headupinclouds's blog

I stopped by the Grow NY grain stand at the local farmers market and picked up the lone bag of Frederick soft white wheat berries they had and a few bags of stone-ground flour from Farmer Ground and Small Valley Farm so I could sample some local wheat varieties and try a few bakes with professionally milled whole grain flour for comparison with Mockmilled flour.  Larger bags of wheat berries can be ordered for pick up in advance.  I am interested in the Renan flour, but a 50 lb minimum is a bit intimidating.  If someone in the NYC area is interested in splitting an order please let me know. 

In addition to the wheat flour, I picked up one bag of whole rye from Farmer Ground.  I have been wanting to try the recipe for the Finnish (ruis)reikaleipa from Daniel Leader's Living Bread, so I queued it up.  (Leader refers to it as reikaleipa, although Wikipedia clarifies the rye version is technically ruisreikaleipa.)   It is a thin circular UFO-like rye with a hole in the middle, which was traditionally used for storage and aging on poles just below the kitchen ceiling.

From Wikipedia:

220px-Ostrobothnian_house_interior_with_rye_bread_drying_on_a_pole.jpg

This is lower hydration than the whole rye Volkornbrot I've been learning to bake and has a pleasantly chewy texture.  It would be a great bread for a camping trip!  It employs a single rye sour build prior to the final mix, but I was quite surprised by the depth of flavor from such a simple formula, and am not now unsure why I don't bake rye more often.  Leader recommends consuming within 4 days, although various articles I have seen suggest these were often baked in large quantities and consumed well beyond that.  Taking a hint from the small Finnish cafe where these were photographed, we baked the holes and post stenciling dough remnants as biscuits and ate them as egg sandwiches for brunch to get a preview of the flavor while the larger loaves cooled.  The recipe suggests baking a 12 inch round with steam, although our gas oven is unforgiving to uncovered bakes, so I opted for two 8 inch discs that would allow for covered bakes in a round DO and lodge pan at 400 F for 40 minutes.  The photos below indicate a doubling in the initial rye sour after approximately 12 hours, followed by a roughly 30% rise of the final mix at 1.5 hours and an additional 25% post-shape rise after 45 minutes with a corresponding reset of the aliquot jar.

I noticed the crust puffing up in a few places after I uncovered it, so I used a chopstick to dock it while it was in the oven.  I will probably do that ahead of time for the next bake.

This was an end-of-week project to use up the bran from my tempering + bolting experiments with Yecora Rojo.  It is named after Phil Hartman's (RIP) Colon Blow cereal skit on SNL:

None of this was measured very precisely, but I wanted a classic moist carrot cake type bran muffin texture.  I was surprised how pleasant, moist and fluffy the bran can be as the main ingredient.

• 570 g Yecora Rojo bran + middlings at 100% hydration w/ a portion dedicated to a bran levain build
• I did throw in 1/3 a cup of sifted YR at the last minute for binding, although I think I could have skipped it
• 3 large carrots (shredded)
• 12 Medjool dates
• a couple of tablespoons of honey
• 5 g of salt
• 2 tsp baking soda

I made a soaker with the bulk of the bran and let it sit overnight to fully hydrate next to a large bran levain made from the remaining portion at 56F in my wine fridge and mixed it all the following morning for a half-day of fermentation (timing not critical), and then mixed in the remaining ingredients, including the baking soda, and baked it in oven ramekins at 375 until done.  It clearly needed more time after my 30-minute timer went off.  I didn't measure the remaining time, but I would guess it went another 15 minutes or so.  I let it set overnight and tried them the next morning.  They are delicious.

This is my second attempt at the home oven home milled soft white wheat pizza napoletana from Adam Leonti's Flour Lab.  The first attempt was posted here.  This version uses a sourdough starter instead of the yeast called for in the recipe and I increased the hydration from 63% to 70% -- an adjustment based on experience with the first attempt (I would probably take the mean of these next time).  The bran was sifted with a #50 mesh and added to the starter ahead of time.  I made a soaker (water + salt) with the sifted flour and placed it in a wine fridge overnight. 

