Hamelman 5-grain community bake, take 2 + crumb shots
And an experiment in scoring.
Having fallen in love with the taste of this loaf and avidly read all the accounts of the different experiences with this bake, I was ready to take another shot at it. Abe had suggested in passing that I try baking three loaves, each with different scoring.
Sure, why not?
I decided this time, too, to try doing the whole procedure from mix to bake in the same day, rather than overnight retarding.
Monday night
- fed my rye levain 1:2:2 for the first build
Tuesday morning
- built second stage of levain
Tuesday night
- built last stage of levain
- made soaker with pearl barley (this is a change), flax seeds, black sesame seeds (also a change) and pre-toasted multi-grain flakes
- measured out flours (note: the previous bake used wonderful, strong whole wheat bread flour from Abe. This time around, I used up the last 33g of the stuff and topped off the WW portion with T110, which is like first-clear flour) and whisked them together with the salt
Wednesday mid-morning
- measured out water, reserving 10% -- just in case
- mixed everything together, first using pincer and fold and gradually adding all the reserved water, then a few SLAFs.
- let the dough rest for 30 minutes and did a first set of folds
- after 45 minutes, was going to give a second set of folds, but it didn't seem necessary:
- I let it sit out for another half hour, then tucked it into the fridge while we went to the movies. When we got home, this is what it looked like, so I removed it from the fridge to warm up for a bit while dinner was put together, eaten and cleared.
- weighed and divided the dough, remembering to stick a little into my little jar (lead photo). In all, there is a difference of 5g between the heaviest and lightest round of dough, in the neighborhood of 450g apiece.
- Bench rested about 40 minutes, then shaped into mini-batards and dipped in sesame seeds. Looks like a nursery, doesn't it?
- Let rise for another hour or so and prehated the oven. The point of this exercise was to see the rise different types of scoring would yield, all other things being equal. Which meant baking them together. So here we are: a single score along the axis of the loaf, two diagonal scores and one unscored with the seam up
As you might be able to see, in the time that it took to place the other two loaves and score the top one, the single-score loaf had already begun to spread. So shaping needs further work to create more tension across the top of the loaf.
- Baked 25 minutes covered, 22 minutes uncovered.
Fresh out of the oven:
It's hard to tell from these bad photos, but the highest, roundest rise came from the double score, followed by the unscored one (far right). The single straight score definitely gave the lowest rise.
BTW, these were looking a little anemic, so they got popped back into the oven.
What is also interesting is that while they lost a bit of weight during baking (about 70g), the one that lost the least amount was the one in the middle.
Now all I need to do is work some more on the shaping to get nice, round slices like Danny!
Edit: Crumb shots
Two loaves were given away and I kept and cut into the unscored one:
Fortunately, I like the taste and crumb on this one. Shortly after taking these snaps, got into an argument with my mandoline slicer and won't be slapping or stretching or folding for a couple of days!