PY's blog

trying out my first loaf from hamelman's bread - whole wheat levain. Made some variations as I dont have a decent mixer and did 4 sets of stretch and folds within 2 hours and 15 minutes bulk rise. Added an autolyse of 1 hour too.

used 50% home milled whole wheat which the recipe called for on the finest setting on my komonfidibus 21. I think the taste would have been more developed if I had retarded the dough for final proof but since this is my first try of this recipe I thought I'd follow the recipe more closely.

i am still unable to get the nice bloom that I see so many breads posted here and wonder if my final shaping needs some serious work to get a tighter surface. Every time i turn the dough out from the banneton and score the dough, the dough spreads so any oven spring in the oven basically brings it back to the original volume as when the dough is in the banneton.

This is supposed to be vollkornbrot and yes, i'm supposed to wait at least 24 hours before i can eat it. But really it looks inedible...literally, heavy as a brick.

the recipe called for only 6g of SD in the perferment which is only to sit for 1.5 hours. After that all igredients are mixed, patted into a loaf pan and proofed for 2 hours. I followed the recipe. But it lookes as though it's gone haywire?

total rye flour was 560g with 480g water. Any idea what went wrong?

This is the recipe from Josey Baker Bread seed loaf. I followed The recipe almost to the 'T' Save for swapping some different seeds to what i have in my pantry and increased SD to 20g instead of 15g as i wanted a shorter preferment time (6 hours on a very hot day at 32C instead of his recommended 8-12 hours).

I did the stretch and folds at 30 minutes intervals for 2 hours then cold bulk ferment in the fridge overnight for 14 hours. The next morning preshaped and benched for 10 minutes before final shaping into a banneton for 1.5 hours about 29C. I found the dough really wet and slack and had very much difficulties in shaping. After a few tries i just dumped the very slack dough into the banneton and kept my fingers crossed. From the recipe the hydration was at 75% but it felt higher than that by feel. if i could describe it i would say that the dough was "wobbly".

when i turn it out onto my baking sheet it was like a puddle of jelly, but i slashed the dough nevertheless. After about 15 minute in the oven at 250C with steam, it rose about 35%. The result is in the photos. Crumb is moist and highly gelatinised. Think it may be a tad under...would have been better if i had baked it for 5 more minutes (from the suggested 45 minutes).

one's got to resort to commercial yeast. This weekend's bake is a chocolate bread with pieces of valrhona bittersweet chocolates mixed into the dough. Oh and with some spelt flour...why not? Bake in a le creuset french oven

Only managed 6 buns as i had to hand crank 100g whole wheat berries.

100g Bread Flour

100g Fresh ground whole wheat

1/2 tsp yeast

2 tbsp brown sugar

3/4 tbsp butter

1/3 tsp salt

1/2 cup water

Tangzhong (10g bread flour, 50g water)

180c convection oven for 18 minutes

used my new rye starter which is 8 days old.

preferment

120g 100% hydration rye starter

30g rye 

30g BF

60g water

as I mistakenly used too much starter I prefermented this for only 6 hours

final dough

300g BF

60g rye

8g salt

all of the preferment

190g water (160g part 1, 30g part 2)

walnuts and soaked raisins

autolyse 45 mins then in went the salt and the remaining water

did slap and fold for 15min, another set of about 8 mins after 30 mins from the first set

then bulk fermented for 1.5 hours at room temp (hot day here 32c) then into the fridge it went for another 1.5 hours as dough was rising too fast.

pinched in the raisins and walnuts into the dough, shaped n proofed in banneton for 1 hour.

baked with steam for 18 mins at 250c, thereafter for remaining 25 mins for 210C

since i made an acetobacter YW and my sourdough died at the same time (double whammy) i have to resort to commercial yeast while waiting for the rebirth of my sourdough.

bought the hario skerton coffee grinder to grind some buckwheat...was easy enough.

Bulk fermented for 5.5 hours (not by choice). Too tangy for my liking but kinda shreddeable n soft. 40g yeast water used.

Goji berry style. Let's hope it works. This is Day 1

used bread flour, heritage whole wheat and rye for this loaf.

started with a pre ferment about 16 hours

G 35g 100% starter (mine is rye)

35g water

35g bread flour

final dough

310g bread flour

100g heritage whole wheat

100g dark rye

12g sea salt

1 tsp toasted and ground cumin and coriander seeds

autolyse at least 1 hour

bulk fermentation 2 hours with stretch and fold at intervals of 30 mins

preshape and bench 10min

final shaping and proof in banneton for 45 min to 1 hour

bake with steam