Barley Bread Experiment
This is my first time milling and attempting to bake with barley flour.
At this point I have a levain of 42g starter (AP, 100% hydration & just fed to active) with 156g water and 156g barley flour (just milled & whole, not pearled, unsifted). It is about 16 hrs ripe and smells wonderfull.
I'm thinking that I could build a dough about now, but thought I would ask for advice before I commited.
I noticed the barley levain (at 100% hydration) has a fairly weak gluten structure (almost cake-like) yet is not thin at all, in fact, very near a final dough in consistency. It is thick.
I did a search on TFL and came across Pmccool's post of Tom Jaine's Baking Bread at Home recipe for Barley Bread (posted all the way back in 2006). It seems like a good jumping off point, but I don't know.
I'm thinking I will build 50/50% barley to bread flour and not add any other various flours at this point, to highlight the barley. The original recipe comes in at about 72% hydration, but I wonder if that will be enough?
Do you think if I put the levain in the fridge overnight, that I would be doing it harm? I'm thinking not, but with barley, I don't know. In the morning, I will have 5 different types of berries that should be at least chitted, that I would consider adding raw.
I don't have any heavy cream, as the recipe calls for, but I do have some nice sour cream I could use. Perhaps no cream of any kind is not really going to be an issue.
When I do build the final dough, I think I will add some more active starter.
Any thoughts at all are welcome. I am only constrained by the levain I have built so far and am open to all suggestions as to how to move forward.
Thanks,
dobie
If you have built your starter but don't wish to use it yet then refrigerate till ready. I've used starter previously matured a week earlier. Takes longer though so you'll have to adjust timings when it's used.
Best of luck Dobie. Don't see too many barley loaves and sounds very interesting!
Edit: I've just noticed you used a barley levain. Still don't see a problem though. A starter is for the yeasts and lab. Even though barley has a weaker gluten structure the starter will still do its job. Well, makes sense to me.
Abe
Thank you for the response. I have taken your advice and but the levain in the fridge for the night.
I will reconsider it all in the AM.
dobie
ps - what I thought was a bag of rye, was barley, so Arrogant Bastard bread is on hold (I want to be true to that recipe). I decided to mill some barley up anyway, and that is how I got here. It'll be fun, I'm sure.
to refresh my memory. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/1054/oat-barley-loaf
note there were changes made to the hydration
Mini
Thanks for pointing out the change in hydration. I will take it to 78%.
In the interest of keeping it simple and letting the flavor of the barley shine, I am will forgo any cream at all. I will also only add chitted barley berries if any at all.
So the recipe will be 50/50% barley to wheat flour (Bread and whatever % the AP in the starter works out to be), 1.8% salt and water (to 78% hydration) and maybe some chitted barley berries in the last S&F.
Clearly I'm expecting a fairly dense loaf (probably will be a boule in the DO) and not a fluffy sandwich loaf. We'll see. It's all just an experiment.
I hope I don't get the rope. I always save a bit of anything new just to see how it ages and I will definitely do so with this.
Thanks again,
dobie
so it's there for the fat content. Cream beats into butter with a little whey runoff. So it's more likely the fat not the milk that's important to the recipe.
I'm having fun with dumper recipes. Just dumping stuff together. Am I brave or stupid I don't know which. Fun for a rainy cold day expecting snow flakes to fall anytime. I just toasted coconut flakes... more like a flour. I had a bad country for rope. (Korea, that was some pretty trashy flour.) Chances are you won't get it.
Since this is my first time using barley, I think I'm going to skip the fat content for the moment. I'm not really trying to reproduce the bread in the recipe, rather use it as a jumping off point.
I really want to get a feel for working with barley and keeping any variations reduced will help me zero in on those qualities. If it bombs completely, I'm sure I'll still learn quite a bit.
I think 'dumper' recipes are great fun as you really get to exercise your instincts (not that that's what I'm really doing here). This is more like a science project than a proper bread to my thinking, but who knows what will happen?
Thanks
dobie
Butter is around 80% butter fat while heavy cream, also known as whipping cream, is 35 to 40% butter fat depending on where you are from so if you are substituting with butter cut the amount in half and add some liquid.
