suminandi's blog

Was inspired by Martadella's recent rye breads, and the somewhat recent community bake to make bread similar to the Danish rugbrod. I was short on rye, so I did include some whole wheat. Must try this again when I replenish my stock of rye.

Ingredients:

300 gr whole rye flour

150 gr whole wheat flour

150 gr last night's belgian beer (completely flat and most of the alcohol had evaporated)

200 gr water

80 gr 100% hydration rye starter (recently refreshed)

70 gr old ww bread, soaked with an unknown amount of water and then wrung out

150 gr combo or sunflower and pumpkin seeds

8 gr salt

Process: mix rye starter, liquids, flours. Let rest 2 hrs. In a separate bowl, combine some boiling water, torn up old bread and seeds. At the 2 hr mark, wring out and add in bread seed mix and salt. Combine well. Cover and let rest about 4 hrs until there are signs of fermentation. My kitchen was 'cold' ~68 degrees. Scoop into pan after gently folding the dough to distribute bubble. (I don't think that folding was actually necessary. Just a habit from making wheat hearth bread). Smooth top, pushing sides down slightly to create a arched top. Refridgerate overnight (wasn't planning that, but I was tired and wanted to turn in). In morning, dock and bake at 375 for 55 min. Cooled for about an hour before cutting. 

As expected, it's a bit on the sour side from the overnight in the fridge, but it is quite soft, nutty and delicious. The flavor should continue to develop tomorrow. 

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With the kids out of the house and unable to bring baked goods to the office, I mostly stopped baking croissants. Husband has been wanting to eat some recently, and we never seem to catch the short hours of our favorite local bakery. So I made some yesterday and baked a few this morning (putting most of the batch in the freezer after shaping). 

I used Hanseata's recipe : https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/33346/croissants-buttery-heaven, which I've scaled down to match 2 ingots of butter (~220 grams). I substitute oil for butter in the detrempe (as I usually do). This makes 12 nice sized croissants, about 90 grams finished weight.

Process:

After mixing the dough to medium development (stretchy but not thin windowpane), let rest until puffed about an hour. Pat out to one inch thick rectangle and refrigerate a few hours. (errands run during that time. Make butter block using Trader Joe's store brand unsalted butter. I usually use Kerrygold, and while this batch was delicious, next time I'm going back to using Kerrygold - i prefer the flavor. Locked in the butter block and did a letter fold. Cover and refridgerate for 30 min. Second letter fold, fridge for 30 min, 3 letter fold. Roll out a bit (to ~15 in X 6 in) cover and refrigerate overnight. In morning, roll out to 20 in x 10 in and cut into 12 wedges. Stretch wedges slightly and shape into rolls. 4 were allowed to proof about 2 hrs before washing with cream and baking for 30 min at 375 F. The rest were placed in the freezer in pie tins until frozen and then piled into a freezer bag. Plan thaw them overnight in fridge before proofing and baking. 

Results and improvement notes:

1) The cream wash did not produce as nice and shiny a result as egg yolk wash - go back to that. 

2) I did not remove the dusting flour off well enough when rolling them up. There are bubbles where the layers separated (see below)

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3) Could have baked for 5 more minutes. 

Overall, very successful for a startup after a long break

I have a stock of organic whole red fife flour purchased from a local farm several months ago. My first runs with it seemed to show that it was too weak to be the only flour in the bread - the dough would start breaking down around the time it was proofed to my eye- it made tasty bread, but the crumb was tighter than hard spring wheat loaves. So I was mixing it with some hard spring wheat and getting good results. Recently, I read that Red Fife is actually a high gluten wheat, so I reconsidered my process and ( after a few adjustments ) got this amazing loaf using only whole red fife, water, salt and starter. 

I think the main key was to let the flour soak for a few hours ( with salt) prior to adding the levain. It let the gluten develop well before the acid-producing cultures were introduced. No dough breakdown and I could let the proofing go longer. A further improvement could be to do shaping a bit later and/or shape tighter. 

