Tritordeum Baguettes
Between a fair amount of time away from home and baking the same old reliable stuff, I haven't been much of a blogging presence around these parts lately.
On our last morning in Trieste last month, I stopped into the small Despar supermarket to check out their flour section and came across a flour called Tritordeum, which I had never heard of before. Those in mainland Europe may be familiar with it as well as a few old-timers on TFL who may recall reading our Abel Sierra's few postings about this flour in 2014, including a posting for baguettes [1].
Tritordeum is a new hybrid grain, a cross between barley and durum, originally bred and cultivated in Spain (hence Abel's familiarity with it) and available mostly only in Spain and Italy and perhaps a few other European countries. I picked up a 500g bag and slipped into my suitcase for the long ride home.
A single bag wasn't going to get me very far and, indeed, I used all 500g on this dough. No room for do-overs, this was a one-shot deal for me.
Somewhat following Abel's outline, I changed around a few things. Here is his writeup on his related YouTube entry [2]. Even for the non-Spanish speakers, the majority of this should be understandable:
- Autólisis de 15 minutos. Amasar todos los ingredientes hasta conseguir una masa elástica pero no muy fina. Dejar reposar en bloque unas 2 horas en un lugar fresco. Doblar la masa una vez en medio de la fermentación en bloque. Formar con delicadeza. Fermentación final de una hora, aproximadamente. Hornear a alta temperatura con vapor, y bajar a 200 grados al cabo de unos minutos.
Consejos a la hora de trabajar con tritordeum: no amasar en exceso. No sobrefermentar. Meter al horno cuando la masa aún esté joven. Horno caliente y con vapor.
I didn't have enough tritordeum @20% prefermented flour to also make the levain. Here are differences:
- 125% hydration AP levain vs. his presumed 100% hydration Tritordeum levain.
- Added a pinch of Diastatic Malt Powder to compensate for this unmalted flour. I don't have a clue whether this is kaput or not, having bought it 4 years ago and can't recall the last time that I used it.
- Overall hydration at 70 % vs. Abel's 65%.
- Autolyse 20 min. vs. Abel's 15 min.
- 75 French Folds, 5 minute rest, 75 FF more vs. Abel's modest bench-top kneading.
- Letter Folds at 45 and 90 min. vs. Abel's 1 fold at 60 min. 2 hr. total bulk rise before the retard.
Due to the long cold retard, I eliminated the IDY.
The dough was magnificently easy and handleable throughout the French Folds, and incredibly extensible during my bench-top Letter Folds. A dream. Off to cold retard it went. And that's when Happy Days [3] ended and trouble in River City [4] began.
Upon divide, and pre-shape I realized I was dealing with a wholly different animal (vegetable?). This dough was quite moist, still unbelievably extensible. But getting a baguette shape out of it was a step away from trying to wrangle cats. As the dough is a hybrid of barley and durum, I opted to coat two of the three in sesame seeds - my go to version for a semolina bread. And even that was a challenge.
I was pretty dejected as I placed them onto a well floured couche for the remainder of their overnight retard.
I can state with certainty that this was right up there with one of the two most difficult doughs that I have tried to shape so far. And no second chances. I unfurled the couche early this morning to find that they had flattened out. Grr. Scoring them was less of a challenge than I anticipated, and off they went into a steamed 460dF oven.
Surprisingly, the dough was quite forgiving as it baked, and although I am unimpressed with the final grigne (for me) and the baguettes are still flat, the results are way better than I could have anticipated. And most surprisingly is how open the crumb is. So far the taste is most similar to a semolina bread. And yes, the crumb is that yellow.
You can read about Tritordeum here [5].
The 500g bag with my bubbling AP levain in the background.
Post French Folds, when the blob was still well behaved.
3 baguettes/long batards x 350g
And just for fun:
Flours in a Porec, Croatia [6] supermarket
Flours in a small market in Krajska Gora, Slovenia [7] in the midst of the magnificent Julian Alps.
alan