The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Recent Blog Entries

hanseata's picture
hanseata

If anybody wonders why, after a furious start, my Equal Opportunity Baking has somewhat slowed down - that didn't happen only because of my recent trip to Germany.

My last three breads proved to be tricky, they didn't turn out quite right. One was overly spicy, one too sweet and one too dry. On the other hand, they were not so disappointing that I didn't want to deal with them again, writing a bad review, and be done, once and for all. 

So I will get back to them, giving each of them a second chance to live up to their potential.

Though I had purchased "Bread Matters", by Andrew Whitley, a while ago, I hadn't really looked into it before I chose a recipe for my Fair Baking project. The Arkatena Bread, made with a chickpea starter, and inspired by a loaf the author found in a little village bakery in Cyprus, seemed intriguing. And I certainly go for a "bread with a hefty crust, chewy crumb, and intense flavor".

Like many baking book authors, Whitley doesn't cater to the sensibilities of thrifty housewives, making his starter large enough for the needs of small bakery - only to advise you later to discard the surplus. Though I'm not a miser, I hate trashing a perfectly good guitar starter, so my first step in mastering this recipe was recalculating the amounts I really needed for one loaf.

From then on it was pretty straightforward, though I have to admit I cheated a bit with the leaven. From my experiences with GF sourdough I know that chickpea flour (together with other gluten free flours), mixed with water, develops a lively fermenting activity if you just let it sit at room temperature over three days.

I didn't feel the urgent necessity, though, to make a leaven from the scratch, being the proud owner of a couple of healthy and hungry starters. So, instead of going through stage 1, I used a bit of wheat starter in stage 2, deducting the amount of whole wheat and adding the missing chickpea flour (from stage 1) to the production leaven.

Otherwise I followed the recipe instructions closely, but used steam for the bake, a measure Whitley, for some reason, doesn't suggest.

The result was this beautiful bread:

I couldn't wait to try it! But when I took my first bite, the only thing I tasted was FENNEL! Any other, more delicate aroma was completely knocked out.

Being a German, I love breads seasoned with anise, caraway, fennel and coriander - the typical German bread spices. And I do like fennel. But only as a hint of spiciness, not as full frontal attack. Whitley's original recipe has 6 g fennel seeds per 577 g flour = 1%!

We also found the bread could do with a little more salt (it had only 1.2%).

Everything else about the bread was fine, the crumb, the crust - and I still wanted to know how a chickpea leaven could flavor a bread.

So, after my baking break, when I came back from Hamburg, I made another Arkatena bread, this time with a little rye starter as stage 1 leaven. I added 10 g salt (instead of 7 g). And I reduced the pesky fennel to just 1 gram.

As before, the bread turned out beautiful:

I was a little impatient, and probably should have waited another 15 minutes before placing it in the oven, it "exploded" a bit. This time it tasted really nice, with a complex aroma, and still spicy enough with a hint of fennel.

Since I used a bit of mature starter, the overall development of the leaven didn't take 3 days, but only one.

ARKATENA BREAD

FIRST STEP LEAVEN   (45 g)
5 g whole wheat or rye starter
15 g water
15 g garbanzo (chickpea) flour
 
SECOND STEP LEAVEN (91 g)
45 g all first step leaven
19 g water
23 g whole wheat flour
4 g garbanzo (chickpea) flour
 
PRODUCTION LEAVEN (300 g)
91 g all second step leaven
68 g water
28 g whole wheat flour
28 g garbanzo (chickpea) flour
85 g all-purpose flour
 
FINAL DOUGH
100 g whole wheat flour
300 g all-purpose flour
10 g salt
300 g water
1 - 2 g fennel seeds
300 g production leaven (all)


DAY 1:

1. Prepare 3-step starter. Let the first step leaven sit for ca. 6 hours, the second one for ca. 4 - 6 hours, and production leaven for 4 - 6 hours, or overnight.

DAY 2:

2. Mix a dough with all ingredients except fennel and leaven, 8 - 10 minutes of vigorous action. Dough should be soft and elastic (82ºF/28ºC). Add starter and fennel, and work a few minutes more until smooth, but still somewhat sticky.