Formula

400 gr whole red fife flour

340 gr water

6 gr salt

mix and rest 4 hrs

meanwhile make a starter build that will be ready in 4 hrs. 

mix in 100 gr starter with dough at 4 hr mark

knead well. Bulk ferment until small bubbles throughout ( about 5 hrs at current room temp ~68 F ). Preshape, shape. Rest an hr at room temp, fridge overnight. Cook covered in a 450 deg F oven 20 minutes. Uncover, reduce heat to 400 F, cook 15 more minutes. 

i cut it before it was fully cool. But as the m&m says “not sorry”

Very hot here. High temp around 110 F, so, to keep the kitchen cooler and reduce electricity use, i cooked a bread on our weber grill. I put a clay baker on to preheat for 15 min before loading the dough and cooking covered for 20 mins and then uncovered for another 20. The grill cover was on for all of it, besides to remove the clay baker cover. 

With some iteration, it could work. The bread was good, with a mild smoke flavor. It was slightly undercooked ( though that could be from cutting while hot). The bottom was very charred and had to be scraped off. 

It’s my ‘staple bread’ - bolted fresh ground winter wheat. 
crumb:

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Today's bread is made from fresh ground, sifted Hard Red Spring wheat from Montana Flour and Grains

Very basic bread - 

400 gr bolted fresh ground flour

320 gr water (80%)

8 grams salt

30 gr olive oil

2 tablespoons honey

60 grams levain (stiff starter ~65% hydration)

Process:

2 hr autolyse flour and water

Mix dough including autolyse, levain and salt - let rest ~30 min

mix in honey and oil.

Bulk ferment until nearly doubled (~4 hr as warm room temp)

preshape, rest 20 min, shape - into refridgerator overnight

Bake in covered pot at 450 deg F directly from fridge. 20 min covered, 15 min uncovered

Here's the crumb (I cut it hot, so it's a bit wet in the picture. It dried off after a while). 

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WW flour 900 gr

water 700 gr

levain 150 gr

salt 18 gr

2 hr salt soak ( flour, water, salt) 

5 hr bulk fermented 

1.5 hr proof after shaping into 2 batards

baked at 450F for 35 min

one loaf cut right away. That’s why the crumb is wet in picture. 

malty-wheaty flavor. Soft texture. Crust is crispy 

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Weekly bread for my friends. Continuing the series of 100% red fife loaves. Hydration 78%, salt 2%. The reviews have been good. No crumb picture because they were all given away. 

Today’s red fife loaf. I dropped the hydration a bit from the recent loaves. The past few loaves have been tending to relax a lot while in proofing and flattening out bit. So I brought the hydration down a bit from 78% to 75%. Added a small amount of olive oil for flavor. 
Very good wholewheat flavor with malty notes. Soft crumb - not at all chewy. I’m getting the hang of this grain, which is weaker than the northern red spring wheat I usually use. Could have proofed a bit longer, but not bad for 100% wholegrain. 

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I’m lucky to have (so far) a healthy household and furthermore employment that I can accomplish with telework. 

I continue to bake 100% wholewheat sourdough, thanks to buying flour from a local-ish farmer. It is California grown red fife and after a few experiments, I’m getting delicious, light ( for ww) loaves out of it. I’ve been sharing loaves with friends which has given us all a chance for a few minutes socializing in the driveway. One friend even brought his violin and played some tunes :-). 

Here’s a crumb picture 

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I bought some Glenn wheat berries from Kenter Canyon farm at the Atwater Village farmers market ( in Los Angeles). It was $2 per pound, not cheap but not too outrageous. The Glenn wheat is grown in Santa Rosa, California. I’m currently buying hard red spring wheat from Montana Flour and Grains by mail, and I would like to transition to a more local supplier. 

I milled it and baked my typical loaf- sourdough, 100% whole grain, no additives besides salt. The starter is rye and comprised 10% of the grain. The other 90% was the Glenn wheat ( replacing the montana hard red spring wheat). The hydration of the loaf was 80%. 2% salt. 

Impressions- the flour held up well to fermentation with sourdough. The final crumb was softer than the Montana loaf is typically. Probably lower gluten, but strong enough to get a nice enough profile with the usual treatment. Excellent aroma including malty notes. I have been adding spelt to my wheat loaves to reduce the chewiness of the hard red spring loaves, and I’d say the Glenn loaf is an excellent texture alone. 

Here is a crumb picture

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