The first version was one of my first open oven bakes using my fibrament stone.  It was good, but the pale crust was a disappointment.  This seems to be a problem with gas ovens, and I purchased a disposable aluminum baker to cover the pizza for the first half of the bake to help trap steam to trigger a maillard reaction.  I baked covered at 550 F on the stone for 7 minutes, then removed the pizza on a baking tray and rotated it carefully in the lower broiler section to take advantage of the exposed upper flame in order to sizzle the toppings and further brown the crust for another 3 to 4 minutes.  It was a big improvement. 

The 1000 g flour dough was fermented on the counter until slightly pillowy, then shaped into 4 mini boules, two of which were chilled in the wine fridge for dinner that night, and the other two went in the back of the fridge for the following night.  The difference in flavor and extensibility between the two nights was remarkable.  I enjoyed the first night, and the soft white wheat sweetness was enjoyable but a bit too strong.  It required a fair amount of patience shaping the low gluten soft white wheat on the first night to avoid tearing (there was no throwing this one in the air).  On the second night the longer fermented dough was much more extensible and easy to shape (if a bit sticky), and the additional sour notes from the extended fermentation balanced the sweet flavor of the wheat nicely.  Baking at the lower temperatures a home oven supports provides more opportunity to cook lots of toppings.  These were full meal red sauce pizzas with sun dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, Miyoko's cultured plant based mozzarella cheese, tamari marinated tempeh, portobello mushrooms, and red onions.  Fresh basil was added at the end after the broiler flame sizzling.  The soft white wheat works surprisingly well in this context.

CB 1:

• home milled durum wheat (100% extraction) at 500g total (400 g mix + 100 g in levain) @ 70% hydration
• 20% PFF via sifted and remilled bran powder levain (#30, #40, #50 stack) final 12 hour build 5:6:10 at 56F
• overnight soaker (salted) from 400 g semolina
• 2% salt
• used a standard fold + roll batard shaping w/ tension which immediately created a bunch of pockmarks on the dough
• 12 hour final proof in fridge
• try increasing hydration next time
• reasonable oven spring but tight crumb (flavor is nice and "bright")
• monitored pH as I read comments that durum doesn't like acidity

A continuation of JMonkey's Desem with a whole wheat soaker (the epoxy method outlined in Whole Grain Breads) and an aliquot jar for proofing.  Bulk fermentation ended at <= 25% and final proof ended at around 75%.

Notes:

• the aliquot jar markings in these images represent the starting height, 1.25x and 2x, even though the final proof was started at 1.75x -- in subsequent experiments and their images the final proof line was adjusted to 1.75x.
• updated bakers percentage formula for these experiments in this link  (84% hydration)

This summer, while social distancing in our cabin, I purchased a small wood fired pizza oven where I practiced applying my sourdough starter to making sourdough pizza.  At temperatures between 900F and 1000F (the later being "Hi" or my IR gun) the challenge is to continuously rotate the pizza to keep things from burning while ensuring the top and bottom cook evenly in 1 or 2 minutes.  In addition, chopping lots of tiny hardwood pieces of the precise size needed to keep the little firebox roaring adds to the list of chores.  Our felled locust burns very hot and works exceptionally well for this. 

I was missing the sourdough pizza from the Summer and have also been missing the excellent Neopolitan style pizzas from several nearby restaurants (Motorino, Robertas, etc) due to pandemic driven isolation now that we are back in our little Brooklyn apartment.  Inspired by recent TFL posts on home oven pizza, and after recently acquiring an oven stone to support the task, I leafed through some whole grain focused pizza recipes in Adam Leonti's Flour Lab and settled on the Pizza Napoletana [1] .

The recipe calls for a soft spring wheat flour (Frederick preferred).  I went with a Palouse Soft Spring Wheat (unknown variety) that would arrive in time for milling and baking on New Years Eve, but am interested in sourcing some of the recommended Frederick for a follow up.  He indicates his preferred wheat variety for each recipe.  In this case he explains:

I used Frederick soft spring wheat flour because it maintains that signature white hue, mild flavor, and soft crumb that is synonymous with Naples's most famous food.

