Fruity Granola Sourdough with Toasted Buckwheat Groats

I had bit and pieces of dried fruit leftover from the holidays and I also had some local made grain free spiced granola that I had bought at the farmer’s market. The granola was rather expensive and there wasn’t a lot of it so I added the dried fruit and toasted groats to boost the volume of the add-ins.

I am also continuing to sift the bran out of the whole grain flour that I mill and use that for the levain. The bran gets used for the first couple stages of levain building and I take some of the unbleached flour from the recipe to make up the rest of the amount needed. I suppose I could take some from the whole grain flour I just milled and sifted but using unbleached flour seems to make my starter very happy.

Recipe:

250 g freshly milled red fife flour

50 g freshly milled buckwheat flour

650 g unbleached flour

150 g multigrain flour

50 g freshly ground flax seed

66 g grain free spiced granola

75 g dried currants

44 g dried cherries

33 g dried chopped apricots

20 g pink himalayan salt

700 g water

100 g buckwheat groats

boiling water to soak groats

50 g kefir

240 g of 80% levain (see instructions below)

1. A couple of days before making the dough, sift the bran out of the freshly milled red fife flour. Place the sifted flour in a bowl and reserve. Weight the bran and add enough flour from the unbleached flour amount to equal 132 g. Use this mixture and 112 g of water in total to feed 19 g of starter in 3 stages. This will make about 240g of a 80% hydration levain. My levain was ready the night before making the dough, so I put it in the fridge overnight. 
2. Place the rest of the unbleached flour in the bowl with the red fife flour. Add the buckwheat flour, the multigrain flour, the freshly ground flax seed, the granola, the currants, cherries and apricots. Cover and set aside.
3. Toast the buckwheat groats in a dry frying pan. Reserve in a separate heatproof bowl. 
4. The morning of making the dough, add 700 g of water to the bowl with the flours and granola mixture, and mix well. Place the dough in a warm spot (82F) and let autolyse for 3 hours. Take the levain out of the fridge and let it warm up along side of the autolysing dough.
5. Boil some water and pour over the toasted buckwheat groats. Let sit for one hour and then drain well. Mix in the kefir and cover.
6. Once the 3 hours is up, add the buckwheat mixture, the salt and 240 g 80% hydration levain. Mix well and do 60 stretches and folds to integrate everything really well. Place the dough back in the warm spot.
7. Ferment by doing 3 sets of stretches and folds 30-45 minutes apart and then one set an hour later for a total of 4 sets. Each set is only 5 or 6 folds going around the dough. 
8. Once the dough is billowy, has lots of irregular bubbles seen through the sides of the bowl or bucket and has bubbles around the edge, the dough is ready to be divided. The dough rose about 50%. This particular dough was ready in 4 hours. I am finding that if I do the autolyse in a warm spot, I can shave an hour or so off the time it usually takes for fermentation. 
9. Divide into 3 equal portions and preshape into a boule. Let rest 15 minutes and then do a tight final boule. Be careful not to degas the dough too much while dividing or shaping.
10. Place seam side down in rice/ap floured bannetons and cover. Put to bed in the fridge for the night.
11. The next morning, preheat the dutch ovens and the oven to 475 F for at least 45 minutes. Before loading the dough, place parchment rounds in the bottom of the pots to prevent sticking. Place the dough seam side up in the screaming hot pots and cover. Bake at 450F for 25 minutes. Remove the lids and continue baking for another 22 minutes at 425F. 
12. Let cool before slicing.

Not the best oven spring but they still look good. They were in the fridge for 17 hours so I wonder if that affected the oven spring.