Recent bakes 6-7-15: A couple of Hamelman's wheat and rye sourdoughs
Pain au Levain with mixed sourdough starters
Last week, I baked Hamelman's "66 Percent Sourdough Rye." Searching my TFL blog, I found I hadn't made this bread since 2008! This bread is leavened with a rye sour fed with Medium rye. It is interesting to make in that the dough handles like a high-percentage rye (very sticky with not much gluten development) yet the rye flavor is not dominent. It does have the advantage, shared with other high-rye-percentage breads, of brief bulk fermentation and proofing, which makes it a quick bread to make, assuming you have elaborated the sour the preceding day. This is a mellow, tasty, "all-purpose" bread, to my taste. Good fresh and toasted. It's a great bread for sandwiches.
Well, I had made way too much rye sour for that bread and had a lot left over which provided a perfect excuse to make Hamelman's "Pain au Levain with mixed sourdough starters." This is also a bread I had made before, but not for some time - not since 2011. As the name implies, this bread uses both a wheat flour fed liquid levain and a rye sour. But it is basically a white bread with 84% bread flour, 8% rye (all in the sour) and 8% whole wheat. This formula is also remarkable for using only 16% pre-fermented flour. Yet, with that mix of levains, the bulk fermentation is very vigorous and takes no longer than Hamelman's usual 2.5 hours for his Pains au Levain, and that is without any commercial yeast.
I chose to cold retard the formed loaves overnight (about 16 hours, actually). They had about 45 minutes of proofing before refrigeration and about 2 hours at room temperature before baking.
The crumb was typical for a 68% hydration large loaf. On tasting a slice after the loaves had completely cooled, the crust was crunchy. The crumb was moderately chewy. The crust flavor is sweet and nutty - very flavorful as anticipated with a bold bake. The crumb flavor was quite complex. The flavors have not yet melded, and the rye and whole wheat flavor tones are identifiable. There is a late-appearing sourdough tang that is quite prominent. All in all, this bread is delicious with many discernible flavors which I expect will have mellowed by tomorrow morning.
Anyone who enjoys any of Hamelman's Pains au Levain should be sure to give this one a try. I like them all, and I hope I remember to keep this one in my "rotation."
Happy baking!
David