leslieruf's blog

At the end of July I finally gave in to temptation and ordered a new oven.  I settled on a 13 Function Bosch (not sure if I will ever use all of them!) and finally a week ago it was installed.

For this bake I just played around with some seeds - didn't want a heavy loaf so it was

Bread flour 80%, Wholewheat flour 15%, rye flour 5%, 80% hydration and salt at 2%.  I adjusted the flour to include 0.05% diastatic malt.  To this I added

Chia seed 4%, sesame seed 5%, flaxseed 5% sunflower seed 5% and pumpkin seed 5%. 

Method:

7 am: added hot water to the non ground, non toasted seed mix and left.  This was initially 60 g water and 86 g seed mix.  I felt it was a bit dry so added another 15 g water.

9:30 autolyse flours, remaining water and the seed mix for approx 30 minutes. I added extra 24 g water as well as dough felt quite firm. 

10 am Added the 100% hydration levain mixed evening before (9 g starter + 35 g flour + 9 g rye flour +43 g water) and mixed in with 100 slap and folds.  Added salt (7.2 g) and did another 100 slap and folds.  The dough was left to bulk ferment with 4 sets of coil folds every 30 minutes.  

14:45 preshaped dough

15:20 final shaping and left on bench until 5 pm when I refrigerated it until ready to bake. 

Preheated the oven & DO to 250 deg C on "Hot air".

18:15 loaded into oven and baked for 15 minutes, reducing heat to 245 deg C .  Baked another 15 minutes lid off..  Great caramelisation - so far so good, happy with the oven spring too.

Crumb shot

Really nutty and delicious and as hoped, the crumb was not too dense, yum!

I also made 2 other breads at the same time, following same basic methodology.

The 2nd bread was just 1:2:3 with 5% kibbled wheat, 5% kibbled rye & 5% rolled oats.  The soaker in this case was the same weight as the grains.

Crumb shot

Really enjoying this loaf.  I haven't used kibbled wheat or rye for a long time and because I probably didn't soak for long enough to soften grain properly, there is a slight crunch and flavour is lovely and mild, slightly sweet!

The last bread I made (although it was the first baked and is a little paler than the other two as I was feeling my way with the bake temperature) was another 1:2:3 with no seeds  but 8% rye and 3% potato flour. 

No crumb shot as this was a thank you for helping out with a chainsaw in the garden.  I offered him a choice of the 3 breads and he chose this one.  I am still to find out what the crumb was like and how it tasted.  It baked well and I was happy with it.

All in all, for a first bake in a new oven I am really really happy.  Crust is thin in all cases, and I achieved good caramelization (although I am sure the diastatic malt helped there too!).  Negative is that I could only bake one loaf at a time due to the shelf setup so oven ran for a bit longer than usual.  Will try out other options next bake. 

The flour I am using these days seems to develop enough gluten too so I am getting better shaped bread with good oven spring too.

Bake happy everyone 

Leslie

Well I couldn’t resist because I love kamut & durum bread. I often add spelt but not this time. And obviously not a baguette

I made sure my starter was really active before I started. 
Bread flour 62.2%
kamut flour 40%
durum 7.8% (all I had left)

water 80%
salt 1,8%

Autolyse 45 minutes, mix using slap and fold followed by 1 lamination and 3 coil folds. Bulk ferment was nearly 5 hours followed by Pre-Shaping, 30 min rest then final shape. I rolled it on wet paper towel then in sesame seeds. I left it at room temperature maybe 40 minutes before retarding overnight. Baked this morning.

crumb shot

Had some for lunch - absolutely delicious- the sesame combined with the kamut and durum - just yum! Lovely tender crumb

Leslie

After Covid19 lockdown I was gifted 4 kg of flour and suddenly my bread improved greatly.  Now I am running low and so I went on line and ordered 10 kg, crossing my fingers that I had chosen the right flour.  Todays bake was a straight up white 1:2:3 with each flour. I added a little diastatic malt to help with caramelisation.

Method:

45 minute autolyse to start.  Levain was added followed by 100 slap and folds. Salt added followed by another 100 SLAFs.  4 sets of coil folds at 40 minute intervals then the dough was left to ferment for another 2 hours.  Preshape followed by 30 minute rest. After Final shaping I left them on the bench for about 30 minutes before retarding over night.  

