10 Grain Cereal Sourdough

This was inspired from the Tartine 3 porridge breads. I decided to try doing my own thing and to let go of watching the clock and watching the dough instead. It actually worked pretty well.

My starter is a 66% rye starter that is kept in the fridge as per DAB's method. I started with 11 grams and did 3 builds before using it with my dough. The flour used was high extraction flour from a local miller.

The day before making the dough, I toasted 200 g of Bob's Red Mill 10 grain cereal in a frying pan and then cooked it with 400 g of water. I ended up with 500 grams of cooked grains which cooled overnight.

As to the dough itself, I autolysed 100 g light rye, 100 g whole grain spelt, 100 g whole grain gamut, 200 g high extraction flour and 500 all purpose flour, which is similar to american bread flour due to the high protein content, with 700 g water. This sat for a couple of hours. 

I then added 200 g of 100% hydration levain from above and 23 g of salt. I folded the dough for a few minutes to incorporate everything. About 10 minutes later, I added the 500 g of cooked grains as well as 50 grams of water. Mixing it using the pincer as well as the fold method didn't seem to be distributing things evenly so I resorted to the slap and fold method until everything as homogeneous. I let it rest for another 10 minutes and then did another set of folds. I rushed the folding times because I had to go out. The dough was left at room temperature for a couple of hours to start rising and then it was put into the fridge until the next day.

The next day, the dough had risen about 30%. I did a cold pre-shape, let it rest for about an hour, shaped it and then let it proof in my proofing baskets. When it looked about 50% risen (wild guess on my part), I baked it in a covered dutch oven for 20 minutes at 500 degrees, then 10 minutes at 450 degrees, and then took the lid off. It continued to bake for another 30 minutes before I got the colour I wanted.

I am pretty happy with the crumb. It is nice and moist and the crust was nice and crispy. We dove into one loaf about an hour after baking and the toasted flavour really came through. Here is the required crumb shot.

I think that I am getting a better crumb by using the letter fold method of shaping. I used this for both the pre-shape and the shaping and seemed to get a better skin on my boules. 

I will definitely be making this again.