10 Grain Sprouted Sourdough

I am reminded of my favorite mythical philosopher; Yoda, who said ‘Try Not! Do or do not.  There is no try!  Yesterday was a day to try men’s souls – if there were any men. or women, left in the world.

The Fed was supposed to raise interest rates a lousy quarter point from and eighth of a point where it has been for 7 years as the entire world melted down because a few people couldn’t pay their mortgages back to the banks in the USA.

Everyone in the entire world knows that a quarter point interest rate rise would affect no one or business anywhere  and no one would even care…. if they noticed it in the first place.

But the Fed could not bring themselves to pull the trigger – it was just way, way too scary for them to contemplate what horrors would happen as a result of their totally meaningless act.  This is just another sign that the world is ending as we knew it – which is good because that world needs to die a horrible death.

Taking into account the opposite of courage that the Fed showed yesterday, Lucy refused to come up with a recipe for this week’s bake saying that if the Fed was too scared to move on their totally worthless rate hike, she had no reason to believe her, way more important, weekly bread recipe should ever see the light of day!

Well, she had a point.….but it was my duty, as her Master, to remind her that not being fed for a week would be a bad way to prove it.   I was just guessing she would realize what fed I was talking about of course.

Maybe we should keep all food away from the Fed the next time their spines begin to bend in the gentlest of fall breezes? Maybe it is better to tear up their paychecks and let them blow away in the fall breeze instead?

Finally, a small piece of Grandma Bell’s Apple Cake, waved in front of Lucy's huge nose, brought her around to sanity and restored her resolve to never, ever get in the way of any food.......for any reason  - no, not ever….. a wise thing for all of us to remember.

This weeks bake required a run to Whole Foods to get some spelt, barley, farro (emmer) and einlorn since Lucy’s Pantry was nearly dry – oh my!   Since half the whole sprouted grains in this bread are very low gluten or weakly so by nature, Lucy thought that by upping the hydration to the sky's limit would really make it hard on me and test my skill at making a Frisbee as well as anyone else could – so it came nearly  80% hydration.

Another change is that instead of retarding the hard bit 3 stage levain build for 24-48 hours when it doubled after the 3rd build.  Lucy decided on a new experiment.  After it doubled, we stirred it down to see if it would double again and really bring out the yeast side of the culture -  just in case there was a Frisbee in my future.  The levain ended up being 15% pre-fermented flour up 50% from our usual 10%

We did a 1 hour autolyse wth the salt sprinkled on top but no levain.  Another change was to do 3 sets of 4 slap and folds on 30 minute intervals after the 3 sets of 30 slap and folds on 30 minute intervals.  Normally we would do 2 sets of 4 stretch and folds on 45 minute intervals after 3 sets of 30 slap and folds.

No bulk ferment on the counter since the kitchen was still 85 F in the Fall.  A 21 hour bulk retard was used instead of a shaped one.  It surely would have over roofed in the fridge if it was shaped,  Once the dough came out of the cold  we did a quick reshape into a boule using 4 gentle stretch and folds and then let the dough rest for 1 hour,

Then we did a final shape into a squat batard, placed it seam side up in a rice floured basket, bagged it and let it final proof on the counter for 40 minutes before firing up Big Old Betsy to 450 F with the combo cooker inside.  Once the oven beeped it was at temperature, we let it go another 10 minutes before un-molding onto parchment on a peel, slashing and loading it into the cooker.

Don't forget those quick breads that are so good in the winter with stews like this corn bread.

We left the lid on for 18 minutes and then turned the oven down to 425 F – convection this time.  After 5 minutes of dry heat, we took the bread out of the cooker to let it finish baking on the stone for about another 10 minutes.  It blistered, bloomed and sprang just fine under steam and browned well enough without it.  We will have to see how the crumb looks when we slice it for today’s lunch sandwich.

The crumb came out fairly open, moist and very soft.   This bread is more sour than usual, yea..... and the sprouted grains,in this combination also deliver a great flavor that satisfies. I have no complaints and there is plenty of yum when it comes to this bread.  

Grandma Bell's.useful Apple Cake.

Lucy says not to forget a salad with that Arizona monsoon sunset