Gerhard
Gerhard
Good point on the butter. I think I'm gonna just eliminate any oil or cream this first time (unless you think it will just ruin the bread if I do).
I really want to see how the barley flour works without any possible interaction from anything else. I don't even think I'll add the chitted barley berries.
I'll be building the final dough in about an hour and hopefully bake it off tonight. Or when ever. It'll let me know when it's ready.
Thanks for the insight.
dobie
or a Yak out back. :) (or know young Yolanda Yorgensen)
http://www.yowangdu.com/tibetan-food/tsampa-dish.html
No Mini
No yak in the back as of yet. That is a very interesting link. Thank you.
BTW, I built the dough as I threatened and at this point I've given up on S&Fs, slap and folds or even straight ahead kneading. I am not only not developing any gluten structure but I am afraid I might be tearing apart what little is there.
At this point, I am looking at a loaf pan bake rather than free form and will just let it rise as much as it will from here on out and then bake.
dobie
ps - I might have spoken too soon. I just checked on it and now that I'm leaving it alone, it is proofing quite well. So I transferred it to a slightly larger vessel, and it is maintaining it's form better than I expected.
I've tried making biscuits from barley flour. They were leavened with cream of tartar (acid) and baking soda (alkali). They had great flavor but were a bit crumbly.
I like your idea of 50-50 or 25-75 wheat/barley flour.
a low GI. I try to put some in every multi-grain bread we bake, even if Lucy doesn't call for it. Barley is tough on gluten development.i have slapped and folded a 90% hydration barley bread for 10, 5 and 5 minutes followed by 3 sets of stretch and folds with little satisfaction. I didn't pan it but it could have been easy enough, A 505 whole grain at 78% should be similar i would think. Bet this one tastes pretty good in the end. either way
happy baking
So, the verdict is in and much was learned.
http://i1037.photobucket.com/albums/a454/baguette/20151121BarelyExpTopSm_zpsikrxqgwn.jpg?t=1448303278
http://i1037.photobucket.com/albums/a454/baguette/20151121BarelyExpCrumbSm_zpswnwlsbix.jpg?t=1448303468
Sorry the pics are only in link form and not embedded, still having problems with photobucket.
This was really an experiment and not intended as a proper recipe.
The final dough weighed in at about 564g at nearly 79% hydration.
I built the levain with 42g of recently fed starter (100% AP), 156g fresh milled barley (whole, not pearled and not sifted) and 156g water.
After 24 hrs (about 8 in the fridge), I added to the levain 102g fresh fed starter, 84g Bread flour, 18g water and 6g salt.
The flour ended up being 50% barley, 27% Bread and 23% AP flour. If I had been smart, I would have fed my starter with Bread flour, not AP, but...,
I gave up on S&Fs and Slap&Fs as it had little to no effect.
I used just a bit of bench flour in an attempt to tension the loaf, but it was not too effective.
I coated the loaf generously with rice flour (coarse ground brown basmati) and let it proof in a 5 x 7 inch Pyrex casserole dish (just looking for something that was an appropriate size). It proofed in under 2 hrs, way less then I expected.
I put it into a 525F oven and turned the heat down to 465F. When I looked at it 10 minutes later, there had been a modest spring but seemingly not as baked as I would have expected, so I left the oven at 465F.
Ten minutes later, same thing, so I left the temp the same.
Ten minutes later (30 total in) the crust was a light brown and the loaf quite spongey feeling. I reduced the temp to 400 for another 10 minutes. Then oven off, door cracked for 10 more.
It was clearly over baked, the crust was thick and even tho it was reasonably moist inside, it could have been more so. It collapsed just a bit while cooling (14 hrs before I cut into it).
The sour was about a 7 on scale of 1-10. Even tho the salt was 1.9%, I think it was a bit much, as I've come to feel with any sourdough bread I've made recently.
The flavor was nothing spectacular and I think Mini Oven said it well, that the 'barley just goes along for the ride' rather than adding much in the way of flavor. It reminded me of rye in texture and crumb.
I think I will do something very similar with rye, next.
Anyway, thank you all for the help. It was a good learning experience.
dobie