3. Transfer dough to a moistened work surface, cover with an upturned bowl (sprayed with water). Let rest for 1 hour.

4. S & F, using a scraper in each hand. Dip dough ball gently in a bowl with whole wheat flour, so that it's completely covered. Place in floured proofing basket, seam side up. Let proof for 3 - 5 hours (poke test, mine took about 4 hours).

5. Preheat oven to 425ºF/220ºC, including steam pan. Invert basket onto parchment lined baking sheet. Score 2 - 3 times.

6. Bake for 10 minutes, reduce heat to 400ºF/200ºC, and continue baking for 10 minutes. Rotate, and bake for another 20 - 25 minutes.

NOTE: When I make this bread again, I would try working with autolyse, instead of long "vigorous" kneading.

pmccool's picture
pmccool

Although my posting has been erratic, baking has continued at a fairly steady pace.

The Saturday of the Easter weekend, I baked Beth Hensperger's Sweet Vanilla Challah from her Bread Bible.  It is a favorite of my older grandson and we took a loaf with us for dinner with he and his parents.  I've blogged about it previously.  By the way, if any lasts long enough, it makes some of the best french toast, ever!  The turban shape is still a favorite of mine for its elegance and simplicity:

I also baked some honey whole wheat bread that same day for sandwiches:

This weekend, I managed to squeeze in a pain au levain with whole wheat, from the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking book.  One loaf was served at dinner with friends today and one went home with them (along with a bunch of hostas that were getting too big for their growing area.  Loaf:

Crumb:

I had elected to do some kneading for the dough, followed by a single stretch and fold about 45 minutes into the bulk ferment.  My rationale was that I wanted a finer, rather than more open, crumb.  It worked.  Other tweaks included bumping up the quantities by about 40% to achieve slightly larger loaves and using an autolyse of nearly an hour, which is longer than mentioned in the formula.  Otherwise, I hewed to the directions and was rewarded with some bread that is pleasing to the eye and the tongue.  

Paul

GSnyde's picture
GSnyde

 

As mentioned in my blog last week introducing the 70/20/10 Sourdough with a two-stage retarded levain, my next tweak would be to increase the proportion of whole grains in the levain.  That’s what I did this week.  Instead of using the same blend (70% AP, 20% Whole Wheat and 10% Whole Rye) for each of the two levain builds and the final dough, I put 50 grams more whole grain (and 50 grams less AP) in each of the levain builds, and made up the difference with more AP and less whole grain flour in the final dough.  This was to test the frequent assertion that more whole grain in the levain makes the thingamajigs interact with the deeliebobs, resulting in a sourer, more flavorful and altogether more fabulous sourdough (and some people say I don’t try hard enough to understand the science ….hmphh!!).

The revised formula appears below.

The resulting bread was noticeably sourer, though not the sourest tasting sourdough I’ve had. It was an excellent vehicle for Dungeness crab (the truest test of sourdough in my homeland).  I would rate it a bit superior to last week’s try.  That is, the Saturday bake.  The loaf that retarded Saturday night for baking this morning overproofed before the oven was hot and looks like a worthy doorstop.

Cracks

Crumb

Crab Feed

Doorstop

In spare moments yesterday, I used up several cups of pecans in some nut bars.  Kind of like Pecan Pie, but the topping is less gelatinous and more sticky, and the base is cakier than a pie crust. These are sinfully good.  They come from a recipe found on the interwebs (http://sweetpeaskitchen.com/2010/11/23/pecan-bars/).

SF Country Sourdough With Retarded Whole Grain Levain (Sourer) 4-14-12

Formula (in grams) Yields  approximately 1600 grams of dough

Ingredient

1st Levain Build

2nd Levain Build

Final Dough

Total

Bakers %

Culture/Levain

40 (50% hydr)

330

764

 

 

Water

145

217

278

640

70%

AP Flour

50

100

480

630

69.5%

WW Flour

60

75

49

184

20.3%

Rye Flour

35

42

15

92

10.2%

Sea Salt

 

 

17

17

1.8%

 

Step 1: One evening (two days before baking, so this should be a Thursday or Friday evening if you need a weekend day for the main labor), take 40 grams of your seed starter and dissolve it in 145 grams of cold water (mine was 44 F).  Then mix in the flours. (My seed starter is at 50% hydration, but if yours is different, you can adjust the water to approximate the same hydration in the first build).  Cover and leave at room temperature over night.

