The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

100% Whole Spelt SD w/ 50% Sprouted Flour, Spelt Sprouts & Baked Scald

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

100% Whole Spelt SD w/ 50% Sprouted Flour, Spelt Sprouts & Baked Scald

We tried to bake a 100% whole grain spelt SD with spelt sprouts at 100% hydration in September 2012.  The bread was a success on the inside for flavor and crumb but the outside was a disaster.... a flattish boule, commonly known as a Rustic Frisbee to be kind.  The half good, half bad bake from 2012 can be found here: 100% Whole Spelt Sourdough at 100% Hydration

 

The finished baked scald after 3 hours at 140 F in the mini oven

Lucy, even back then, thought her supposed master was a bit of a baking twerk before twerking became fashionable and commonplace just about everywhere.  She just reminded me that she thought I was a barking t, not a baking twerk, but now thinks that baking twerk is closer to the truth now a days.  I think it is great to be hip at my age if you ask me.

 

The autolyse with the dough flour. dough liquid and the baked scald.

To try to bring this old sprout recipe forward, in both time and to be more in step with Lucy’s current, totally faddish, modern formulations and to get the bread to look better on the outside - while not killing off the old inside we liked so much, Lucy made the following changes for better or worse.

 

Spelt starter hits the mix.

First she lowered the hydration down to a more sane 83 % overall.  This doesn't sound too bad until you feel the dough and find it to be a sloppy mess compared to whole wheat and check to find out that many 100% whole grain, spelt bread recipes tend to be in the 67% to 72% hydration range - if you want them to not look like a brick of Rustic Frisbee.

 

Lucy also included a baked scald, at 140 F consisting of: spelt flour, spelt sprouts, as well as white and red malts.  This should pump up the flavor of the bread substantially and put it on a spelt plateau not seen since rye was discovered growing as a grass in the far north hinterlands.   She also increased the scald bake time another 30 minutes to 3 hours hoping for more browning.

 

Unlike last time when one 20 minute set of slap and folds were done before the stretch and folds, we went to our standard 8, 1 and 1 minute sets before the stretch and folds began.  We also used our now standard 3 stage levain build using a bit of 5 week retarded rye starter to begin the levain and we used the hard bits sifted from the non sprouted and sprouted, whole spelt to feed the levain.

 

Stainless Steel Mega Steam for Gabe

The sprouted spelt flour this time equaled half the flour in the mix when the previous 100% whole spelt bake only had whole sprouted spelt berries mixed in.  With all of these changes Lucy didn't leave much alone if you ask me but I just make the bread and leave the figuring of the formula and process to her small but powerful brain.

 

That way I can’t get blamed for anything going wrong, even if I was the problem,.  I can also take all the credit for it later if it works out well, a win – win for one of is.   Plus, by not having to put in the time and mental effort to figure out this stuff gives me way more time to watch the recorded 1st year of Naked Ancient Alien Swamp Zombies Behaving Badly. 

 

The one thing Lucy does worry about with wet, high percent, spelt mixes is that it can get away from you very quickly during ferment and proof.  Next thing yow know, you have given birth to a Naked Alien Swamp Zombie that thinks you are its undead Mommy who needs to be real dead.real quick instead.  For one thing the dough sure felt better than the last time due to the hydration being better suited for bread than pancakes.

 

So to keep the mix from evolving into a scientific oddity, Lucy cut back on the wet, upped the levain to a bit less than 15% and cut the bulk ferment to zero.  She did keep the shaped retarded proof to 12 hours though.   I told her it probably wouldn't work since spelt has a mind of its own and 12 hours was too long but she gave me that undead look of hers and I felt the need to cut the discussion shorter than usual.

 

Lucy decide t ocome up with a new shape she calls a long, thin, non knobby end batard using a seldom used basket lined with a rice floured towel and covered with the bottom  of the MagnaLite WagnerWare Turkey Roaster while baking for steam.  It’s the perfect cloche cover for short non knobby ended batard baking.  Sadly, the batard was too long after proofing for the turkey roaster so ......we resorted to 2 pans of Mega Steam. 