Original flour seemed to be a little stronger, the new flour spread a little and felt a little softer.  

Baked this morning and I am so happy with the results.

Original flour

crumb shot

new flour

crumb shot

well that was better than expected.  I think I am happy with my new flour!  the malt is giving me better crust colour too! 

Finally, on the original flour loaf, I got some pretty nice blisters too!

The angle of my photos makes one half of crumb shots look bigger than the other - an oops for sure as the slices were side by side.  

A good start to the week ahead, bake happy everyone

Leslie

Reading through some of the Baguette CB posts I noticed that alfanso had made Hamelman's Sourdough Seeded Bread and when I was deciding what to make this week I decided to have a go at this.  

Monday I refreshed my starter and then before I went to bed I mixed up the soaker & the levain

Soaker: 27 g flaxseed & 81 g room temperature water. Covered and left overnight

Levain: 12 g starter + 73 g water + 57 g flour mixed, covered and left overnight. 

Tuesday 9 am Dry toasted 23 g sesame seed & 46 g sunflower seed in skillet as I didn't want to heat the oven just for this.

9:30 am Instructions were to mix all ingredients together.  I decided to add the toasted seed mix later during bulk ferment so mixed together all of the soaker + 136 g water + all levain.  This was then added to 294 g flour + 1 g diastatic malt + 31 g rye flour + 8.8 g salt. I felt dough was a little dry so I added 2 tspn water.  I did fewer slap & folds than usual then rested dough for 40 mins. 

10:30 am The dough felt really quite strong and Hamelman suggests only 1 fold after an hour and a quarter.  I felt this was too long to wait to incorporate the sesame & sunflower seeds so I gently pulled the dough out as much as it would allow then sprinkled the seed mix over, folded the sides in then folded the dough bottom to middle then top down and left to rest for another 45 minutes. 

11:15 am At this point the dough was very strong but I did manage one gentle coil fold to ensure the seed mix was evenly distributed. I left the dough to ferment for 3 more hours.  

2:15 pm Shape dough, place in banneton and leave on bench.  At 3:45 pm I had to go out so I popped dough in the fridge until the next morning.  I could see there was some slight increase in volume but it wasn't big during final proof or bulk ferment. 

I saw a post by Gavinc who had also made this formula and felt his final proof should have gone longer (if I remember correctly).  This was why I gave the dough a 90 minute bench proof before retarding. 

The other bread I made was also a new formula & method for me.  I made fullproofbaking's 50% wholewheat sourdough, and I followed her method as much as I could - it is very different to anything I have done before.

I did a second refresh of my starter Monday night, feeding it 50:50 white:wholewheat flour. Yesterday morning early I built the levain and kept it in the microwave at about 27 deg C until it was ready to use.  Because I don't trust the flour here in NZ to perform well with an extended autolyse, I only did a 2 hour rather than 4 hour autolyse for the wholewheat portion.  It was really wet.  The white flour had its own autolyse and once again I shortened it to just 1 hour.  

Once the levain was ready, I added the starter to each autolyse and mixed for several minutes.  In the end I gave the white flour dough 50 SLAFs and the wholewheat I mixed with a spoon as it was too wet and showed very little evidence of gluten development.  After resting for 45 minutes, I added salt to each dough and mixed again as before.  The doughs were rested another 45 minutes and then combined by way of lamination.  The combined dough was soft but seemed ok. 

I managed another 3 sets of coil folds then left dough to ferment.  Instructions said 2 hours so I thought sweet! I have to go out but should be back in time.  Room temperature (and dough temperature) were lower than fullproofbaking"s so I thought all will be well.

Oh dear, I came home to pancake.  It was close to the indicated time and dough had spread and puffed up a bit so I shaped as well as I could and put it in the fridge to retard overnight. 

BAKING

This morning I baked both loaves in DO at 250 deg C for 15 minutes, lid off and another 15 minutes at 230 deg C.  The 50% wholewheat loaf was done so I removed it from the oven but had to put the Seeded sourdough loaf back for another 10 minutes until internal temperature was 205 deg F.

What a contrast.