Step 2: Next morning (12 hours for me), dissolve the nice bubbly levain in 217 grams of cool water (mine was 78 F).  Then mix in the flours.  Cover and leave at room temperature for 8 to 10 hours until nice and bubbly.  Refrigerate the levain over night.

Step 3:  Next morning, pull the levain out of the fridge and let it warm up for 30 to 60 minutes.  Dissolve the levain in 278 grams of warm water (mine was 85 F) .  Then mix in the flours to a shaggy mass.  Let it autolyse for 45 to 60 minutes.  Mix in 17 grams of sea salt.  I massaged the salt in by hand for about 3 or 4 minutes.  I’d call it moderately short of moderate development.

Step 4:  Primary ferment for 3 or so hours.  Stretch and fold the dough, just 4 or 5 turns each time, at approximately one hour intervals.  I did the two S&Fs in the bowl.   After 3 hours, my dough had increased in size maybe 25 % or so and looked and felt pretty airy. 

Step 5: Divide the dough into two and pre-shape as boules.  Let the dough balls rest 30 to 45 minutes.

Step 6: Shape the loaves as boules or batards and place in floured bannetons.  Cover the bannetons with a damp towel or place them in sealed plastic bags. Proof at room temperature for 1 to 1 ½  hours.  [ALTERNATIVE: After proofing, place covered bannetons in fridge over night.]  I baked one without overnight retardation and one with.  The “same-day” loaf proofed for about 75 minutes.  It passed the poke test.  The second (retarded) loaf was put in the fridge after 60 minutes of proofing, then the next morning warmed at room temperature for about 1 ¾ hours hours before going in the oven.  It was overproofed and ended up being a dark brown hockey puck.

Step 7:  Preheat oven with baking stone and steaming apparatus to 500 F enough in advance so your stone is very well heated.  I use a combination of a 10 inch cast iron pan with lava rocks and Sylvia’s magic steam towels.

Step 8:  When loaves are fully proofed, slash and put in oven.  As soon as the oven returns to 500 F, turn it down to 450 F.  Bake 15 minutes with steam, then an additional 20-25 minutes without steam.  Rotate the loaves if necessary for even browning.  For the retarded loaf, I also sprayed the oven walls with water after about 8 minutes.  I baked the retarded loaf a little hotter, leaving the oven at 475 F for the steamy 15 minutes.

Step 9:  When the loaves are fully baked (205+ F internal temperature and dark crust), turn off the oven and leave the loaves on the stone with the oven door ajar for 10 minutes.

Step 10:  Cool the loaves on a rack for at least an hour.

Enjoy!

Glenn

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

This weekend, I baked another version of my San Francisco-style Sourdough and Hamelman's Flaxseed Rye Bread. 

I baked two large bâtards of San Francisco-style sourdough bread. My procedures were modified to accommodate other demands on my time. My starter was fed only once before mixing the levain, and the activated starter was not retarded. The levain was retarded. The levain was then fermented at 76 rather than 85ºF. (I document these details for my own reference, to see if the differences make a difference. Others may find comparison of the procedures I used among my sequential bakes of this bread of some interest. Or not.)

Preliminaries

I started with my stock refrigerated 50% starter that had been fed two weeks ago. This feeding consisted of 50 g active starter, 100 g water and 200 g starter feeding mix. My starter feeding mix is 70% AP, 20% WW and 10% whole rye flour.

I activated the starter with a feeding of 40 g stock starter, 100 g water and 100 g starter feeding mix. This was fermented at room temperature for 16 hours, then refrigerated for about 20 hours. I then mixed the stiff levain.