 

We let the shaped skinny batard warm up on the counter for 90 minutes before firing up Big Old Bob at the set 500 F preheat.  We un-molded the bread and sliced it 4 times to teach it a lesson and make sure it doesn't just bust out wherever it wants to.  We steamed for 12 minutes at 450 F.

 

Once the steam came out we baked it for another 15 minutes on the bottom stone until the middle read 205 F on the inside.  The oven was turned off as the bread was left on the stone with the door close until it hit 208 F, a higher temperature for sprouted grain breads which took another 5 minutes.  Total time in the oven  32 minutes with 5 minutes off.

 

The bread sprang well, bloomed, blistered a small sized bit and looked like it had some promise crumb wise.    No flat rustic boule this time!  It finally browned up to that mahogany color we love so much.  We will have to wait and see what the crumb looks like after lunch once it is cool enough to cut.  The crumb came out soft, glossy and fairly open for 100% whole grain bread with spouts as add ins.  It tastes uniquely different and the sprouted flour really comes through.  If you want to try a whole grain bread, other than wheat, then this one, emmer  or Kamut is one to consider. It is delicious! 

 

 

SD Levain Build

Build 1

Build 2

 Build 3

Total

%

5 Week Retarded Rye Sour Starter

8

0

0

8

1.96%

18% Extraction Whole Spelt

8

16

17

41

10.02%

18% Extraction Whole Sprouted Spelt

0

0

15

15

3.67%

Water

8

16

32

56

13.69%

Total

24

32

64

120

29.34%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Levain Totals

 

%

 

 

 

18% Extraction Whole Spelt

60

14.67%

 

 

 

Water

60

14.67%

 

 

 

Levain Hydration

100.00%

 

 

 

 

Levain % of Total Flour

14.67%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dough Flour

 

%

 

 

 

18% Extraction Sprouted Spelt

25

6.11%

 

 

 

82% Extraction Sprouted and Whole Spelt

324

79.22%

 

 

 

Total Dough Flour

349

85.33%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salt

9

2.20%

 

 

 

Water

255

62.35%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dough Hydration

73.07%

 

 

 

 

Total Flour w/ Starter

409

 

 

 

 

Water

315

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hydration with Starter

77.02%

 

 

 

 

Total Weight

865

 

 

 

 

% Whole and Sprouted Spelt

100.00%

 

 

 

 

% Whole Sprouted Spelt

50.00%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scald / Bake is 25g whole spelt as flour and 5 g each

 

 

 

 

plus 5 g each red and white malt plus 25 g of Sprouted

 

 

 

 

spelt berries and 52 g of water  - total weight 112 g

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hydration with baked scald is 83.11%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And Lucy reminds us to not forget the salad.

Comments

Pufff's picture
Pufff

i love your blog entries. Your recipes are inspiring and Lucy and you are great teachers! What does the scald do? Does it dry out completely?

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

is that they are rife with poor spelling and grammar.  We always have to go back, like we will soon do, to fix them:-)  The scald does several things   The red malt is a flavor and color enhancer.  The white malt is to add extra enzymes, that bread down starch in flour into sugars, to the mix and autolyse.   Since the low baking temperature of 140 F doesn't deactivate them.  More sugar means more food for the LAB and yeast to eat.  The flour in the bake is there to gelatinize as in a Tang Zhong so that the crumb is softer and more glossy.  Even though the sprouts were pretty soft, the baking made them even softer so that there was no chance that they would become hard bits in the crumb.  As it bakes the top of the scald goes darker in color.  Every half hour Ii stir it and add more water to make sure it doesn't dry out had evenly browns.  Brown food tastes good as Ann Burell says.  When it was done I added more water to get it to the 112 g it weighed when it went into the autolyse and to make the final hydration adjustment to the dough.  

