The Fresh Loaf

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Champlain Sourdough Bread

Crumb Control's picture
Crumb Control

Champlain Sourdough Bread

This is a recipe I got from Trevor J. Wilson, according to Trevor, this is the bread of the Lake Champlain Islands (in Vermont).

I did some minor tweaks to the formula and not because I thought it's going to make it particularly better, just rounded up some numbers because 390g of flour and 20g of Rye make more sense to me than 389g and 19g, maybe I'm going to piss somebody here (because I'm new to SD) but I really can't see how 1g of flour can make a huge difference with the over whole quantities in the formula that people insist on 389g instead of 390.

Plus I have a minor OCD when it comes to numbers, for example, I can't have my TV or radio volume be on 17 or 23 or 41, it has to be even numbers so 22 is fine, 16 or 18, 40 or 42... I can even let 15/25/35/45 slide, but not 43 or 47, never.

Where were we? 

Oh, bread, Lake Champlain, right... so, minor tweaks, adjusted to times to the heat in the desert were I live and what I got is a great loaf, it's 70% hydration so it's a perfect loaf for me to try when coming out of the comfort zone of all white flour where I dwell for a while now.

Formula:

300g Water 
390g White flour
40g Whole Spelt Flour
20g Whole Rye Flour
10g salt

100g starter (100% hydration, white flour)

Started with 30 minutes of autolyse, added the starter, pinched it in, added the salt, slapped and folded a few times, set aside to BF for 2.5 hours, did a stretch and fold every 30-40 minutes.

Pre-shaped, left to rest for 15 minutes and then shaped it, into my banneton and a long retarding in the fridge (overnight, around 9 hours).

Baked in a dutch oven @ 220c covered for 20 minutes and then lowered the temperature to 190c and baked for additional 35 minutes uncovered.
This is something I started doing to try and get a little bit less moisture in my crumb and it worked, it's not dry or anything but with my crappy oven I get a more even bake this way and the crumb is better.

The result is a nice puffy loaf, a deeper taste than the white flour bread I bake weekly, of course, it's hard to describe the taste in words but I get a more "herby" feeling if that makes any sense, the crumb is open but not too open that the butter falls through. the crust is nice golden-brown, with a nice tangy bite, I like it, I like it A-LOT :-)

I feel like this is a great beginner's loaf for mixing flours and dealing with different textures and flavors, the dough wasn't to steaky to handle (something I still struggle with, especially with high hydration) and the result is wonderful.

I'd love to hear your remarks, and if you have tips for me on how to make things better, or if you think I didn't things wrong, lay it on me!

BaniJP's picture
BaniJP

Looks really great! :) Though, and tell me if I'm wrong, the crumb looks quite moist, so it looks underfermented?

Crumb Control's picture
Crumb Control

But it was a bit more than the white flour loaves I baked, do you think I should let it ferment for a bit longer?

This was after 2.5 hours and the temperature was around 32c here.

BaniJP's picture
BaniJP

I can't really say from the pictures, I just know this kind of crumb from underfermented breads. But if you say it's fine, then  good :)

You all got some really active starters here, I usually ferment my doughs like 3 times as long with double the starter amount :D

Crumb Control's picture
Crumb Control

I live in the south of Israel, it's a dry desert and even now when we're approaching the end of the summer, it's 32-36c during the day (sometimes even more) and 18-24c during the night so... when I started following so videos on Youtube everyone was saying "Proof for 5-8 hours" or "take out the SD from the fridge the night before, feed it a leave it outside",,, well, my first loaves over-proofed to the next millennial and once I fed my starter and when to sleep only to wake up the next day and see it overflow from the jar and create a pool of start all over... now I take it out 2-3 hours before I make the dough and it doubles and triples in size.

I use 100g of starter on 450g of flour so I can control the proofing better as well.
All the tips I got here BTW.

Crumb Control's picture
Crumb Control

I will try to give a little bit more time to ferment before I shape and retard it.

BaniJP's picture
BaniJP

Yeah, in your case you don't need much starter if you have temperatures like this. Of course that another level of difficulty since your breads are proofing faster and you have to be more precise with your proofing times.

Crumb Control's picture
Crumb Control

And that was the main problem I had, over proofing.

Took me a while to get to know when a loaf is ready to bake. 

I made the same Champlain bread today for the holiday dinner, let it ferment for an hour longer and added some blueberries, came out amazing!

 

BaniJP's picture
BaniJP

Yeah, that looks much better, you see how much of a difference that hour made! So I read your previous loaf right.

I can imagine that the blueberries also helped a little with their additional sugars, but that's just theory.

Crumb Control's picture
Crumb Control

They weren't fresh blueberries, they were dried so they absorbed some of the moisture from the dough (I think). But yeah, that 1 hour made a big difference, in the crumb and in the crust as well.

The second loaf there was a white flour one, no barriers, it was drier too.