Stiff levain

Bakers' %

Wt (g)

for 1 kg

Wt (g)

for 2 kg

Bread flour

95

78

157

Medium rye flour

5

4

8

Water (Warm)

50

41

82

Liquid starter

80

66

132

Total

230

189

379

  1. Dissolve the starter in the water. Add the flour and mix thoroughly until the flour has been completely incorporated and moistened.

  2. Ferment at room temperature for 6 hours. Refrigerate for 12 hours.

  3. Remove from refrigerator and ferment further for 3 hours at 76ºF.

Final dough

Bakers' %

Wt (g)

for 1 kg

Wt (g)

for 2 kg

AP flour

90

416

832

WW Flour

10

46

92

Water

73

337

675

Salt

2.4

11

22

Stiff levain

41

189

379

Total

216.4

953

2000

Method

  1. In a stand mixer, mix the flour and water at low speed until it forms a shaggy mass.

  2. Cover and autolyse for 40 minutes

  3. Add the salt and levain and mix at low speed for 1-2 minutes, then increase the speed to medium (Speed 2 in a KitchenAid) and mix for 6-8 minutes. Add flour and water as needed. The dough should be rather slack. It should clean the sides of the bowl but not the bottom. (Note: Today's dough was considerably looser than any of the previous mixes using this formula. It has been raining heavily. I assume my flours had a higher moisture content. I considered adding flour but did not.

  4. Transfer to a lightly floured board and do a stretch and fold and form a ball.

  5. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly.

  6. Ferment at 76º F for 31/2 to 4 hours with a stretch and fold at 45 and 95 minutes. (Note: Even after the first of these foldings, the dough was very smooth and had good strength. After the second folding, it was quite elastic.)

  7. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces. (Note: I had made 2 kg of dough. I had decided to bake two large bâtards today rather than three or four smaller boules.)

  8. Pre-shape as rounds and rest, covered, for 10 minutes.

  9. Shape as boules or bâtards and place in bannetons. Place bannetons in plastic bags.

  10. Proof at room temperature (68-70º F) for 1-2 hours.

  11. Cold retard the loaves overnight.

  12. The next morning, proof the loaves at 85º F for 3 hours. (If you can't create a moist, 85 degree F environment, at least try to create one warmer than “room temperature.” For this bake, I took two loaves out of the fridge and started proofing them. I took the third loaf out about an hour later and stacked it balanced on top of the other two. I did one bake with the first two loaves and a second bake with the third loaf.)

  13. 45-60 minutes before baking, pre-heat the oven to 480º F with a baking stone and steaming apparatus in place.

  14. Transfer the loaves to a peel. Score the loaves as desired, turn down the oven to 450º F, steam the oven, and transfer the loaves to the baking stone. (Note: These loaves were baked at a lower temperature for a longer time because of their larger mass. A boule of the same weight would require an even longer bake because the center of the loaf is further from the oven heat.)

  15. After 15 minutes, remove the steaming apparatus, and turn down the oven to 425º F/Convection. (If you don't have a convection oven, leave the temperature at 450º F.)

  16. Bake for another 20-25 minutes.

  17. Turn off the oven, and leave the loaves on the stone, with the oven door ajar, for another 15 minutes.

  18. Transfer the loaves to a cooling rack, and cool thoroughly before slicing.

Comparing this bake to previous ones, the crust was thin and crunchy-chewy. The crumb was quite chewy. The flavor was good with a mild sourdough tang and a more prominent flavor from the whole grains. I think the differences are attributable to my having one less feeding of the firm starter and not fermenting it at the higher temperature.

Hamelman's Flaxseed Rye

Hamelman's Flaxseed Rye crumb

This bake was inspired by hansjoakim's recent bake of this bread. Looking through my TFL blog, I found I had only baked this bread once before, back in September, 2009. (See Hamelman's Flax seed rye bread - Thanks, hansjoakim!) That time, I made one large boule. I found the dough extremely slack. This time, I substituted first clear flour for the AP, and the dough was tacky but much less goopy. This time, I made two 500 g bâtards. I need to make more rye breads, if only to practice my "chevron cut" scoring until I get it right!

Recalling how delicious this bread was and how much my wife - not a big rye bread fan - enjoyed it, I am amazed that it's been so long since I baked it again. Once more, I must thank hansjoakim for the prompt to bake this delicious bread. 

