2 nd try at Michel Suas Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread - Advanced Bread and Pastry
This week I tried Michel Suas' whole wheat sourdough bread for the second time. I made four pounds of dough and divided it into 2 loaves (2 lbs each). The leavening is an overnight levain. After reading Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads I decided to take a little different approach and prior to mixing the levain into the final dough I mixed the whole wheat and bread flour (for the final dough) together and mixed in the water and let it stand for 5 hours. It became very soft and creamy. Then I when the levain was ready I mixed it into the final dough mixture and let it stand for about 20 minutes. Then added the salt and gave it a good 8-10 minute hand mixing using Richard Bertinet's "slap and fold" method. During bulk fermentation I did three stretch and folds at 20 minute intervals. Then divided the dough into 2 equal sizes, shaped it and placed them into heavily floured (50% rice flour/50% AP flour) unlined willow brotforms. I belief soaking the combined final dough flour with the water really made a difference.
You might be interested to know that I used a different knife to score each loaf, which are sitting in front of their respective loaf. The left loaf (right photo, top) was scored with a PureKomachi 5" high carbon stainless steel serated tomato knife. The loaf on the right was scored with a standard serated 5" kitchen knife. I think the PureKomachi does a hugely superior job. I also have the PureKomachi bread knife, which is also a great knife. Hey, I sound like Ron Popeil selling Vegamatics :>).
Anyway, if you like whole wheat bread, well, it doesn't get any better than this. It has great taste, nice mouth feel with a tinge of sourness after swallowing---and terrific flavor.
Howard
Michel Suas Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread - Advanced Bread and Pastry