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I’ve been making this bread every  weekend since mid-April with the goal of entering it in the county fair, which has a sourdough division this year. The theme of the fair this year is “Over the Moon”, hence the stencil. 

I made 3 batches of 2 loaves each so I’d have plenty to choose from, this one looked the nicest.

Hi,

I followed Hotbake's lovely recipe with my own process and I also increased some of the amounts to get a larger loaf (in the future I'll probably make the loaf even bigger)

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/60618/chai-and-double-chocolate-chip-sourdough

340g bread flour

30g whole wheat

20g rye

325g chai concentrate

60g honey

60g salt

80g starter

Method

Hi,

I took inspiration from this fig and anise levain, but then swapped out the mix-ins and followed

my own process:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30486/comfort-food-%E2%80%93-fig-anise-levain-meringues

Levain

50g starter

58g water

100g flour (50/50 whole wheat and bread) 

Final dough

208g levain

787g bread flour

138g whole wheat flour

A better approach that seems less effort is a 4-hour long Autolyse  of fresh ground wheat berries at 90% hydration, then add ~10%  sourdough starter, a  4 hour bulk ferment including several stretch and folds with 2% salt added at the next to last stretch and fold,  a 12-hour retard, then form the loaves, and a final rise in baskets of about 3 or 4 hours.  Bake at 450F convection on a pizza stone. 

I had quite a few people asking me for a redo so here it is. Minor changes were using only 50g of additional water, doubling the amount of bourbon, mixing the cinnamon with the raisins before adding to the dough and bulking for only 4 hours as the dough temp was quite a bit higher with this batch. Here is my prior recipe: 

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/60439/saigon-cinnamon-raisin-sourdough

I needed to make some rolls for burgers and sandwiches and if you know me by now, adding cheese was a must :).  The main flour was Kamut with some KAF bread flour thrown in for good measure.  The eggs really added some nice moisture and flavor and the smoked Gouda cheese I used put them over the top.  Of course if you don't like smoked cheese (like my wife who hates it), use a more mild cheese.

According to the the Larousse Book of Bread. A mixture of white bread and rye flour, liquid levain (100% hydration rye sourdough starter) and dry yeast. I was quite pleased with the looks and the bread has a very pleasant taste. The rye component is clearly present but not overwhelming and a fine crust.

Finally got the recipe to work on my fourth try and reading some of the basic advice found on the forums. Reduced the hydration from 85 to 75 percent and did a colder set of rises at 73 degrees.

After years of experimentation, I think I'm finally starting to understand how to get the results I'm looking for.

Both of these doughs were prepared similarly:

• 586g Central Milling ABC+
• 53g semolina (Bob's Red Mill)
• 53g whole wheat (Giusto)
• 53g khorasan (Central Milling)

Autolyse this mix with 582g water for about 3 hours.

Hand mix in 150g mature levain (dome not yet deflated) and then do French folds on countertop. Let hang out for 45 minutes.

Add 18g salt and do French folds. Let hang out for 30 minutes.