The flavor of this bake was as good as I remembered. It was delicious just cooled and the next morning, toasted - a nice accompaniment to pickled herring and scrambled eggs. And, again, my wife enjoyed it a lot. It is telling that she chose it over the San Francisco Sourdough for her own breakfast.

David

 

DoughBoyFresh's picture
DoughBoyFresh

Whole wheat flour sourdough power

     I just baked a new loaf with the help of my new oven thermometer. As it turns out, I've been baking at a seriously reduced temp up until now. This new loaf has all the toasty crust characteristics I was looking for for so long.  You could probably guess it's whole wheat. I do believe this added to the crust color and toasted tang. That whole wheat hullabaloo worried me wobbly, but I can say that it's a myth. What hullabaloo you ask? For some reason, people are always on about how the whole wheat bran will 'cut' up gluten and reduce dough development. Just like there is more than one way to skin a kitty, one doesn't need kneading to build gluten. I just retard the dough in the fridge for a proprietary amount of time. Only after this initial rest do I proceed to knead.

 

arlo's picture
arlo

This isn't a bread picture blog and I apologize. It is more of a catch-up blog for those who have wondered where I have been and what I have been doing in my baking career. No, I am not conceeded, I just remember one or two people asking what I have been up too while I pop in-n-out of TFL on occasions.

It has been quite some time since my last post, and I have plenty of reasons for it too. A seperation between my fiance of five years and I in late Decemeber, opening a new bakery at beginning of the year in Lansing, finishing college in two weeks(!) and now picking between moving to Madison, Wi to work as a pastry chef for the University, or to bake bread at Zingerman's in Ann Arbor.

Of course I face the pain of leaving my small independent bakery where I have been working for a year, and as of three months ago, six days a week work schedule -- the downside of being the only bread baker!! I have learned lots for sure and it has helped me work on my skills even more so in the three years I have been baking for a living. But I must move on... just like when I left Great Harvest after spending two years there.

Lots of choices and going on's in my life for sure. So that is a little window into my life lately. A lot of bumps in my road and at one point I felt like I was at the bottom of the barrel with the seperation in all. When you are scratching the bottom though, the only way from there is up, right?

I'll let everyone know my choice of where I am headed when I make it. Which will be very soon.

 

 

wassisname's picture
wassisname

This is my version of the flaxseed rye posted by hansjoakim a couple of weeks ago.  I couldn’t resist this one.  Not only would it satisfy my ongoing and inexplicable craving for flaxseeds, but it also provided an opportunity to use-up some of the old bread I’ve had frozen and waiting for just such an occasion. 

I put together the soaker and rye sour the night before baking and the next morning both were looking good.  Then I made the mistake of starting the dough before I had my coffee.  Not usually a big deal, but this wasn’t one of my usual breads so I should have been a little less fuzzy in the head when I started.  I must have measured poorly to begin with because I could tell right from the start of mixing that the dough was too dry.  My muddled brain went from a groggy sort of panic to really bad decision making before I could stop it, and before I realized what I was doing I had added way too much water.  Ugh.  So I added flour and added flour, and the dough soaked it right up and just kept sticking to everything.  I probably could have added even more but I had been kneading for so long I felt like the dough had been abused enough. 

The sticky mess bulk fermented a bit longer than in the original method, about 2 hrs, but the dough looked pretty much the same as it did at the start.  I moved on anyway, this being a rye dough.  Shaping the dough was a whole other adventure involving plenty more flour.  I gave the loaves a fairly tight pre-shaping to try and build some strength and a very short bench rest.  With the help of yet another heap of flour I wrestled them into shape and dropped them into their baskets.  At this point I was expecting the worst and certainly expected them to stick to the baskets like they had stuck to everything else.  But they proofed up nicely and came out of the baskets cleanly.  They held their shape into the oven and my hopes began to rise.

