November 30, 2020 - 11:31am
(3-recipe) Journey to perfect a 100% WW Sourdough Pullman Loaf
Recap:
The wife has tasked me to come up with a sandwich bread recipe our family can bake at least once a weak to completely replace our regularly purchased box store sandwich bread.
This post is for the recipe for my third attempt to make the perfect loaf.
Requirements
- Soft and light
- 100% whole wheat
- Recipe must be easily repeatable and easy to execute.
- Recipe must be designed for a covered pullman loaf pan.
(https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/pain-de-mie-pan-pullman-loaf-pan-13) - My 12 year old daughter must be able to bake the bread from start to finish
- Sourdough leavening only.
- From start to finish, the bread must be completable in 1 day.
- Process must exist to enable the baker to know with reasonable certainty that the loaf is perfectly proofed.
- Dough needs to contain a few softened chewy seeds, grain berries, etc. for texture and flavor.
Modifications from Previous Bake
- I overproofed my dough just a bit last bake when I pushed the proof to maximum rise. I waited until the aliquot hit 250% before loading the loaf into the oven. This next bake, I am going to load the loaf when the aliquot is at 200%.
- The crumb on the loaf was slightly too open last bake. This was due to the loaf being untouched too long during proofing, letting the air bubbles get too big and less evenly distributed... open crumb is normally preferred by me, but not for sandwich bread. For this next bake, I am going to only proof for 1 hour.
- The dough was still to moist, I am going to increase my bake time to 1 hour 30 minutes. I am intentionally trying to overdo the bake time and see what happens... hoping to learn something from the change. I think 1 hour 15 minutes is probably more correct, but I'd rather overdo things and then back off versus, hitting the bake time just right and never knowing if a few more minutes would have been better, if that makes any sense.
Third Attempt
Ingredients
- 60g (12%) sourdough starter (50:50 hard red)
- 50g rolled outs
- 30g (6%) honey
- 10g (2%) non-iodized salt
- 30g (6%) virgin olive oil
- 475g (95% if you include rolled oats) well water
- 450g hard white wheat (sifted to remove bran)
- sifted bran to be used as topping
Process
- 0:00: In large mixing bowl, add: 475g of boiling water, 50g rolled oats, 30g honey, 10g salt. Mix and let sit for 10 minutes.
- 0:10: Mix in 30g olive oil
- 0:11: Without kneading, mix the 450g of hard white wheat to combine into a shaggy mess. Let autolyze for 10 minutes
- 0:21: Smear 60g starter over the top of the dough mess. Use mixer or hand to knead at medium speed for 10 minutes.
- 0:26: Transfer dough to proofing container with lid. Siphon off 20g of dough to aliquot jar.
- Estimate a 5 hour rise time, but will move to next step when aliquot jar shows 2x rise.
- 5:26: Preshape dough into ball, let sit for 10 min.
- 5:36: Shape dough into log and place into prepared pullpan pan, cover with plastic wrap.
- Estimate a 1 hour rise time, but will move to next step when aliquot jar shows 2.25x rise.
- 6:00: Preheat oven 375dF
- 6:36: sprinkle bran on top of loaf, put lid on pullman and stick in oven for 1 hour 30 min.
- 8:06: Pull from oven, transfer loaf to rack. Let rest until cool, probably 1.5 hours.
- 9:36: Slice using slicer then put loaf in plastic bread bag to keep it soft.
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Comments
Tex!
Thanks for posting this! I'm psyched!
Your list of requirements is EXACTLY what the doctor ordered! I wish I had more experience to bake along with you.
I have time enough to refresh my starter in anticipation of a Saturday bake.
Let's see... You want to pull that loaf out of the oven eight hours after starting. Wow! Could that be even possible?
At what temperature will you proof? Have you ever done something sourdough-ish that quickly before?
I'm going to try this....
Murph
Murph: a few things to keep in mind about ferment times..
Whole wheat ferments faster than white flour.
Home-milled whole wheat ferments faster than store-bought whole wheat.
Note that:
There's 6% honey in the formula, so the sugar also speeds it up.
He mentioned elswehere that his ambient temp is 76 F.
He's using all the water at boiling temp to soak the oats, letting it sit/cool 10 minutes before adding flour, so the dough is very warm. Then letting it sit/cool 10 minutes more before adding starter. So it is still warm when the starter goes to work. Warmer dough = faster ferment.
Net: his 6.25% pre-ferment flour, 30 / (450 + 30), is in line with the total ferment + proof time.
But, as I postulated in a comment on his other thread, scalding all the flour is likely throwing things off in terms of % rise during ferment. and inhibiting the baking off of moisture. My thoughts are that the scald makes the dough glue like, and causes it to hold on tighter to the moisture.
Scalding rye flour is common, but this is the first formula I've seen for an all wheat loaf where the flour is scalded. My memory is foggy, but I seem to recall that even with rye, not all the flour is usually scalded.
Murph, I concur with everything idaveindy said about how an 8 hour rise is possible with this recipe (hot dough, 76dF ambient temp, percentage of starter, sugar speeding up the process).
I would like to add 2 things.
1. My starter is very strong. I used to maintain a weak starter and this recipe would not have worked with a weak starter. If I had a weak starter, I probably would have needed an overnight preferment to give the sourdough extra time to revive.
