The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

100% Whole Wheat Four Grain Porridge Sourdough

Benito's picture
Benito

100% Whole Wheat Four Grain Porridge Sourdough

I’ve not made a porridge yet to add to any 100% whole grain bread so thought it was high time to try.  I have a bag of the new Harvest Flakes from Anita’s Organic Mill that they sent me to try out.  You could easily replicate this blend by using organic flaked oats, sesame, flax and sunflower seeds. 

In the evening, sift all the stoneground whole wheat flour with a #40 sieve to remove the bran.  Put the bran and Harvest Flake Mix in a small pan and add boiling soaker water and cook until the oats are softened.  The final weight should be 190 g so you may need to add a bit more water than the 99 g if you have great loses from cooking.  However, using boiling water and cooking flaked oats is a quick job so you shouldn’t really have a lot of water loss.  Once cool place in fridge overnight.

Prepare the levain and ferment at 74°F so it is ready in 10 hours.  I find that a levain like this without sugar is at peak to use once the pH drops about 1.3.

In the morning add the sifted water, salt and levain to a bowl and break down the levain.  Then add the sifted flour and mix until no dry flour visible.  Rest for 15 mins to allow the flour to fully hydrate then either knead to moderate gluten development by hand or in a stand mixer.  I used the stand mixer because these porridges especially ones with flax seeds are a gloopy mess to mix into a dough.  Mix until well incorporated.  At this point the pH was 5.52.  So target for shaping is a drop of 1.0 so when the pH of the dough reaches 4.52 I’ll aim to shape and then a further drop of 0.3 for baking.

During bulk fermentation at 82°F I’ll do a bench letter fold followed by coil folds as needed at 30 mins intervals.  For this dough I only did 2 full coil folds and 1 half coil fold.  The pH of 4.54 coincided with an aliquot jar rise of 37% so shaping was done.  I tried a different shaping technique which seems to develop more tension.  If I get proficient at this in the future I’ll do a shaping video.  I rolled the shaping dough in the flake mix on the counter and then transferred the dough to a banneton (no dusting of rice flour needed given the coating of flake mix).  The dough was allowed to proof on the bench until the pH dropped to 4.22.  About 1 hour prior to the estimated time for baking the oven was pre-heated to 500°F and prepared for open steam baking.  So the cast iron skillet was set on the highest shelf so it would pre-heat with the oven.  30 mins later the Sylvia towel in a metal loaf pan was filled with boiling water and placed on the baking steel to pre-steam the oven.  Once the oven was at temperature, the dough was unloaded from the banneton onto parchment, scored and loaded into the oven on the baking steel.  250 mL of boiling water was poured into the cast iron skillet.  The oven temperature was dropped to 450°F and the steam bake was done for 25 minutes.  After 25 mins the steam gear was removed, venting the oven of steam and the temperature dropped to 425°F. The bread completed full baking after another 22.5 minutes.

 

Comments

Benito's picture
Benito

Quite pleased with the crumb. Even at only 10% the porridge imparts a really soft custard like tenderness to the crumb. The flavour is wheat forward along with prominent sunflower flavors and a nice toasted flavor from the flakes and seeded coating on the crust. 

happycat's picture
happycat

Very cool to see you porridging the bran and getting such a great crumb. I can imagine a great aroma, crunch, and the flavour that comes with seed oils. I hope to do something like that at some point.

Do you have a sponsor of sorts now? :) Are you an influencer? 

Benito's picture
Benito

LOL I’d love to be an influencer and have a sponsor, but alas I am not.  However, Anita’s Organic Mill has taken notice of me on Instagram and have sent me two shipments of their flours and grains to try out.  So I’ll tag them when I use their flours when I post on IG.  In case others here want to use the same products I’ll mention them on occassion when I post here.

Benny

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Excellent results on this one Benny.  Your crumb looks perfect.  If your haven’t tried using milk or even better cream to make your porridge I implore your to try it.  It adds a wonderful creamy flavor to the bread that your must experience yourself.

Happy Baking!

Ian

Benito's picture
Benito

I’ve done butter toasting of the porridge grains and then cooking with milk before and loved the results.  Since this was my first time using a porridge I wanted to keep it simple to have fewer variables that might reduce the chance of success.  I agree cooking with butter and then milk adds a ton of extra flavour.  Thanks Ian.

Benny

Isand66's picture
Isand66

It really adds a luxurious flavor 

Benito's picture
Benito

I’m sure it does Ian, but we never have cream at home, 1% milk or butter are our choices.

naturaleigh's picture
naturaleigh

You've inspired me again Benny...I've been itching to try another porridge style bake again.  I've added oats before but not via this method.  I just gifted myself a new spiral dough hook for my KA mixer and it seems to be kneading much better than the one that I've been using for years (the one that came with the machine) so I think I will feel better about getting good incorporation of some of these thicker add ins.  The outside of your loaf looks as beautiful as the inside, although I swore off putting nuts and/or grains on the outside of loaves after getting tired of finding the little bits in all sorts of strange places in the kitchen--they fly everywhere when sliced!!!  I love the videos you've been posting by the way...keep it up!

Benito's picture
Benito

Thank you kindly Leigh, I thought that the Harvest Flake Mix would taste good in the dough as a porridge and was right.  I also thought it would make a pretty looking loaf on the outside as well.  However, I agree the mess it makes in the kitchen is something else.  I look forward to you posting your porridge loaves soon.  I hate my dough hook that comes with the KA mixer.  I thought my mixer was dying but I since have been told that the clicking noises it makes is quite normal.