The recipe is a basic 63% hydration dough:

• 630 g water
• 1000 g soft spring wheat flour
• 14 grams sea salt
• 2 grams active dry yeast (I used a chunk of Desem starter)
• Neutral oil for greasing
• Desired topping

I wanted to experiment with my cool low hydration Desem starter, which I substituted for the ADY.  I milled the soft white wheat coarse-to-fine and then made a soaker (saltolyse) which sat in the fridge for a couple of days to improve extensibility.  The dough felt far too dry at 63% hydration with this wheat (noticeable cracks and fraying) so I ended up increasing the hydration significantly after warming it up and mixing in a chunk of refrigerated Desem starter prior to bulk fermentation.

To add to the list of accumulating violations, this was destined to be a plant based pizza (i.e., no mozzarella).  I sourced a plant based cheese that melts reasonably well, tastes good, and doesn't resemble a rubbery polymer based lab creation upon melting: Miyoko's organic cultured vegan mozzarella.  On a related note, I sampled a fermented tofu at a Japanese restaurant in the Lowesr East side last year that was one of my notable culinary memories of 2020.  I think it would work swimmingly in this context, but I have yet to find a local source for it.  The process is described well in online videos, so it may be another one for the home fermentation lab.

I waited for some signs of fermentation and reasonable gluten development given the low protein flour, then shaped it carefully with the backs of my hands before finishing the slightly fragile dough into a pizza with raised crust using the tips of my fingers, taking care to de-gass the center portion before adding toppings.  The oven stone was approximately 525F.  After 5 minutes or so I added the fresh basil (at 500F the pizza cooks too slowly and the basil would otherwise dry out) and then cooked for another 2 minutes or so before removing it.

The flavor of the crust was excellent (beyond my expectation at least), with a mild tender sweetness and suppressed but still noticeable tang.  It did rise pretty well for the whole grain flour, but the biggest mark against the pizza was the crust color, which was unfortunately pale and somewhat lifeless, which was a real shame.  From recent discussions, I believe this is related to cooking uncovered in a gas oven.  I always use a wide clay cloche for my hearth bread bakes, and have not had success with open stone bakes and improved steam.  Perhaps something akin to a cloche is needed to trigger a maillard reaction.  Following older TFL posts on the subject, I may experiment with an inverted Graniteware roaster placed on top of the baking stone, or a "disposable" aluminum alternative. 

Another consideration is the lack of top heat in the home oven.  When the mini wood fired pizza is roaring, the chimney draws the flames from the rear firebox along the low ceiling over the top of the pizza and up and out the chimney.  That is helpful for matching the heat pizza stone underneath and providing the signature char. 

In our gas home oven there is no top heat source, but there is a broiler that could serve this purpose.  Next time I'm inclined to bake 1/2 way through covered on the stone, then remove and place under the broiler with a turning peel to add a hint of charring to the top crust.  It is worth a shot and would add the main missing element to the final product.

Any thoughts on this issue are appreciated.

[1] baking 400 F degrees short of the 932 F target using home milled whole grains would clearly cause some concern in the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana (AVPN), so this is really an "inspired by" translation.  In the words of Stevie Wonder "Ya gots to work with what you gots to work with."

This post illustrates starter maintenance and an end-to-end bake of a whole wheat Desem loaf using home milled hard white spring wheat berries (Prairie Gold) using JMonkey's Desem post as a blueprint. It is relevant to some of the starter yeast-vs-LAB ratio discussions on TFL this past week.   It is fun to find such useful posts and discussions from the TFL "archives" back in 2009.  He summarizes the style succinctly, and helps dispel a lot of mystique around this style of bread:

I enjoy making Desem, which is really just a traditional Pain au Levain (French sourdough) made with whole wheat flour. From what I've read (and if others have read differently, please, chime in!) the French, historically, have disliked a strong sour flavor in their breads, and so bakers had to work very creatively to eliminate as much sour as they could, especially when sourdough was the only levean they had!

Here's what they did:

    1. They kept their starter firm.
    2. They kept their starter cool (50 to 60 degrees F)
    3. They used quite a bit of starter so that the bread would rise quickly and the bacteria would not have much time to produce a lot of acid.

I've been interested in heading in this direction for my regular home milled whole wheat bakes, and a number of Desem posts from notable TFL bakers caught my attention, which I summarized in this thread.