2. Not exactly related to the 8 hour rise... but my plan is to get my daughter involved in baking the loaf every day. Because of the amount of variables that go into how long the dough takes to rise and the difficulty it is to guess when the dough has properly proofed. Because of that, that is why I am experimenting with using the aliquot jar, so far I am loving the aliquot jar! I think, at least after 2 bakes, it seems it will be possible to remove the guess work for my daughter and have your use the aliquot jar to decide when to go from step A to step B to step C, versus her having to feel the dough or use the clock. We had a freeze last night and my house is at 68 dF, so I am interested to see how the timing of today's bake will go.
idaveindy, you wrote:
"But, as I postulated in a comment on his other thread, scalding all the flour is likely throwing things off in terms of % rise during ferment. and inhibiting the baking off of moisture. My thoughts are that the scald makes the dough glue like, and causes it to hold on tighter to the moisture"
A few things:
Even though there is only a 10 minute wait, the water is not very hot at the end of the 10 minutes (me gauging it by finger touch). If I had to guess, I would say the water is only 100-110 dF. I attribute the lower temp mainly due to the very thick metal bowl I am soaking the oats in from my ankersum mixer (3x as much metal as a kitchenaid mixing bowl). Secondarily the room temp honey, salt, and oats bring the temp down too. So, when I get to the point of dumping the flour in, I don't think it is getting scalded and the temp is quickly reduced as soon as the flour hits it, my guess is the flour brings the temp down to 90dF. Considering (a) home milled flour can get up to 120dF in my nutrimill during the milling process and (b) my last two bakes using the same process yielded +250% rises, I am thinking the hot water is not negatively impacting the rise ability.
However, I do think the hot water might be helping speed up gluten development and hydration of the bran, which would probably help the rise.
I too had the concerns when I originally decided on the process, but I figured I wouldn't add the flour at the 10 minute mark if the oat/water mixture felt too hot. It didn't feel too hot so I proceeded with the plan. I was still a bit concerned about impacting the nutrients in the flour and possibly inhibiting sourdough growth that way, but like I wrote earlier, it doesn't seem to have affected my rise.
For your curiosity and mine, I am going to take a temperature reading of everything during my bake this morning. I am interested to see what the actual temps are.
In the photos, the loaf might look small, but that is only because my recipe is intentionally undersized for my 14" pullman loaf pan. Why did I do that? Because I didn't want to bake huge loaves while I was experimenting. As I get closer to the final recipe, I will increase the ingredients to properly fill the 14" pullman. Someone else suggested I buy a smaller pullman for experimenting, but I am hesitant to buy another pan... I don't know where to store the ones I already own.
I just measured the temp... mostly. After I got started I realized I had used up all of my hard white wheat. So, I was only able to do all the steps up to the point just before I add the flour to the water, oats, honey, salt, and olive oil mixture. My flour is milling as I type. I'll have to measure the flour/water temp next bake.
Here are the results:
I use an electric kettle to boil the water.
Boiled Water measured inside kettle seconds before pouring: 213dF
Water, Oats, Salt, Honey mixed to combine with metal spoon in Ankersum bowl:
Temp measured immediately: 162dF
Temp measured after 10 minutes with 2 short mixes with spoon during 10 minutes: 112.8dF
45 seconds later after adding 30g of extra virgin olive oil: 106.9dF
Tex,
I think you have a couple of good ideas... aliquot jar and baking by feel.
I've read a few of your other bakes (this one, of course). You have many years of experience. Your daughter is picking up now. Baking by feel, to my mind, is invaluable. And, thar jar will confirm what your senses tell you.
I believe idaveindy is correct. Only some of the flour is scalded.
Dabrownman was good at scalding and baking by the seat of his pants. He has a few whole wheat bakes in his blog. Scalding, too. But he always managed to get some sprouts in there. That might start to over-complicate things but is probably worth a read.
Murph
"I believe idaveindy is correct. Only some of the flour is scalded."
At first I thought... Nahhhh... there is no way I scalded the flour at 108dF. I mean, I have made Tzangzhong a few times in the past, you basically make a roux and make that part of the dough, and the temperatures you get the roux up to are much hotter than 108dF. And, my rise isn't suffering, or at least not that I can tell.
But, after your comment and idaveindy's comments, I figured I better do my due diligence.
https://blog.benchandbowl.com/2020/01/13/scalding/
I learned some new things. I guess I am probably partially scalding the dough even at 108dF.
With regards to scalding that causes starch gelatinization, I am probably not doing any of that:
"Swelling temperature varies between starches. For example, wheat starch starts to swell at about +65C while rye starch needs only +55C. In general most of starches swell in the range between +55C to +85C."
But, with regards to scalding that causes pentosan swelling, I am almost certainly causing that to happen to some degree:
"Pentosans usually swell between +30C to +50C and form sticky pastes which can trap gases similarly to swollen starches."
Hi, idaveindy,
Thank you for the reminder on fermentation times. With all that Tex is doing, it does seem likely that he could get it done in a day. That would be pretty cool.
But, wow, that's a lot to ask of a 12 year-old. Of course, it IS Texas and I bet she's been helping her Dad right along so she has some experience...
I'm digging this bake!
Murph
She has a knack for cooking and baking, but yeah, it will be a feat and something for her to be proud of if she can pull off a few good bakes. I think though, if I can remove a lot of the guesswork, remove any difficult dough handling, and remove any scoring, then she will be setup for a good time.
dabrownman has done everything. Every time I read one of his recipes I am reminded how much I still have to learn.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/46316/walnut-cranberry-sunflower-seed-sprouted-8-grain-sourdough