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This last weekend I did a test run of a 3-stage fermentation rye sourdough. I know a little about how rye behaves, so I thought “What could go wrong?”. I chose Hamelman’s Three Stage 70 Percent Sourdough Rye. I recalculated for a 750-gram boule.

The first issue was that the recipe called for medium rye flour. I only have home-milled whole rye. Lance advised getting a 40# mesh to get something close to medium rye. I was keen to proceed anyway and went ahead using whole rye.

The wife has tasked me to come up with a sandwich bread recipe our family can bake at least once a weak to completely replace our regularly purchased box store sandwich bread.

Requirements

After an absence from bread baking I often come back to this bread to get myself back in the groove. It's Sara Owens' Honeyed Oat Spelt Sourdough bread. This picture is right after taking the lid off the combo cooker.

After a brief dalliance with PR's whole wheat sandwich bread, I'm back to my traditional sourdough loaf (starter + water + flour + salt). These were around 80% hydration.The sandwich bread was delicious, but didn't keep nearly as well as the traditional loaf.

I'm getting back into baking after a busy summer.

I made this tonight and continue to be a fan of Sara Owens' recipes. Everything I've made from her books I've really enjoyed. This cake has only 30 grams of brown sugar and only uses whole wheat flour. It has five ripe bananas in it - which are placed in the oven with the brown sugar and a bit of rum to roast for 15 minutes before you make the batter. It uses ripe starter but I don't even think it's necessary given baking powder and soda powder are used in the recipe.

I baked Maurizio’s formula for this bread which I share below copied from his website for those interested in trying this bake.  At the end I’ll post what I will do next time I bake this based on the final results.

This tangzhong pan bread is a direct bake, meaning it’s baked the same day you mix (except for the levain, which is created the night before).

I wasn’t planning on making such a large loaf, but it turned out to be just over 1 kg, I guess that doesn’t qualify it as being a miche, I’ll call it a mini miche ?. It was with this bake that I noticed how extremely sluggish my starter had become, it’s now in starter rehab on a diet of whole rye and bubbling along quite nicely.

Nov. 27, 2020.

The goal of this bake is to use no pre-milled flour, just soaked whole berries that have been blended in a Vitamix blender.  Add-ins are then used to get the hydration right.

This time I weighed most things. I forgot to weigh the approximately 1 tbsp starter. Guessing it to be 19.5 grams.

I started with 225 g of whole berry hard white spring wheat, Prairie Gold, and soaked it in what looked like enough water for 17 hours. I exchanged the soak water during this period.

I bought some emmer flour a couple of months just because I saw it and though "Huh never heard of emmer, I'll give it a go" - and then never tried it (except using in banana bread once). So I finally decided to try it. I recently got the book "Sourdough" by Lugg & Fjeld, and while it's not very advanced, I just followed their simple procedure and formula for 40% emmer sourdough (except added some slap&folds in the beginning until medium development, instead of simply relying on stretch&folds during bulk).

Nov. 25, 2020.

2nd bake of the day. Started the dough in the morning.  Again, not much measuring, just 3/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp instant dry yeast, which turned out to be too much.

Soaked some whole berry hard white winter spring wheat (Prairie Gold) for 18 hours. Around 9 am ran it through the blender with enough water to make a smooth paste. Emptied the paste into a mixing bowl. Had to use more water to get the remnants of the paste out of the blender container.