Blog posts

• After a few years of success creating and maintaing starters they are suddenly failing. Mixed 50g slightly warmed water with 50g KA AP flour . Added the.same on second day and always started growing on third day .
• Suddenly this has proven unsuccessful . I’ll get a quick reaction third day but afterwards nothing .
• Can't imagine what is going wrong on several attempts .
• Any help much appreciated!
• Mike

My first attempt at sourdough sprouted wheat. The loaf is approximately 50% sprouted hard red winter wheat, 50% sprouted spelt flour, freshly ground grains purchased from Breadtopia. Used about 80 grams of 100% hydration WW starter and a teeny pinch of SAF instant yeast (maybe a 16th of a tsp). Dough hydration was approximately 71%. With all whole wheat I would have used more water, but having baked many spelt loaves I knew I would need to keep the hydration level on the lower side..

Today's bake:   Westphalian Pumpernickel - Westfalischer Pumpernickle (Germany)

Source:   The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg

Notes: 

• From  TDW: 1862gr - 1 Pan(s)   Pan Size: 9x4x4 In / 22.86x10.16x10.16 CM  
• To  TDW: 3259gr - 2 Pan(s)   Pan Size: 7.88x4x4 In / 20x10.16x10.16 CM
   

Substitutions: 

I make Sourdough crusts and pre bake. Freeze and ready for impromptu dinners! I keep sauce in the freezer in pints and I buy Whole milk mozzarella and Monterey Jack ( can’t get Wisconsin Brick cheese). I use my 1970 sheet pans or my Detroit pans depending on how I feel. It’s all yum. 

So, as some here may remember, I have had a variety of inconsistencies with my rye starter and my rye breads over the past year or so ... and, among the thoughts that the kind people on this site suggested was that I change up my routine and try some different rye flours. Though I'm not generally good at taking advice, I decided to have some fun with this. So I lined up 3 ryes:

A variation of my last flax seed recipe (https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/76368/flaxseed-sourdough-bread). 20% LM instead of whole rye sourdough, increased the amount of flaxseeds by 1%-2% (beaker percentage), increased the overall hydration by 10% (baker percentage).

Not exactly sure why, possibly Benny’s latest poppy seed eye popper or possibly Passi(io)nate Tom’s explorations, but I got inspired to revive an old family favorite that’s gone missing since I dove into baking with sourdough. For most of our boys’ childhood, my darling wife made bread 2-3 times a week. Her quest to increase whole grain consumption eventually yielded  an awfully good loaf starring whole wheat flour, bulgur wheat (wheat berries just wouldn’t cooperate), wheat bran, raisins, rolled oats and nuts.

Well, there’s nothing like taking your dough out of the proofer to do a S&F and then forgetting to put it back in to proof!!

Thanks to my senior moment and the need to go to bed, I put the dough in the fridge overnight to finish bulk. Naturally, it went from a targeted 50% rise to around 90%.

The dough was definitely over-proofed, but after shaping and refrigerating for around 10 hours before baking, it still came out pretty good. I used whole eggs in this one purposely so the crumb was a little drier than with just egg yolks as intended.