Regarding the videos, I’ve always loved seeing time lapse videos of bread baking and it turns out that it was useful to do my own.  Having seen the bloom continuing to form up to 20 mins has changed my steam baking routine to extending it to 25 mins.  

Benny

happycat's picture
happycat

Can you share the dough hook link?

I'd like to see if there"s an upgrade to mine (bought a Ka pro 5 lift bowl 10+ years ago)

naturaleigh's picture
naturaleigh

Sure Happy Cat (and Benny might want to take a peek too).  Here's the link.  I have the tilt head not the lift bowl but that they make both (see links below).  The spiral hook is really nice and I like that is stainless steel rather than the iffy coating on the old KA one.  It worked great on some roll dough that I made recently and got the dough to window pane much quicker than the old hook.  In fact, I am so impressed with the spiral hook I also just ordered a stainless paddle replacement (different company) since the coating on that is getting weird...strange bumps all over it.  Hope this will work for you.  Just make sure to check your model number of course.

Spiral dough hook for tilt mixers

Spiral dough hook for lift stand mixers

 

happycat's picture
happycat

Thanks. Did you have a c-hook before? The stainless spiral seems to be the same design as my enamelled spiral.

naturaleigh's picture
naturaleigh

Yes, I had the c-hook before so the spiral hook was a great find for me, but not so much I guess if you already have a spiral one.  The only benefit I guess would be if you have issues with the coating on the one you have.  

Benito's picture
Benito

Have you had this spiral dough hook for long Leigh?  Have you used it many times?  Is it more efficient than the C hook?  Does it seem to cause any greater strain to the gears than the C hook?

If we can go to Florida next month for a winter vacation I might order it while down there, the price in Canada on Amazon is more than double the USD price.  Thanks for suggesting that I look at this.  I’ve never liked the C hook.

naturaleigh's picture
naturaleigh

I just got the spiral hook last week and used it this weekend for the first time, so I can't speak to longevity but it is a solid piece of stainless with a flawless finish so I would be very surprised if it did not hold up well over the years. 

To me, it seemed to work the dough much more efficiently--I stopped the kneading early to check the dough and it had fantastic stretch at about 8 minutes, much earlier than in the past with the c-hook, which I would often have to take to the 15+ mark to get the same kind of silky, stretchy dough (this roll batch was the best yet btw).  I also used to have to stop and start the kneading process with the c-hook, to scrape down and/or reshape the dough so the c-hook could actually knead rather than just spinning the dough ball around or completely missing it, which was a pain. 

It is quite a bit heavier, so I could see that being a concern if someone had a weak machine, but my old mule seemed to handle it just fine, at least for the first time out of the gate.  I guess time will tell.  If it works the dough quicker, that might be an improvement rather than running the KA for 20 minutes and overheating it.  I will be using it at least weekly as soft rolls have become a weekly staple at our house these days, so I can post another update in a few months.  At 23.00 US, I was willing to give it a try.

I did not notice any difference at all in how the machine handled the hook, even with the approximate 8-10-minute knead.  I have a very old KA machine, so it does a tiny bit of wobbling anyway, less of course if it is locked.  I've thought about getting it serviced but just haven't gotten around to it.

I'm shocked at the difference in price for you!  That's crazy!!  I hope you get a chance to check it out...at a reasonable cost ;-)

Benito's picture
Benito

It’s nice to know that there is a spiral dough hook available.  When I last looked I couldn’t find one for the Artisan KA mixer.  I hope we can travel in just under two weeks to Florida and if we can I’ll probably order from Amazon and bring that hook home.  My KA mixer unfortunately has the plastic gears so I expect eventually it will pass on.  But as you say if the spiral hook can develop the dough in half or less the time then theoretically if should put less strain on the gears.

I’ll be interested to hear from you on how you make out as you use it more Leigh, thanks for posting about it.

Benny

Benito's picture
Benito

Leigh I remembered to order the spiral hook for my 5 qt KA mixer yesterday and it arrives tomorrow in Florida where we are for four weeks.  Unfortunately I can’t take it out for a test drive but I’ll look forward to using it when I get home.  Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

Benny

naturaleigh's picture
naturaleigh

That's great!  Always happy to share things ;-). I hope you love it as much as I do!  Let us know what you think of the spiral dough hook once you get back and get a chance to use it.

Also, hope you have a wonderful, restful and warm vacation!

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Hi Leigh, just wanted to let you know that I used the spiral dough hook that I purchased on your recommendation and I have to say that it did reduce the mixing time for the dough to reach full gluten development.  I’m guessing it reduced the time by about ⅓.  However, the dough wasn’t exactly the same as the one I was comparing it to since it had no VWG added to it and I didn’t reduce the hydration despite not having VWG.  Given those factors, the reduction in time to full development is likely even more.  Thanks again for your suggestion!

Benny

naturaleigh's picture
naturaleigh

Hi Benny!  That's great to hear...so glad you've also had a good experience with the spiral hook.  I need to remember to start checking gluten development early when I'm using this though because I've had a couple instances recently (with a couple new recipes I've tried out) where I think the dough actually got over-worked when I forgot to check and adjust the recommended kneading time back in order to account for the improved action of the spiral hook versus my old C-hook.  The design is definitely a big improvement in my opinion.  As I've said in a previous comment in one of the threads, I think this little gizmo gives excellent return on investment ;-)

Benito's picture
Benito

KA really should include this type of dough hook with their Artisan stand mixer series instead of the C hook.  Again thank you for your suggestion.