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I’ve been gradually making adjustments to my formula and in this case I’ve increased the hydration via increasing the proportion of flour in the tangzhong from 5% to 7.5% keeping the ratio of flour to milk in this tangzhong to 1:5. The resulting dough is a bit stickier to work with, however, I’m hoping that the crumb will be even more soft and tender yet still shreddable.  You probably have noticed that I love black sesame seeds so that was always going to be a good inclusion for this bread.

Jan. 21, 2022. 81st bake.

Talk about beautiful and easy ! I have another started as soon as I saw  and smelled this one! It’s got RYW and white levain and rye levain . It’s got honey/EVVO/buttermilk in equal parts. It’s in my big Pullman . It’s almost hands free except dropping it into the rising bucket and then the buttered Pullman. 

335g T65 

335g Rouge de Bordeaux fresh milled

70g Semola Rimacinata 

28g rye

150 YW

310 H2O

42g each honey/ EVOO/buttermilk 

126g levain ( combo rye and white) 

13 g salt

All set for the next two months (+-)

It's the 21st day of 2022, I hope everyone is doing great and keeping up with each resolution-.. I made one this year: I need to drink less coffee this year! I decided to revisit my old habits like making masala tea from scratch. Normally, we would use Assam, Ceylon or even Darjeeling but I've English breakfast for now. The very first loaf of sourdough I made this year only happened the day before yesterday, also thanks to masala tea.

Today's bake is loosely based on Ken Forkish's "Overnight Country Brown." I increased the levain and did the "overnight" in the fridge after dividing and shaping rather than in bulk at room temperature. Well, the hydration is higher too - 85.5 versus 78%. The result is a moderately sour, crusty loaf with a fairly open, deliciously moist and tender crumb. The flavor is more straight ahead wheaty than my favorite multigrain sourdough, but this is also a spectacularly delicious bread. I had some almost cooled with a light smear of butter, along with a bowl of split pea soup for lunch.

Background

My first attempts at this bread were flawed in that I got very little rise. Debra Wink (DW) contacted me and suggested some tweaks. As a result, I introduced some Vital Wheat Gluten (VWG) to increase the protein percent of my whole-wheat flour. I also pre-fermented 5 percent of the flour in a stiff levain. I wasn’t sure what effect the levain would have; rise, flavour enhancement, crumb or all. I’ve had a great result by incorporating both the VWG and the levain now for many weeks.

Today’s Experiment

To learn more about concentrated lactic acid sourdough (CLAS), please see here and here.