of travels, dutch oven and diastastic malt
Well we have finally arrived back home after an amazing trip of 2 months. We started off with a 13 hour flight to Vancouver. A trip to the beautiful Burchardt Gardens blew the cobwebs away before we joined a 7 night cruise to Seward, Alaska. This just got better and better as we went north and the glaciers and trains etc were wonderful. The icing on the cake was the 4 hour train trip from Seward to Anchorage. After flight back to Vancouver we followed up with 5 days driving across the rockies to Calgary! Just beautiful! and we got to see bears, big horn sheep, moose as well! then it was across to Niagara Falls. the time in Alaska/Canada was such a wonderful part of our trip these words don't describe it properly. then It was off to New York for a brief visit before flying to Switzerland for 2 weeks of family time. The last section of our trip was a Baltic Capitals cruise, highlight of course St Petersburg! So very different to the Alaskan/Canadian section. St Petersburg was amazing - full on though with 2 jam packed days. incredible what was done by the nobility in the past and the restoration is incredible. then of course back to Switzerland to pack for the 2 long haul flights home. I have sooo many memories to relive! and the fresh cherries were just divine!! It is always a highlight of a summer visit to Switzerland!
But, back to reality! From the high 30oC to the very cool 11oC at home life has returned to normal. We are over the "flu" we picked up on the Baltic cruise and I am easing my way back into baking. Pulled the sleeping SD starter from its 9-10 week snooze and refreshed it, and rehydrated a bit of my backup dried starter - both bounced back to life quite happily. Made my first loaves (yeasted) again over the weekend.
Not too bad, but raised some questions. It was my first time using a "dutch oven". Didn't get huge oven spring but they rose nicely. So can I get some tips on how best to use DO please. I baked at 225oC for 15 mins then removed top for another 15-20. bread internal temp was 208oF. I heated DO for at least an hour. I didn't use any steam though. should I have sprayed the bread before baking? it was Forkish white with poolish.
Another question for European based friends. I bought the following "maltzextrakt" from Migros in Switzerland. Family couldn't confirm if this was what TFLers call diastase malt or not. Can any one help me as to exactly what it is?
cant get photos in right place!! should be at the end.....
I was going to say, photo's or it didn't happen. Sounds like an amazing holiday.
The suggested amount is two rounded teaspoons (like for stirring your tea) for 500g flour. So I would say that sounds very diastatic. Especially as it suggests replacing only part of the sugar in a recipe and not all of it.
What colour is it? It should be light in colour. Says it is pure barley! Prima!
(Dark or brown would imply the temperature during drying was too high and more than likely not diastatic.)
Quite a trip!
If someone spoke the word to me, I'd think that they'd said: Malt Extract.
Which is often a dark, viscous liquid sold in wholefoods shops (and online). I use it in some of my Rye breads.
This sort of stuff:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rayners-Organic-Barley-Malt-Extract-x/dp/B0069RU1OS
(and similar gloop from Essential Trading, etc.)
then there's the issue of diastatic or non-diastatic... I'm fairly sure that unless it explicitly says diastatic on the container somewhere that it isn't. So basically it's just a sweetener, or something to add to the "mouth feel" of the finished loaf. (well, the liquid gloop I use, anyway)
The test appears to be to make 2 identical mixes with flour & water & yeast and add some of the malt extract into one - if it's diastatic then it should ferment faster as the enzymes in it are helping to bread down the starches into sugars for the yeast to feed on.
-Gordon
and yep,I will do a side by side test to check out how it performs. I am really hoping it is the good stuff, but equally it could just be more a flavouring thing. Niece did say when she used it she got good activity and bread rose well .... so I'm hoping. It was worth buying just in case
may I suggest use your new malt in one loaf, brown sugar in the other. You come closer to meeting the sweetness of the malt without the enzymes. :)
Decided to do this side by side using Forkish white bread with poolish. 2 batches of poolish made Friday night no dramas. Saturday I got off to a bad start! Ingredients weighed and good to go BUT I forgot to check recipe and added water to flour/yeast/salt & sugar dry mix. The dough was really firm and I thought this really funny (as previous batches weren't like this) Then I realised I should have added water to the poolish and then added both to the dry mix. It was REALLY hard to combine so I left it to rest while I mixed the malt version the proper way. Then remixed the sugar version and carried on handling both the same way with 3 S&F. Bulk ferment took longer as it winter here and room temperature is only around 20oC. Photo is taken toward end of bulk ferment. Malt version is on left
Shaped, then proofed both loaves. When ready to bake, I put sugar version in fridge to hold while I baked malt version in DO at about 245oC for 20 minutes, removed lid and left for another 12 minutes until internal temperature was about 98oC. Repeated exactly same for sugar version, reheating DO for 5 minutes in between.
and the crumb
I felt as I worked through the process that the malt version was always a little ahead, dough was gassier and the final bake it is definitely a bigger loaf. (Hubby thinks holes are perhaps a little on the big side!!) so I am not sure if I can conclude that my new "Malzextrakt" is in fact diastatic but I am erring in that direction. What do you think?