The Fresh Loaf

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Looking for general rules to convert recipes to overnight, two part

rrralec's picture
rrralec

Looking for general rules to convert recipes to overnight, two part

Hey all, 

First time poster, long time reader. What a great resource. 

 

Looking for a bit of advice on a standard way of converting recipes to a two part biga/sd starter + soaker method. 

This bread, from Reinhart's WW, is the spent grain recipe and it turned out perfectly for me. 
I was happy to give the bread time overnight with grains and a biga (yeast,flour,water) in the fridge and a soaker (flour,water,salt) at room temperature. 

Gave me very little work other than combining and proofing after taking off the chill. 

What I'm hoping for now is advice on how to convert other recipes to this method. I've worked through most of the BBA but my heart has always been set on whole wheat, so my hope is to try and adapt recipes from the Laurel Bread Book to this split 12 or so hour preferment/soaker method. 

What I'm wondering is how to take a recipe that calls for, say 750g ww flour and some additional grain (eg oats)  with normal timing/instructions for two proofs and 600 strokes to an overnight preferment and soaker method. 

Tried it the other day for the oatmeal bread:

-cooking up the oats, sitting overnight.

-biga/preferment with half the recipes flour, half yeast and half (or more) water to make a good feeling dough

-soaker with half flour, all salt, half water. 

Combined them in the morning to somewhat unsatisfactory results, hydration feeling off and a messier combination than the spent grain recipe. 

I noticed the Reinhart preferment and soaker are at about 75% hydration whereas mine was slightly lower around 66%.. 

To summarize this growing, long-winded question: how can I split up a direct recipe's total flour into a soaker and biga (or sourdough) for an overnight retardation. Hoping for a blanket general method that I can start with and adapt according to feel..

 

Thank you! 

Janetcook's picture
Janetcook

Ran across your request and the answer is YES you can.  I have done it with all of my 100% ww recipes and have converted all recipes, including  the ones in Laurel's book to this 'method'.  I bake exclusively with freshly milled whole wheat and my sourdough starter.

I used txfarmer's method as outlined in this blog as my basis:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21575/sourdough-100-whole-wheat-oatmeal-sandwich-bread-whole-grain-breads-can-be-soft-too

Have fun!

Janet

 

barryvabeach's picture
barryvabeach

rrralec,  do you have Reinhart's Whole Grains book.   He uses the epoxy method in a number of different breads.  I never broke it down precisely, but working backwards, I would make a total list of ingredients,  from that takes half the flour, and  half the water water and one eighth of the yeast and makes a biga, the rest of the flour, water, and half the salt go into the soaker.  On baking day, you combines both, add the remaining half of the salt, and then the remaining 7/8ths of the yeast.  I used that method to make a version of Jason's Quick Ciabatta, and it comes out great.    

rrralec's picture
rrralec

Perfect, thank you both. 

I will give these two ways a shot.