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It's good to be back! With colder weather comes more time indoors, more warm stick-to-your-ribs meals, and more baking!

I tried to do some baking in the Spring and Summer, but it was just too hot. Besides, I like to be outside when it's sunny and warm! Now that we're getting into late Fall and Winter, I'm looking inward once again, and planning to do some major baking projects over the next few months!

Something between a demi and full size.  Lets just call it a 3/4.  

I have never tried to bake ciabatta before but encouraged by this community bake I thought I would spend a morning on YouTube to watch a bundle of videos on the subject to see how it is done. I eventually settled on John Kirkwood's Sourdough Ciabatta Bread  largely because it uses a sourdough poolish which I have often used before.

I had shoulder surgery a little over three months ago, which cut into the baking time pretty severely. I spent the last ten days rebuilding my starter, and made my first loaf yesterday. 100% fresh-milled whole wheat sourdough using Reinhart's basic whole wheat bread recipe (except no yeast).

For this one, I figured using just the Einkorn and the Barley were boring so I tossed on some locally made beer. I don’t know if it was the beer, the lower hydration, the sticking to under 12 hours for the refrigerated proof or removing the loaves from the fridge 20 minutes before popping them in the oven, but wow! Did I ever get fantastic oven spring! Probably the best oven spring I’ve had for a long time!

Recipe

Makes 3 loaves

Porridge

75 g barley flakes

150 g water

Main dough

I’ve only slightly modified this recipe I saw Kristen post on Instagram.  I added a poppyseed crust to the bread because I thought that it would go quite well with the flavour of this bread and I was right.  My family did really like the bread and we had some good sandwiches on it.

This was only the 2nd sourdough sandwich loaf I’ve made. And perhaps only my 3rd sandwich loaf ever.  My first sourdough sandwich loaf was underproofed and was posted last year on my blog.  

Benny’s Ciabatta Bake No. 1

Prior to the many posting here about biga I had already decided I’d try a non biga ciabatta recipe.  One of the people I follow on YouTube, Joy Ride Coffee has a formula up that I decided to give a go.  I decided to make the ciabatta with a 12% white flour I have left over from an early baguette bake and only used whole grain in the levain.  The levain itself is my usual 100% hydration.

Flour and water mixed and autolyse x 1 hour.

Dear Diary,

As you know, it's been four years since our last sourdough bake. Long time, huh? Do you think we'll remember anything?

It was fun rocking out Debra Wink's Pineapple Juice Solution (TL;DR... go to the end of Part 2) for whipping up a new starter from scratch.

Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to share two nice loaves that came out of the oven this morning.

The first loaf is a 100% semolina sourdough and the second is a yeast water raisin and sunflower loaf, both at 75% hydration. Both loaves were mixed up at about the same time, fermented and baked together.

Yeast water raisin and sunflower loaf

Michigan's deer season opens this coming Sunday, November 15.  My brother-in-law and some of his cousins will set up camp on Friday and Saturday, continuing a tradition begun by my late father-in-law.  Accommodations are rather Spartan, in the form of a converted school bus.  I've volunteered to bring bread as my contribution to the groceries for our stay.