Starter

I've been maintaining a cool 50 % hydration starter fed at a 1:1:2 ratio for a couple of weeks and have had some luck achieving the desired temperature range of 50-60 F by storing the starter in a mason jar inside a wide mouth thermos with large ice cubes refreshed at the 24 hour feeding cycle.  A lid and silicone jar top provide some insulation to prevent direct contact between the starter and the ice cubes.  From occasional measurements with an IR gun this seems to reach an initial temperature of a little below 50 F and it slowly climbs to a little below 60 F by the next feeding, which can be adjusted by the number of ice cubes.  The stiff low hydration starters don't readily provide the same peak volume feedback associated with higher hydration starters, so this exercise has required a little bit of blind faith.  In this temperature range, feeding the starter the night before and using it the following morning seems to work out fine in practice.  One recipe I read described a ripe Desem starter as resembling the texture of a kitchen sponge.  Using a pH meter or Doc's weight loss approach may provide a better mechanism for optimizing the maintenance schedule, and I'm interested in any additional thoughts in this direction.

Dough

The dough was mixed for an initial conservative 75% hydration per the above post, and I used a refrigerated overnight saltolyse, so very little gluten development was required on the bench.  I used the water allowance from the low hydration starter for the laminate-roll-spray-and-cut-up style mixing and continued to add water by feel with the sprayer.  I bulk fermented at a warm active kitchen room temperature (77-80 F) to roughly 1.3x using an aliquot jar, at which point I pre-shaped, rested, folded, stretched and rolled it into a tight burrito.  I dusted it and placed it into a banneton for a very short final proof (probably 1.5x via the aliquot meter).  The dough was very strong.  I have found the HWSW Prarie Gold exceptionally easy to work with for a whole grain flour and will be interested to try a similar bake with some heritage grains soon.  I slashed it then placed it in a batard clay baker in the oven at about 475F for 20 minutes and another 18 minutes uncovered, after lowering the temperature slightly.

Yeast vs LAB lag phase (may be relevant to Desem starter optimization)

• http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/83047#comment-83047
• http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/459976#comment-459976

Debra Wink writes:

Reducing sourness can be accomplished by shortening the refreshment cycle, not because of aerobic vs anaerobic, but rather by taking advantage of the disparity in lag phases between yeast and lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Bacteria reproduce faster than yeast, but yeast have a shorter lag phase. The lag phase is that time between refreshment and the start of population growth (reproduction). The organisms need a little time to sense their environment and re-orient themselves to the change that refreshment brings (pH, nutrients, waste products, etc.) before they begin growing again. For LAB it takes longer, so yeast start growing first. Each time you feed, it starts a new lag period. If you stop the refreshment cycle short, so as to keep the LAB from taking off, you give the yeast a little advantage in the race by cutting the LAB off at the knees.

You can't completely eliminate LAB, but you can reduce the sour by cutting their numbers.

mwilson writes:

While I'm sure LAB do encounter longer lag times compared to yeast, bear in mind that the higher the inoculum the shorter the lag..

I did find a paper that looked at the cell numbers of LAB and yeast during the refresh cycles of lievito madre done for panettone production. The starting ratio from storage was 10:1 (LAB:yeast). After each of the short-time (4 hours) refreshes the ratio shifted towards 100:1 (LAB:yeast). So based on that evidence this high inoculum (small feed) and short duration didn't favour yeast at all, it favoured LAB.

Feeding this way cuts back on acid, that's what it really does. LAB have no problem holding their own and will typically always outnumber the yeasts.

100:1 is a standard and stable ratio.

 

Liquid vs firm sourdough:

• http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/94117#comment-94117D

Debra Wink writes:

So, why does my firm starter produce milder bread than my liquid one, when firm starters have a higher percentage of acetic acid? Because it has a lower total acid concentration. More specifically, the bacteria grow slower in a dry starter, so their population shrinks over multiple refreshments (yeast seem to hold their own).

