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I have been experimenting with different methods of creating steam without using/buying a dutch oven, knowing that the dutch oven method really is the best and most hassle-free (no lava rocks, towels etc.) way to bake artisan style breads at home. I just didn't want to accumulate another single-use kitchen item to add to my already cluttered kitchen. So far, I've been happy with emulating the dutch oven method using the inside of a slow cooker and a deep ceramic casserole dish - both of them covered by a cookie sheet or upside down metal bowl for the first 20 minutes.

Learning how make Kefir and had 2 cups to discard and just couldn't waste it.... added about 340 grams of 2 day old red ww, 1 tablespoon of honey, 1/4 cup each of Bob's RM ground flax and Anthony's oat fiber and 1/2 cup of yeast water made from a mixture of organic raisins, organic blue berries and organic apples and honey from Curtis - a local company in La Belle. Mixed,covered and left on counter overnight - about 12 hours. Kitchen temp about 75-76 degrees.

The other day I decided to finally try my hand at a sourdough boule recipe. Amazingly to me, one of them was edible and dare I say pretty darn good. The other one was, well, let's just say that it was instructive. ;)

The first thing I did was to collect some healthy starter from a local flour mill. I also bought a bag of spelt flour from them. Now, what recipe to try? I decided to go with the mill's basic Sourdough Bread Formula. 

Ingredients:

I’ve made this once before and wanted to give it another go since I still have some Einkorn and wanted to inch up the % of it in the bake.  Being aware of the difficulty baking with Einkorn, I just increased the amount from about 10% to 13.5%.  The dough handled just fine.

Bread flour 71%

Whole Red Fife 15.5%

Whole Einkorn 13.5%

Prefermented flour 9%

Diastatic malt 0.5% 

Hydration 80% 

Levain 1:1:1 with whole red fife fermented 78ºF for 6 hours.

Autolyse 3 hours.

I've read/skimmed Richard Bertinet's bread books. It would be fun to take his courses at his school in Bath, England, but I live in the US and the courses are pricey. He's an advocate of the 'slap and fold' technique.

I came upon a newly launched video course web site, Learningwithexperts.com on which he has a course.

It's a four-part course that I bought. The site's pricing is interesting. In the US, the course is US$100. But in the UK, the course is £ 29, which is about US$37.

Ingredients:

• 100g Sourdough Starter (50/50 Hard Red Wheat)
• 286g Whole Red Wheat (Home Milled)
• 376g HEB Bread Flour
• 18g Salt

This recipe was derived from the following King Arthur recipe:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/no-knead-sourdough-bread-recipe

With the following modifications:

I've been experimenting lately with left over starter. I'm creating a stiff Pate Fermentee with it and a few days later adhoc a recipe. The breads are fine but nothing wow yet. This was my recent attempt. I'm posting this for recording keeping more than anything else.

Pate Fementee was 1 part ripe starter, 2.5 part water and 4.5 part AP flour - or 60, 132 and 270 respectively. I left it out for an hour and then put it in the fridge.

Final dough was made two days later:

- 150g pate fermente

- 125g whole wheat flour

- 375g all purpose flour

-12g salt

It has been quite a while since I last baked with spelt. Spelt and emmer are similar in terms of their characteristic in dough. Working with them is always a pleasant experience for they produce a silky (read: not gluing to your hands like rye…) and extensible dough.

Temperature has been hitting 33°C these days, so it wasn’t at all surprising that the levain (1:5.5:5.5) got aerated within 3.5 hours. I didn’t plan very well so it had to go into the fridge for 3 hours before use.

My husband had a hankering for a rye bread....who can say no?

I grabbed my Hamelman, and went in search of a rye that had no commercial yeast and also was wholegrain.  I failed, so I modified his 65 percent sourdough rye to use only freshly milled grain.  I have to say - this is one of the tastiest rye breads I have had since I moved out of New York. 

Prepare sourdough -and then let it sit about 16 hours on the counter at about 20 degrees C

This bake was from a few weeks ago.  The spouted whole wheat and sprouted purple corn flour really added a special flavor and made this an extremely tasty bread.  I added some fresh ricotta cheese which really softens the crumb.

I made one large miche style bread and I was extremely happy with how the crust and crumb came out on this one.