Seeded sourdough - the back loaf in the lead photo

Here is the crumb

I think it could have done with a bit more on the bench before retarding but whilst firm it isn't actually too dense.  The addition of the diastatic malt (thank you Albacore!) has meant I finally have some decent caramelisation of the crust!! The taste is really good so I will make this again, possibly adding a bit more water given how strong this dough was.  I wonder if an autolyse would have made this more extensible

50% wholewheat - oh dear:(

It's pretty flat! Quite disappointed.  

Crumb shot

Ok, so the profile is pretty flat, but the crumb isn't too bad.  It tastes really good.     

I used the same white bread flour in both these bakes and whilst the strength of the seeded sourdough was more than I thought it would be, this flour does seem to be strong and my bakes have shown that.  It was a bit of a surprise that the 50% wholewheat dough was so slack, I can only think that this was mostly to do with the wholewheat.  I will have to try again, but next time I will reduce the length of the autolyse  and the hydration especially in the wholewheat.   I will also incorporate a lot more slap and folds to build strength 

Leslie

Not baking so much but love the combination of Kamut & spelt so this weekend did a repeat of an earlier bake where I had pushed the Kamut to 50% with close to 80% hydration.  

Starter was refreshed on Friday morning and so before bed I built the levain. 13 g starter + 60 g water + 60 g bread flour

Saturday at 9:15 am autolyse for 30 minutes

114 g bread flour + 212 g kamut + 38 g spelt and 275 g water.  It felt a bit too wet and I remembered last bake where I had decided the hydration should be lower.  So I added another 20 g bread flour, not something I do at all.

9:45 am   add levain and mix with 100 SLAFs.  Patted dough out and sprinkled over 7.6 g salt, rolled it up and did another 100 SLAFs.  Leave to rest 40 minutes

10 am mix the white 1:2:3 following a 40 minute autolyse - just a very standard 600 g total dough weight loaf.  Method was the same as for the Kamut & spelt.  Left to rest for 30 minutes

10:45 am coil folds to both doughs and this was repeated 4 times at 40 minute intervals. 

12:50 pm both doughs were left to bulk ferment.  Room temperature was probably only 20 deg C and contrary to my usual practice I bulk fermented in shallow containers so I could perform coils more easily.  This meant I was a little uncertain about how far the fermentation had gone. 

15:40 pm There were some bubbles on top of both doughs and only small bubbles visible underneath but I felt the fermentation had gone as far as I wanted it to so I preshaped, rested for  20 minutes before doing the final shape - very simple folding sides to the midline and then rolling up.  Bench rest for 30 minutes then into the fridge overnight.  

Sunday morning 8 am.I find it quite difficult to get a really good colour on my breads these days, I am not happy with my oven but for now I have to do my best with it.  Oven was preheated to 260 deg C.  Dough was baked in DO 15 minutes covered, 15 minutes uncovered.  I popped it back for another minute with top element on high but didn't achieve much. 

Kamut/spelt loaf

Basic white 1:2:3 (I was trying out a new brand of flour)

Just every day bread but using the different flour has made quite a difference.  I had made a new starter during Covid19 lockdown and have added it to my old starter so I happy the way it is performing.

Bake happy every one. 

Leslie

Just as well we have our starters!  

So my isolation bubble shrunk a week ago when Swiss family members could finally catch a flight home.  So I baked last week, an ok bake but I am having trouble getting decent oven spring.  This week I thought, ok try the other flour, a different supermarket brand that a friend had dropped off. Secondly, have yet another go at baking in my hooded BBQ.

So, Bread #1 - a simple mixed flour loaf with 14% kamut, 10% homemilled spelt and 10% home milled rye and 84% hydration.

40 minute autolyse, dough seems a bit wet but I carried on added the levain and incorporated with about 30 SLAF.  It was wet (I should have expected that but in the past it hasn’t seemed so wet, so different flour has an effect).  After 100 SLAFs I added salt and did another 100 SLAFS. dough very extensible. 2 sets of coils at 40 minute intervals then 2 sets of Stretch and folds and I left dough to bulk ferment.  5 hours after mixing dough had risen 50% so I did a fairly firm preshape but it was still very extensible!  25 minutes later I did my normal batard shaping and could see it would spread like mad, so I redid it, this time using the stitching method.  -  ah, thats better! Placed in banneton seam side down - first time for me. Half an hour on bench then into the fridge over night. 