Debra Wink writes:

In general, when baking with 100% whole wheat, what % of the total flour do you try to pre-ferment

In general I don't care for sourdough's acidity in whole wheat breads, so I don't make them. I tried desem for a while, and it was milder, but I wasn't loving what, to me, seemed like a strange flavor. The things that promote mildness, aside from keeping the starter at cave temps like desem, is keeping it very stiff, feeding 3 times a day leading up to mixing your dough, use as little prefermented flour as will do the trick (11-18% probably), and try to get it from mixer to oven in about 6 hours or so. There are a lot of enzymes in whole wheat, and they will break down the dough if you take fermentation out too long. But this varies a lot from one brand/type ww flour to the next, so you just have to experiment.

Population dynamics http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/95232#comment-95232

Debra Wink writes:

By "strength," in this context, I think what we're really talking about is the collective power of the yeast to huff, and to puff, and to blow the bread up :-)  In other words, a strong rise, or rising power. It is the yeast fraction in the culture that provides the lift. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) could raise dough in theory, but in practice, they fall flat. So, a good rise is all about healthy, vigorous yeast. Bacteria contribute acids which flavor dough, but also play a big part in gluten structure and rheology. In the short term acid tightens gluten, contributing to dough strength, but in the long term, it accelerates proteolysis, contributing to its breakdown. And it adds sourness that is not welcome in all breads. You'll find yeast/lift at one end of the starter spectrum and bacteria/sourness at the other. You can't maximize both at the same time; one comes at the expense of the other. Where you want your starter to be on the spectrum, depends on the bread you are making. For panettone and pandoro, it sounds like maximizing lift, and minimizing sour is the goal.

I think the key to understanding starters, is to recognize that population dynamicsand metabolic effects are two separate, albeit related issues. Population dynamics have to do with organism numbers, and how they interact and fluctuate in relation to each other and to their starter environment. Whereas metabolism is about what those organisms aredoing, and what effect that has on the dough. The magnitude of those effects are related to the population numbers. But the numbers are regulated largely by how hospitable the sourdough environment is to the various species, and how much antagonism there is between them. Does that make sense so far?

Dan gave us a good overview of howdoughis affected by hydration (some cereal chemistry as well as metabolic effects), but now let's take a look at how thecultureis affected---the population dynamics---because that will determine themagnitudeof the metabolic effects. Lowering hydration will slow all the microorganisms, yes, but yeasts are not quite as sensitive to it as the lactobacilli. In other words, the growth rate of the bacteria declines more sharply than that of the yeasts. Sourdough LAB thrive in warmth at high hydrations; low hydration and cool temperatures really slow them down. Yeast benefit from this, because they have less competition from the bacteria, so they have more space, and the resources to expand. They aren't quite as hindered by low hydration, low temperature, low pH, salinity, etc., as lactobacilli are, so even if they do slow some, they gain an edge because the bacteria are slowed more. And the one thing that yeast are more sensitive to than lactobacilli---acetic acid---is reduced as the bacterial population shrinks. So, when you knock back the bacteria, yeast tend to flourish, and rising power increases as sourness decreases.

But the key to it all, is multiple refreshments. It's the regular dilution through feeding that shrinks the bacterial population here, because they aren't keeping pace with the yeast, relatively speaking (and starter ripeness, and readiness for feeding is determined by yeast rise and fall). Because it takes some time for the populations to change and re-stabilize, a starter maintained firm (and fed frequently) for at least a week is probably going to give you better results in your panettone than a liquid starter, even one that is firmed up "as needed." It's the difference between a true firm starter, and a firm pre-ferment. The effect will be different, because the populations are different. In a firm culture, you are actually manipulating the starter environment to suppress bacteria (sour) and enhance yeast (lift), whereas a firm pre-ferment is more about manipulating the metabolic effects to increase acetic acid. See the difference? A culture maintained firm will give you less sour (and more lift). A firm pre-ferment made from a liquid starter may give you more. The magnitude of the metabolic effects reflect the relative differences in population numbers.

Lievito madre: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/61925/my-lievito-madre-videos

mwilson writes:  

Generally speaking, a high inoculum will favour a more lactic flavour while a small one will open the door for more acetic acetic development.

Q: How do I judge maturity of a low hydration (e.g. 50%) whole grain starter as used in Desem, and what is an optimal maintenance schedule?