They came out of the oven looking good (my attempts at creative scoring rarely turn out this well) and smelling even better, but I’ve fallen for that one before.  Waiting for them to cool was torture.  I took the dog for a walk; I puttered around the yard, and finally couldn’t wait any longer.  I put the knife to the bread and, hey, the crust felt nice and thin.  I started cutting and, hey, the crumb felt nice and light.  I can’t believe this turned out as well as it did.  The flavor is amazing!  This is a really great formula - highly recommended.  Thank you Hans!

Marcus

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

The first time I made limoncello I used the skins of 7 lemons per liter of grain alcohol and let the the grain sit on the skins for 20 days to extract the oil from skins and then let it age another 20 days to mello after straining filtering and cutting with sugar syrup 5o-50.  I used 454 g of sugar per liter of water and liter of lemon oil alcohol extraction.  It was a real Amalfi Coast recipe from Villa di Marie but I didn't like it that much even though it tasted just like the too many samples I had in Italy and couldn't get enough of. 

 

Mandarin left, lemon middle and orange right.  The orange was first to bottle.  When you mix the sugar syrup with the filtered alchohol the 50-50 mix goes cloudy but will clear later as the orange has already done. 

Now, many years later after much trial and error (like baking), I triple the skins to 21 lemons (to get a much stronger lemon flavor), cut the grain alcohol 50 -50 with vodka (to cut the heat of the grain) and let the alcohol sit on the skins for 60 to 90 days before straining filtering and and blending with sugar syrup that now is 340 g of sugar per liter of water (the original was too sweet) and it mellows for another 60-90 days.  I use the same recipe for minneolas, oranges and this year for the first time mandarins .  Folks tell me it is the best cellos they have ever had and I agree.

Finally got all of the varieties in the final bottles this past week.

It goes great with some Grilled Italian squash lasagna and some of David Snyder's Pulgliese Capriosso.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

These sweet little jewels are made with home made puff paste and lemon curd with a little dollop of cream cheese to make it interesting.

I use 1 C AP, 1/4 C WW with some butter and shortening (6 T split 50-50) and few T of ice water (4-5) to make the dough.  After refrigerating, take 2/3 rds of the dough and roll it out as wide as my stick of butter and about 10" long and 1/4" thick.  Slice the frozen stick of butter into 4 slices lengthwise and lay one piece at time on the top of the dough and fold it over laying another piece of butter on top, fold over again and continue until all the slices of butter are encapsulated in the dough roll up.  Then roll out the other 1/3 rd of dough into a rectangle that is 1/4" thick.  Then put the butter layered portion onto this dough and encapsulate it.  Freeze for 20 minutes and then start rolling and folding 2 turns between freezes until you get the number of layers you want.  I did 6 turns folding in 1/3rds for 2,916 layers of butter.   The curd is Rachel Allen's with some  fresh ginger added.  Just cut the 1/4" puff into 3" squares, dock the center and put a T each of curd and cream cheese in the center.  You can mix the two which is what I normally do and wish I had done it on this bake.  Bake at 400 F until nice and brown - hopefully not as dark as mine and spin them in 8 minutes.  These were in 20 minutes because my apprentice was not paying attention tpo check them at 15 the first time.  These 8 used half the puff in various shapes.

 I have been behind on posting so will try to catch up quickly, now that taxes and citrus processing are finally done.  Am starting the retard of 22 hours for a couple of different kinds of baggies - one I promised teketeke I would make with YW since hers came out so well.  YW has really grown on me and this will be the 3rd bread bake in row using YW.  The other baggie is identical to the YW one, after the levain build, but is SD.  Both are around 17-20 % Rye and WWW so will be different than the normal mainly white baggie with poolish.  But, there are some other things to post first.

 

 

varda's picture
varda

Lately I have been trying to make a passably authentic Russian Borodinsky Rye.    Fortunately Russian bakers are very generous.    Eliabel referred my last Borodinsky post to two Russian bread bloggers - Serghei and Masha.    They gave her some feedback which she very kindly translated for me.   I've tried to incorporate their advice into my latest bake.   A sticking point for those of us who would like to make authentic Borodinsky is the malt.   The original requires a fermented rye malt called red malt.    As far as I can tell this is not available in the United States.   Furthermore the process for making it is not well adapted to a home kitchen.   See for instance the discussion on dabrownman's post.   However, there are excellent rye malts available.    I was able to purchase three different malts at a brewing supply store in Cambridge, Massachusetts:   caramel, chocolate, and simple malted rye.    The chocolate and caramel are malted seeds which are then roasted to the desired color and flavor.    For the simple malted rye, the seeds are sprouted and then dried in a kiln.  