Bread #2 - 5% whole wheat, 22% rye homemilled , 77% hydration.  

I followed the above method but did 4 sets of coil folds. Dough was extensible but more manageable.  

This morning, cranked up my BBQ,preheated it for half an hour. then added boiling water to the two old tin cans I had earlier placed in BBQ filled with lava rocks.  carried on preheating for another 30 minutes.  Both loaves were removed from fridge when I turned on BBQ so that they could warm up. 

Once hood temperature was 250° and terracotta stones were hot I unmoulded dough, spritzed with water and placed both in BBQ.  Added some more boiling water to lava rocks and baked loaves for 30 minutes.  The BBQ seems to cook a bit differently and dough rises more slowly than in the oven in a DO.  After 30 minutes I rotated loaves and changed their position in the BBQ.  Another 15 minutes and loaves were light brown.  would love to get them darker but for now its ok.

Bread #1

crumb shot is lead photo.

Bread #2 and crumb

I still got a little singeing but I can liveit it.

think I will change my flour going forward! much better bake today!

Happy Easter everyone, stay safe stay well

Leslie

well this week when I told a friend I would make Pane Bianco, the reply was oohh - a pull apart bread!  Actually that would be better so I followed this recipe from King Arthur Flour.  https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/pane-bianco-recipe

Instead of cutting and twisting, I cut across the dough making about 1 inch or so slices then arranging them as you would cinnamon rolls.  Absolutely wonderful made this way! sorry no crumb shots as this was for a luncheon function.  I froze once cooled then reheated for about 15-20 minutes (covered) on the day.  Will definitely make Pane Bianco this way again. 

Bake happy everyone

Leslie

After my first attempt to bake bread in my hooded BBQ I had several issues to address.  Most critical was the fact that the gas hose had touched the body of the grill and partially melted! So I ordered a new one and a second grate.  These arrived this week so yesterday I repeated the previous bake, substituting rye for spelt.

12 December - refresh starter and build levain before going to bed

13 December

08:25 am autolyse 105 g freshly milled whole wheat, 50 g freshly milled rye 440 g flour + 10 g gluten flour and 400 g water.

08:50 am Patted autolysed dough out on bench  and dimpled in 200 g 100% hydration starter, folded and did 120 SLAPs.  Rested 5 minutes, added 10.8 g salt with wet hands, rolled up and did another 120 SLAPs. Rested dough 30 minutes

09:45 am Divided dough into 2 and did one set of stretch and fold on each and left for 30 minutes

10:15 am Coil folds.  I had to go out at this point and it was an hour before I got back.

11:20 am Coil folds

12: 00 Final set of coil folds then left to bulk ferment. 

Visitor arrived about 1 pm 

14:15 pm - no time to deal with this, dough had increased 50-60% so I popped it in the fridge.  

The day went down the drain just after this and it was 21:40 before I could deal with it again.  Took it out of the fridge, cold preshape and left 30 minutes.

22:10 pm Shaped and bench rested until 10:30 then retarded over night.  Don't know how this will turn out, never before left a dough so long.

14 December 08:00 am  Fire up the BBQ.  Here is my modified setup

I decided to just use the deep part of my two "DO"s so these were inside the hood as well.  I turned all 4 burners on full until thermometer read 250 deg C then waited about 10 minutes before turning off the 2 inner burners.  I had my portable oven thermometer on the rack and it reached about 225 deg C.  I probably didn't preheat for long enough and I will do it longer next time.  

Removed dough from bannetons,  placed on large disposable aluminium sheet, slashed & spritzed both loaves and placed on the rack.  Closed the hood, set the timer then remembered I hadn't covered the loaves.  Opened hood, covered loaves with the 2 inverted DOs and baked for 12 minutes.  On removing DOs I was disappointed with oven spring but carried on.  Thermometer was reading fairly steadily 200 deg and my portable one had dropped to about 170 deg C.  I set timer for 18 minutes and watched.  the dough slowly puffed up more so in the end I am pretty happy with the amount of oven spring.  I felt dough wasn't quite baked at this point and Dough didn't brown very fast so I baked for an extra 15 minutes. It has turned a light golden brown. Internal temperature was 208 deg F

I think the stones were probably not quite hot enough but at least this time I don't have burnt bottoms!! Yay!