Glad you liked the post.  One of the things we want to do with each one is post formula, photos and blurbs so that anyone could reproduce the bread of they wanted to and learn from our mistakes.  Teaching others what you know is important for Lucy and I.  We feel like our lives would be wasted or become a total waste otherwise.  Generosity is the greatest of all character attributes to have and hold dear but it is also the the most difficult to have and hold dear.  Teaching is near the height of generosity and holds a special place for us.  Generosity is just one of the many attributes one must have to be successful in everything you do.  Without it, you can't be successful for long:-)

Happy baking Pufff

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

Her way with wholegrain is truly remarkable. I think she should write a book on the subject. Seriously. You could help her.

Amazing looking loaf, I bet it's delicious. Thanks for the steam setup shot. If my sheet pans dry out too quickly I will pick up something deeper like that. I'm looking forward to next week's bakes.

Cheers,

-Gabe

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Baking Apprentice 2nd Class.  She keeps bugging me to get a promotion to 1st Class but she got promoted to 2nd class last year.  Folks have said we should writ a book now and again and my response is we have and add another chapter to it every week on TFL :-)  With the million hits Floyd gets on the site from all over the world, we can't think of a better way to get the word out, explain our illness and document journey down the bread road to who knows where.  Plus we are retired and book writing sounds way too much too much like work..... and that is the one thing we avoid at all costs:-)

Got the SS pans at Goodwill for 50 cents each.

Happy Baking and Lucy looks forward to your baguette perfection trials and tribulations!

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

a_warming_trend's picture
a_warming_trend

I'm seriously transfixed by the shape of the loaf. And the slashing is just perfect! 

I honestly don't know how to comment on the possible flavors of your (and Lucy's) loaves, dabrownman. There is so much amazing stuff going on there that's beyond my comprehension at my stage of baking. I mean, just for one thing: The idea of totally eliminating bulk is really intriguing. It reminds me of Andrew Whitley's method in Bread Matters. The one time I tried to eliminate bulk and do a super-long proof was a true disaster...but then my loaf didn't have anything approaching the % and type of amazing whole grains as yours. 

Forgive me if I missed it, but would you mind describing how you (or Lucy) shaped this long batard? I'm really working on my shaping, and there seem to be so many different batard-shaping methods out there...

Just so cool, as always. And the analysis of "twerking" was a welcome bonus. 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

We really don't go for looks around here very much even though we like it when the bread looks good inside and out .  My father in law said you can't eat the atmosphere when it came to restaurants and it was better to eat at a place where the food tasted good rather than a place where it didn't.  Taste is by far the most important thing foe us when it comes to bread.  Everything we do, and we do about everything you can at each stage of bread making, is to try to bring out more flavor in the grain and make the bread taste better.  Tasting better is personal and subjective though so the lengths we go though to coax out taste and  flavor might not be appreciated by many or even most of bread lovers - but it is fun and interesting to experiment and learning what happens when a new path is taken.

We originally eliminated the bulk ferment for the hot AZ summertime. Letting the dough sit on the counter for an hour or a  couple of hours before retarding, either bulk or shaped, always caused the dough to over ferment or over proof in the fridge.... making for flat loaves at best and goo at worst.  It just didn't fit into my schedule and I wasn't going to stay up late or get up early to make it fit ....or do anything bread for that matter.  The schedule and process had to change.  Less levain was also part of the process, along with more fridge time and less counter time, all  to slow things down to fit my leisurely schedule.

My shaping is a combination of Hamelman's for the pre-shape on the KA video, Mark Sinclair's start of the final shape on video to get it really taut and David Snyder's finish of the batard shaping.  Since this dough was comparatively resilient and pretty nice compared to the sloppy ones we usually stick ourselves with so we could manhandle it more than usual when getting the skin taut like Mark Sinclair does and right before the final shaping that Daivd uses by putting the palms on top of the batard and rolling back and forth as you move your hands out to ends applying more pressure and making the batard thinner as you go to the ends.  I just treat it as a really fat baguette.  The hard part to learn is how to get the skin taunt before doing the final rolling.  The slacker the dough, the more gentle you have to be.  All it takes is practice and learning what it should look and feel like.

