The Fresh Loaf

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Today's Personal Baking Challenge

JamieOF's picture
JamieOF

Today's Personal Baking Challenge

My wife and daughter love grain breads with plenty of seeds, so they challenged me to bake them one. 

I came across this recipe that looks delicious, but 2 thing concern me; the amount of yeast in this (32 grams of dry) and the hydration of 82%. 

Regarding the hydration, I've never baked anything with rye, or this amount of whole wheat so I am not familiar with the affect the absorbtion qualities will have on the final dough. My thinking is that if it's very wet, it will make it easier to fold in that much seed. 

Recipe: http://www.anitasorganic.com/anitas-corner/german-vollkorn-bread-recipe/

Comments or suggestions?

Also, since I don't have a banneton yet, final proofing will be a challenge, but I'll come up with something. 

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

Yeast conversion would be a higher amount for fresh yeast for dried yeast equivalent.

The recipe says:

14 g fresh yeast (or 28 g dry yeast)

Which straight away is wrong before I've looked at anything else in the recipe.

JamieOF's picture
JamieOF

I thought it was about 3:1 (fresh : dry) but this recipe had me questioning that. 

Would you have a suggestion? I've looked at other recipes for this type of loaf and all that are yeasted seem to have an abnormally high level of yeast to what I'm used to for other loafs. 

Jamie 

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

without having studied the recipe in to fine a detail is the pre-ferment looks ok. Add a decimal point in the added yeast to read 1.4g dried yeast (i'm assuming there is a typo and the lower number is the dried plus it should be a fraction of that) and you have "what looks like" a more correct recipe. But without trying it myself I don't wish to say positively that it'll be fine.

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

It is a very dense but tasty bread. Let me know what you think and we can attempt to convert it to dried yeast for you. Rye as 10-20% of the flour is fine. But a large amount of rye is a totally different animal. So this is one option https://cookpad.com/uk/recipes/286296-sourdough-dreierbrot-rye-spelt-wheat-bread

Another option is for you to take a normal bread recipe and swap 10-20% for dark rye and add in some caraway seeds.

Or you could throw yourself into the deepend and find a recipe for something like borodinsky bread but you'll have to handle the dough completely differently to a bread flour dough.

clazar123's picture
clazar123

As a whole grain baker, one of the things that gets my attention is that she preferments the white flour and does only a short ferment (with no presoak or autolyze) of the whole grain flour. That is backwards. That is totally backwards. Especially when the whole wheat is about half the total flour in the loaf.

Whole wheat needs not only a little extra water but ALSO THE TIME TO ABSORB IT. Those branny bits take time to absorb the water and soften before the dough is baked and that is very important for several reasons. If you don't give it time to absorb before the bake, then they will absorb the water from the beautiful, moist crumb after it is baked.  Have you ever experience a WW loaf that crumbles and your sandwich falls apart in your hands? That is what I mean.

I would advise you either substitute the WW flour for the white flour in the Day 1 but definitely shorten the time to 6-8 hour at room temp (65-75F) or it will ferment into a puddle. 

OR

Reduce the yeast to about 7g, mix everything together but add enough liquid to produce a definitely sticky dough. Knead to windowpane (before adding seeds, I should clarify) and then put the dough into a large greased,covered container in the refrigerator overnight (after adding the seeds). The next morning it should be tacky and almost completely risen. Warm up an hour or so at room temp, shape,proof,bake.

That amount of rye will not have much effect on the dough beyond adding a little tackiness, perhaps. It adds some valuable starchy gel to the crumb and fiber, also.

Another suggestion I have is to use a more proven recipe. Karin's recipes are pretty well proven and she recently had a whole grain,seeded rye contest. She also bakes a lot of wholegrain seeded breads and you will enjoy browsing the recipes.

http://hanseata.blogspot.com/

While the website you linked is lovely and the loaf is picture-perfect, it is a pretty watered-down version of vollkorbrot.

Another prolific and wonderful baker is dabrownman, here on TFL. He keeps an index of his blogs and bakes many wholegrains, sourdoughs and lately, sprouted breads. Take your pick as his recipes are well written and beautifully illustrated.

Bake some delicious fun!

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/48745/dabrownmans-blog-index

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

me being a wonderful baker - Clazar123 is never ever wrong I will add:-)

Karin (hanseata is a real volkorbrot baker from real vorkornbrot land - Hamberg - She is also known as the Hempster for her fondness of hemp seeds in bread - which are not usually used in many volkornbrots)  This is my favorite Hanseata volkorbrot link below -  but it you type in hanseata volkornbrot in the search box you will be rewarded with 2 pages of fine recipes for this bread.  I'm not a fan of the one you are using and when you see Karin's you will understand why.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/35274/cecilienhof-vollkornbrot-bread-honor-potsdam-conference

Happy volkorbrot baking

here is a link to her challege volkornbrot bake -it was almost as fun as her one handed Knight Von Goltz Challenge bake

http://hanseata.blogspot.com/2013/10/cecilienhof-vollkornbrot-when-taste.html

 

JamieOF's picture
JamieOF

....for your replies, advice and links.

I ended up finishing off this loaf today after starting the preferment last night after supper. Only change I made was the yeast quantity, putting only 5 gms in the final mix.

The dough was quite easy to work with, but was a bit of a challenge adding in over 1/2 lb total seed. Here it is pre-rise:

It rose beautifully, but forgot to get a picture.

It baked nicely, I brought it to ~ 205 Deg F (still working on slashing skills)

It's a dense bread, with a nice bite, and wonderful crunch from all the seeds. Interestingly, I (for some reason) spread a little cream cheese on a slice and that compliments the bread flavours nicely.

Now, while I enjoy this loaf, I have nothing realistic to compare it to. I can only imagine the flavours and loaf quality the experienced bakers here get.

 

fotomat1's picture
fotomat1

it as well reducing the yeast to 2g and 10g....baked up nicely a 10x5 loaf pan unslashed. I too like seeds in bread but 8 plus ounces in a 2 pound loaf was a bit much!!