The advice I got through Eliabel was pretty straightforward.  

1.   Kvas is not a sufficiently concentrated source of rye malt for Borodinsky

2.   Molasses should go in the final dough rather than in the scald

3.  Eliabel also quoted a new book on Rye Zavarka breads which says that the red malt process retains some of the diastatic enzymes of the malt.  

For this bake I used the chocolate malted rye in the scald, and then added some of the simple rye malt to the final dough.   I also added the molasses to the final paste rather than the scald. 

Since in earlier Borodinsky attempts both Masha and Eliabel had mentioned there should be no cracking of the top, I modified a few things to see if I could avoid it.   First, I went way up on the hydration to 98%.   Second I took Howard's advice to dock the top, and Minioven's advice to take a spatula and separate the top of the loaf from the side of the pan prior to proofing.    This is the first of many attempts in which the top did not crack.    Otherwise I followed the three stage Auerman process as detailed by Andy.    I was again unable to cover the pan during the bake because I had added so much more water that the dough was too high.   It just ended up doming slightly.  

I cut in and tasted today after a 20 hour rest.

Since the chocolate malted rye had such a strong flavor, I should probably have used a bit more freshly ground coriander than I did.    I had cut back because my malt in previous attempts wasn't strong enough to balance the coriander flavor.   Other than that, I was pretty happy with the result.

Update:   Oh, one more thing I would change.   The scald was a little dry without the molasses and so hard to mix in with the rye sour.   Next time, instead of adding the extra 50g of water to the final dough, I would add more water to the scald.   

Borodinsky with Chocolate Rye Malt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rye Sour

 

5:15 PM

9:00 PM

 

 

Seed

60

 

 

 

 

Whole Rye

32

75

140

247

 

Water

28

135

250

413

167%

 

 

 

 

660

 

Scald

 

 

 

 

 

Whole Rye

104

 

 

 

 

Chocolate Malted Rye

36

 

 

 

 

Boiling Water

249

adjusted for evaporation

 

Ground coriander

4

 

 

 

 

 

393

 

 

 

 

Sponge

 

 

 

 

 

Rye Sour

552

 

 

 

 

Scald

393

 

 

 

 

 

945

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total

Final

Sour

Scald

Total

Percent

Whole Rye

207

207

104

517

79%

KABF

138

 

 

138

21%

Water

50

345

249

644

98%

Molasses

41

 

 

41

6%

Chocolate Malted Rye

 

 

36

36

5%

Malted Rye

9

 

 

9

1.4%

Salt

10

 

 

10

1.5%

Ground coriander

 

 

4

4

0.6%

Sponge

945

 

 

 

 

 

 

552

393

1400

 

Sour factor

0.84

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feed starter as above

 

 

 

 

 

At second feeding, make the scald

 

 

 

Leave overnight (12 hours.)  Sour is frothy

 

 

 

Mix scald and starter

 

 

 

 

 

Ferment for 5.5 hours

 

 

 

 

 

Add final ingredients - mix by hand until blended

 

 

Ferment for 1 hour

 

 

 

 

 

Note that paste was very fluffy and aerated at this point

 

 

Spoon into greased bread pan.   Smooth down with wet spatula.

 

Spray top with water and do so at intervals

 

 

 

Cover

 

 

 

 

 

Proof for 1 hour 55 minutes

 

 

 

 

Very bubbly and starting to get holey on top

 

 

 

Oven preheated to 550 for 1 hour - steam pan for last 30 minutes of preheat

Put bread in oven and bring temperature back to 550

 

 

Then reduce to 350

 

 

 

 

 

Bake for 1 hour 15 min covered with foil after first 15 minutes

 

 

 

then remove steam pan, remove bread from pan and bake for 30 minutes

 

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