Notes:

• http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/51875/judging-levain-maturity-weight-loss
• http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/59410/starter-use-and-maintenance
• http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/57518/individual-starters-and-their-unique-characteristics#comment-418465

Open crumb w/ 100% spelt bread:

• http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/64417/100-sourdough-spelt-bread

Aspergillus Oryzae is at the heart of many delicious East Asian ferments, including miso, tempeh, sake, etc.  I have been reading through The Noma Guide to Fermentation, where Rene Redzepi and David Zilber of Noma fame lay out a number of aspergillus oryzae ferments critical to much of the success of their restaurant.  This is really a fusion of a culinary practice with an incredibly long history in East Asia, with local ingredients and flavors of Denmark -- their culinary terroir.  Somewhat surprisingly, bread is almost completely lacking from the book, except as a "food" for their ryeso recipe.  From my understanding, it produces little to no CO2 as a byproduct, and is therefore not effective as a levain in bread making.  It isn't clear this exclusion indicates they haven't used it.   After some online searches, it seems a sakadane starter can be produced from koji that apparently can be effective at raising bread.  This is apparently commonly paired with a yudane practice (similar to the commonly used tangzhong scald approach used for soft fluffy loaves). 

One of my favorite breakfasts is overnight miso oats or muesli.  In this dish, oats or muesli are cooked to make starches accessible and a small amount of active miso (I like sweet white rice miso) is introduced to the mixture after cooling to a warm temperature.  If left overnight in a warm place (estimated 80-90 F), come morning the oats will have a lovely mildly sweet miso taste.  I've been curious about ways to introduce this as a complementary flavor oriented fermentation in sourdough bread making.  Some searches have pointed back to some interesting miso flavored sourdough breads posted on TFL.  Active miso seems particularly effective at breaking down grains, and I'm not sure whether it will be detrimental to starch quality and/or gluten development required for proper loaf form, oven spring, etc.  It would be nice to find more literature discussing this aspect.

Miso test dough:

Overnight saltolyse of two dough mixes at approximately equal hydration with matching sodium content, where mix 1 contains 15 g miso and mix 2 contains none.

100 g flour, 75 g water, 15 g miso, 1.7 g salt (sodium = 2g)

100 g flour, 90 g water, 0 g miso, 2.0 g salt (sodium = 2g)

I made some poppyside buns to make this an edible experiment.  The one on the right had the miso.  They were extremely similar -- this miso had no noticeable adverse affects on the dough, although II didn't notice a significant different at 15% (bakers percentage).  I can push it further next time.  Things to try:

* increase the percentage of miso

* increase the temperature so the miso culture will be more active

* include a scald or porridge soaker so the miso culture

This was a very quick before pre-bedtime experiment, but it seems that including 15% miso (baker's percentage) at room temperature for 12 hours or so does not lead to noticeable dough degradation.  If anything, the dough with the miso seems a fair amount stronger, although this was a fairly hasty experiment and my quick assumption that miso paste was approximately 100% hydration is obviously not correct.  I was primarily interested in how dough would hold up over long periods of time with miso in the mix.  It seems to be fine.

Since there is apparently already a tradition of making bread with a koji based sakadane culture, it would make sense to try to reproduce this next, and perhaps see how this combines with my current sourdough starter.  It will be a good excuse to use the koji in my freezer I originally intended to use for tempeh.

How To Make Sakadane

TFL bakes:

Benny's Koji Rice Porridge Sourdough: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/65332/koji-rice-porridge-sourdough

Resources:

https://youtu.be/sEUokdUqE2M : How To Make Sakadane

https://sourdough.com/posts/japanese-sourdough-1-koji-sakadane-and-yudane

https://www.eater.com/2018/10/1/17923034/richard-hart-rene-redzepi-hart-bageri-sourdough-copenhagen

https://www.questforsourdough.com/sourdough/recipe/100-sakadane

https://cookpad.com/us/recipes/151189-natural-leaven-made-with-amazake-sakadane

https://hiro-shio.blogspot.com/2013/05/sakadane.html

http://www.provence.com.sg/new-products/

https://sourdough.com/forum/rice-koji-mold-used-ferment-bread