noodles without them breaking and sticking together if not using the proper flour mix to separate the noodles as you fold them before cutting.  So, of course, this is exactly what happened to my first batch that look like and were 3' long, thick fettuccine noodles instead of soba noodles - but they they tasted great! 

One I got the flour thing figured out and the hydration then correct for 80% buckwheat noodles it was much easier to roll out and cut very thin  - but they didn't taste as good as the 100% buckwheat, ugly, short, fat ones did:-) But. even the good looking ones tasted better, far and away, than the store bought dried ones do.  Fresh soba noodles taste so much better like using fresh milled flour in bread.  I really like the turkey stock added to the standard miso / dashi - very tasty.  So now we have something new to make for our Japanese lunch soups!

Glad you liked the post Phyllis and happy holiday baking.

bikeprof's picture
bikeprof

I'd have to do some digging to get at a more complete explanation, but the blisters result at least in part from acid development in the dough (retarding sourdough loaves is a good way to help develop blisters).

bikeprof's picture
bikeprof

Well there certainly is a bunch of stories to be found on blistering crust out there.  In Dan Wing's "The Bread Builders" he shares a personal communication from the cereal scientist R. C. Hoseney (author of "Principles of Cereal Science and Technology.").  Hoseney says that blisters "are caused by gas being lost from the outer layers of the crust faster than new gas can diffuse into the cells.  Thus the cells decrease in size and many are lost completely.  Upon baking, the water in the crust will accumulate in the small cells remaining and form the blister."

Personally, I don't find that explanation very clear, or satisfying.

At SFBI, I was told that acid played a role in the process Hoseney describes, but I can't find it in my notes.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman
Cher504's picture
Cher504

Hi Dabrownman - I made your multigrain sourdough sprouted loaf today and it came out just great! Thanks for the recipe and instructions. I used kamut, spelt, wheat and rye for the sprouted grains. It took about 4-5 days altogether, but its really worth it in the end 'cause the flavor of those sprouted flours is wonderful! Next time I might try upping the %age of sprouted flours to 50%. Yum. Here's a few pix:

A few questions about the sprouted flour, (if you don't mind) - I sprouted more than I needed for this formula. How long will it keep at room temp? Should I toss it in the freezer? I will probably not use it for the next 2 weeks. And the 15% hard bits that were sifted out...can I feed a pinch of them to any levain? Will it make the levain extra-active? Thanks for your help!

Cherie

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

with this bread.  Love the dark bold bake and that crumb looks perfect.  The taste is where it really shines though.  We are hooked on sprouted grains around here and even made baguettes with them today and a baked scald   - trying to pump up the flavor and taste of what can be a boring white bread,  Can't wait for it to cool off.

The longest I have kept sprouts in the fridge is 48 hours so I think i would definitely freeze then till you need them.  I always feed all the hard bits to the levain if I can.  No worries about extra active - it might be a faster but the wee beasties will like them better than any other kind of food you could feed them:-)

Glad you like the bread Cherie - it is a tough one to beat taste wise.,.....