We have come a long way these last few years but it was all fun - well most of the time - and some of it was rewarding too:-)  300 down but thankfully there are at least 10,000 moire different breads to bake.  It'd going to take some real twerking to get those all baked:-)

a_warming_trend's picture
a_warming_trend

Thanks for this lovely response to my questions. Apologies for only now replying...this weather has turned everything upside-down around here and made it difficult to stay connected to TFL. 

I think that your "Flavor Philosophy" is wonderful. And from all of the amazing soakers and scalds and sprouted grains I see, I know that you guys are living it. 

Thank you for the description of your shaping of this lovely loaf. I love the batard shape, but I am grasping at times, having come across at least five different convincing methods for shaping. The challenge is to commit to even one, for experimental purposes...I find myself visualizing 2-3 different methods at once, and the result is tentative and awkward shaping.

I think that dough might be like horses or teenagers: It can smell fear. True in both shaping and scoring. 

Baking in Arizona must be a unique process. Thanks for sharing your experiences!

nmygarden's picture
nmygarden

100% spelt and it didn't spread. I've gotta try this one soon. I know nothing about twerks, twerps, tweets or alien zombies, but you and Lucy are both hip and make some fine bread!

Please, a couple of questions:

In references to extraction flours, the % is the part retained in the sieve or the part that went through?

What is the intended benefit from using a scald?

Is Bob Betsy's cousin, in town from up north to escape the cold?

Cathy

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

the scald.  I forgot to mention that the extra sugar created makes for better crust color and a sweeter crumb counteracting the bitterness of the whole grains without adding sugar.

The hard bit extraction I get from my one sieve is about 12-14% of the beginning weight for non sprouted non tempered grains and about 16 -20% for sprouted grains.  It is what is sifted out.  They are right about tempering.   A little water on the whole grains or sprouting them makes for an easier and larger bran extraction.   When I talk about high extraction flour I can get, I am talking about the 88% to 80% of the remainder after the hard bits are sifted out.  Professional millers can mill anything and mill to 72% extraction for what they call 'straight' flour.  All white patent flours are then milled from the straight flour and, since they are professionals, they can also mill or mill and recombine just about any high extraction flour percent above 75% they want.  

Big Old Betsy is shortened to BOB around here sometimes.  Lucy says that Betsy is really Bi.....heated from the top and bottom and doesn't mind being called Bob or Betsy :-)  We can't slide anything past you guys!

Glad you liked the bread.  It is a fine one to just munch on all by itself.  You will like it and 

Happy baking Cathy.

ANNA GIORDANI's picture
ANNA GIORDANI

 

Translated with Google....


How I love the picture number 10, the gifts me ???
As always when I pass by you find expertise, passion, constructive criticism but mostly wonderful bread.

And then what about the extraordinary and ingenious system to create steam inside the oven. I never go over the ice cubes thrown on the hot baking sheet or use my wonderful sprayer.

This also allows you to distinguish the true master who you are, from a modest student who I am.
Thank you for sharing and happy cooking
Anna

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Sei troppo gentile Anna. Sono contento che ti piace il post - è uno dei nostripreferiti pani e siamo parziali mentre quelli di grano. Un fornaio a casa casual checuoce 1 pagnotta di pane alla settimana, non cuocere abbastanza per ottenereveramente buono in essa, ma, noi facciamo del nostro meglio per fare il panebuono come possiamo.

 

Ti amiamo bellissimi esempi di cottura e guardare avanti al tuo post netto. Felice Anna cottura
Isand66's picture
Isand66

Another ther beauty DA.  Hi to Lucy from land of the Dim Sum...wish I had some of this bread to eat with dinner.

Happy baking!

ian

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

since you off gallivanting around the globe to where noodles came from!  I think you should take an how to make noodle class while you are there.  I started making noodles not long ago and find it therapeutic and as easy as making bread only you get use ancient and mysterious Eastern methods to make them.  Maybe you could trade a bread class for a noodle one?  Have fun and safe travels Ian