After lunch I cut loaves so whilst not particularly open I am reasonably satisfied - a little more fine tuning required though.  Crumb shots below

So, a little pale for my liking but definite progress.  I am a little less scared of the process of baking in a hooded BBQ.  New hose & regulator are a little shorter and so all is safe and good there too!.

Big thank you to @idaveindy for all the help after last bake and getting me pointed in the right direction.  A little longer preheating, maybe a little more heat in general may give me a better result.  The extra long fermentation may also have played a role too.  

Happy baking all

Leslie

Well today I made a simple 1:2:3 loaf with some wholewheat (17%) and spelt (8%). my objective - test baking in my new BBQ instead of in the oven over summer.  Just a standard 123 with a little extra water, 4 sets of coil folds.

here is my set up

I read up on how to do this, so the BBQ got to 475°F in 10 minutes so I reduced heat and put my 2 DOs in for another 15 minutes and watched temperature gauge, turning off thr 2 centre burners.  Popped the slashed loaves into the DOs spritzed them and returned to BBQ. watching the temperature fall, when it got to 375°F or 180°c I opened lid briefly and turned the middle burners on again. Turned them off once the temperature returned to 200°C.  after 15 minutes removed DO lids and baked another 15 minutes. After about 5 minutes I checked the bottom of the loaves only to find them burnt. I removed them from DO and propped them up against each other and continued the bake. the loaves didn’t brown as much as I usually get in my electric oven but after an extra 7 minutes internal temperature was 209°c plus so I took them out. 

Interestingly, my enamelled steel roaster over the cast iron plate but on a rack, burnt more than the enamelled cast iron roaster on the clay tiles over the open grid.  

will see later  tonight how the crumb is. 

Question:  yes it worked BUT I don’t want burnt bread so how do I modify my method to stop this?  yes I fiddled with the burners, turning them on briefly to keep temperature up but would it have been better to just let temperature drop and bake for longer?

HELP - all ideas welcome, I am an absolute newby in BBQ cooking, so all ideas very welcome.

Leslie

I started out to make Ru's seeded sourdough which I love.  I ran out of levain (didn't calculate properly) so added in the left over from the first refreshment of the refrigerated starter.  I am not sure how much water I added to it to thin it from 66% hydration - a dumb move as it was quite thin when I used it. 

12 midday - toasted 15 g chia seed, 37 g sesame seed and 22 g flaxseed. I had blitzed sesame and flaxseed a little in the coffee grinder. I then added 55 g water but it sucked it all up so I added another 55 g water and left to soak.

12:15 pm Autolyse 245 g flour, 50 g wholewheat flour freshly milled, 28 g freshly milled rye and 4 g gluten flour with 198 g water.  I amended the water amount because of the extra with the grain but it was too dry so just went with what it should have been. 

13:30 I added the seed soaker and 90 g 100% levain. I did 100 SLAFs and dough just wouldn't come together.  Far too wet! This was my oops, too much extra water.  Thinking about it I realised that in the past I have added seed soaker when I did the autolyse!!  I really don't know where my head was that day.  What shall I add to soak up the excess?  Oh, how about some oat bran, got a packet of that!  So I worked in 20 g oat bran and did 30 more SLAFs before adding 7 g salt.  This was followed by another 130 SLAFs and dough felt really good!

14:15 pm one set of coil folds. 

14:50 pm one set of coil folds

15:25 pm one set of coil folds

16:00 pm final set of coil folds and dough was left to bulk ferment.

19:00 pm dough had risen about 50% so preshaped and left for 25 minutes

19:25 pm final shaping followed by 30 minute bench rest and retarding at 19:55 pm

Baked the next morning after 14 hour retard in a preheated DO for 15 minutes at 240 deg C with lid on and 18 minutes lid off.

Managed a small ear! Crumb shot

Really really happy with this loaf, lovely nutty flavour.  My oops correction worked out really well so I may add some oat bran again in future.

It feels good to be starting to bake a bit more again.

Leslie