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Advice for sprouted Kamut® loaf from Tartine Bread Book 3

brian@clarkeiplaw.com's picture
brian@clarkeipl...

Advice for sprouted Kamut® loaf from Tartine Bread Book 3

Hey all I need some input:

I'm baking sprouted Kamut® loaf from Book 3. 60%bread flour + 40% whole wheat Kamut, and 85% hydration. I autolyse for ~10hrs at ~75 deg. F, then mix in the levain; I use ~4hrs primary fermentation.

I have done this loaf several times with good flavor results but disappointing oven spring and crumb results (e.g., the crumb does not have the open hole I have come to expect.

In the first tries I thought I over did the primary fermentation, so I backed it off a bit, only to achieve the same results. I found the dough slouched (for lack of better word), so I thought maybe I had not built up the gluten structure sufficiently. I then tried more vigorously stretching the dough during the scheduled turns, and in one bake used slap-n-fold for several minutes during several of the turns. I keep getting the same results, disappointing oven spring.

Any advice or input is appreciated.

Cheers:)

Brian

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

hydration. No wonder you don't get good oven spring. You should be looking at 60-65%. Obviously hydration is a preference and lower or higher wrong per se but at 85% it'll struggle.

When forming the dough give it a 10minute old fashioned knead to get the gluten formation off to a good start. Then incorporate some gentle stretch and folds. Vigorous is not necessary. Better to add in a couple extra.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

The sprouted Kamut will take up less water than whole Kamut and Kamut historically is baked at lower hydration to begin with - even though it supposedly can tale up more water than European white wheat.  Bread flour and sprouted grains do not need more than 1 -2  hours of autolyse - 10 hours is asking for trouble because of the extra enzymes associated with sprouted Kamut.  This bread at 75-78% hydration would be about right if the bread flour isn't from Europe.  I have a 70% AP and 30% sprouted grain bread with 13% pre-fermented flour at 78% hydration on final proof right now.

 2 hour autolyse so salt and no levain,  4 slap and fold sessions at 30 slaps each on 30 minute intervals with 2 sets of stretch and folds at 45 minute intervals - 3.5 hours gluten development - no bulk ferment at all, 18 hours of bulk retard in the fridge and hour warm up on the counter then 1 hour of shaped proof.

Hope this helps 

brian@clarkeiplaw.com's picture
brian@clarkeipl...

Thanks dabrownman for your insightful response.

To be clear I autolyse the flours not sprouted grains, but would agree the additional enzymes in the sprouted grain could cause some craziness (like a malted grain being extracted for beer) if included in the autolyse. I add the sprouted grains about an hour into the bulk fermentation. My bulk fermentation includes all the folding steps, i.e., I include the 45 min folds into the bulk fermentation time. Our primary fermentation times (what I call bulk fermentation) are close. Out of curiosity do you think the longer autolyse without the sprouted grain (or salt or levain, of course) could create issues? I don't see how and have read to the contrary.

Another commenter was also very surprised at my high hydration, and I will try lowering it to 75% to see results. Robertson (in Tartine Book 3) indicates this Kamut flour (along with other so-called ancient grain flour, including rye) take a much higher hydration, and he likes to push hydration pretty high anyway. My standard white flour is not from Europe, local Northern CA flour. Anyway, I will attempt your methods to see how it turns out. Oh, BTW, I did not mention but I retard in fridge too for 12-18hrs depending on my schedule.

I will post some pictures after my next bakes.

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

Seems to be the trend to try and go as high as possible. Recently I've adopted to lower hydration for a couple of reasons. 

1. Our European flours need less water.

2. As Drogon says "huge holes don't hold spread nor do they have any taste".

3. I get better oven spring since my loaves are freestanding. 

I too have heard that kamut needs more water but not in my experience and I do whatever works for me. For my own experience 65% hydration was good. I haven't done sprouted grain so can't comment on that however I do think such a long autolyse isn't necessary and if dabrownman says its bad for what you are doing then its bad! 

Best of luck and look forward to photos. 

AbeNW11's picture
AbeNW11 (not verified)

For a FEW reasons :)

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

so i thought the sprouted Kamut you were using was milled into flour.  Now it sounds like you are sprouting them and then adding them in whole - after the autolyse?

No need to autolyse bread flour more than an hour.  iI isn't a whole grian like WW when you might autolyse overnight in the fridge for 8 hours or on the counter if it is cold enough.   Some think you don't need to autolyse sprouted flour at all since it has already been soaked for a day before being dried and milled but I like to soften the hard bits anyway since they re-harden when dried.   i think you will love 75% - 78 hydration.

Here is my sprouted bread posted a few minute ago.  I bake a lot of sprouted grain breads but likely won't know it well for a few years.  Abe is too kind - but rarely wrong :-)

Double Levain Sprouted 4 Grain Sourdough with Seeds

Happy baking 

brian@clarkeiplaw.com's picture
brian@clarkeipl...

Thanks again to all who commented. Attached are photos of last prep and bake, with much better results. I would prefer a better oven spring rather better crumb, but am happy with the improvement. I'm thinking that the Kamut flour plus grains just over weights the structure. I'm using whole wheat Kamut®, maybe I'll sift out some of the bran from the Kamut. I followed the following: 60% bread flour; 40% WW Kamut; 4% wheat germ; 150g levain (50-50 bread/ww @100% hydration); 250g sprouted Kamut (whole); 25g salt; 75% hydration.  Autolyse ~10hrs (just flours + wheat germ + water); add salt, mix; rest 30 mins; slap-n-fold 30x; rest 30 min (repeat 3x); normal folds at 30 mins, X2; shape into ball with 20mins bench rest; shape; retard in fridge overnight; bake at ~475 in cast iron for 25mins; bake out for 25 mins. I had to reshape the the loaves a couple times (intervened by 20min rests) because I did not feel comfortable with the structure/feel of the dough (it slouched or pooled onto the board). End result was pretty good, flavor excellent. I still need some work on this loaf.

BTW, tried uploading picts, but the quality was terrible do decided not to do it. will look into better ways to upload.

 

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