Two rye mashes for upcoming Russian bread bakes. Both done together in the sous-vide bath.
First is a mash for Riga bread with homemade rye malt and T997 light rye; 2.5hrs at 66C:
Second made with Russian solod and home ground rye with the course bran sifted off; 5 hrs at 66C:
I just LOVE this technique of gluten development in two parts!! It is amazingly successful and completely eliminates all hands on except shaping .
As an aside I do not shape my loaves . I dump out the dough cut it in half and pick up the long piece and drop it into my Batard shaped cloth lined banneton. That’s it. The boule gets all four sides folded in and plopped down folded side down in the cloth lined banneton. No tightening no fuss no muss.
and still kinda get away with it? Answer - a lot.
Background is rooted, but barely, in my recent enjoyment of an 80% PFF biga version. I was refreshing the regularly neglected 75% mixed flour levain along with the workhorse 100% AP levain when I suddenly had this "brilliant" idea. Why not change a few things at once so that I won't know what may have worked and what didn't?
Things that changed, some not necessarily on purpose:
Just wanted to drop a note about how much I enjoyed both making and eating this bread.
This is a quality recipe. Great posts from David and Hans and lots of techniques and tricks in the comments to their posts meant this was like following a well charted path.
This bread surprised me by it's mildness. Was a pleasure to eat. Even the kids got stuck into it!
I was having fun with Borodinsky so I ploughed ahead with a black rye (not bad) and a Franconia and Auvergne from ryebaker.com. I'm pretty bummed by the results, particularly as I spent a lot of time sprouting, drying, milling rye and spelt flour.
I made a few steps that caused me problems:
Benny started an interesting experiment that was right up my alley. He wanted to know the affect that sugar had on a SD starter. I am always looking to enhance the yeast in my starter. So here I go…
Images above and below show calibration before any readings were taken.
This one is a present, so no crumb shots unless the recipient sends me a photo. Same procedure as my previous bake of this recipe with the only deviation being sprinkling sesame seeds on top of the dough after the second application of the egg wash.
For the detailed recipe click this link.
Just a photo, with no recipe, and for no reason.
Lately I've been making my favourite winter sourdough. Shorter days and cold weather always seems to call for heartier loaves so I laminate mine with tons of crunchy whole hemp, nori flakes and house made rice or oat koji. I shape these into a boule or batard, retard outside overnight and just before baking smear them with tons of good quality EVOO and kosher salt. Then I bastardize them by turning them into smaller shapes I can freeze. This is mainly so we don't devour an entire loaf in one setting. These breads are somewhat addictive ( if I do say so myself)!
