The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

20210428 + 0601 Stan's (100% whole-grain) Chleb Mieszany with CLAS

Yippee's picture
Yippee

20210428 + 0601 Stan's (100% whole-grain) Chleb Mieszany with CLAS

  •  To learn more about concentrated lactic acid sourdough (CLAS), please see here and here

 

Ingredients (pre-warmed and maintained at 30-32C/86-89.6F throughout the process):

 

50% freshly ground, unsifted whole wheat (All the whole rye/wheat flours I bought are rancid.)

42% freshly ground, unsifted whole rye

8% whole rye CLAS

 

30% + 9% water

50% home-made yogurt, full fat

8% honey (recipe calls for 1.3% sugar)

2% salt (recipe calls for 1.3%)

0.3% instant yeast (recipe calls for 1%)

sunflower seeds as needed

 

I decided to change the sweetener to honey and increased its amount to 8%.

 

Still using my Vitamix to grind the flours since I am not ready to play with my new toys yet. 

 

whole wheat

whole rye

 

I autolyzed the whole wheat flour with yogurt; gluten was quite well-developed after ~2 hours. 

 

 

I added some rye flour to the wheat-yogurt mixture and mixed them in my Zojirushi bread machine for ~10 minutes to strengthen the gluten. Then I added all the remaining ingredients and mixed for another 10 minutes, and added more water during the mix until the dough couldn't take in any more. The dough looked like this when mixing was complete:

 

 

Bulk: 30-32C/86-89.6F x 150 mins 

I halved the recipe to 523g total dough weight, which fits perfectly in a 8x3x3 pan. 

 

 

Proof: 32C/89.6F x 60mins

 

 

My bread machine "hack". 

 

 

Baked in my Zo x 70mins, dark crust. 

 

 

Baked loaf. 

 

 

 

Crumb shot (click to enlarge). 

 

 

 P.S. 20210601

Since my family likes this bread, I want to share it with my friends, too.  This time I pre-fermented 100% of the flour and increased the amount of CLAS to 10%.  The bread turned out even more flavorful and was slightly tangy. If time permits, I think I will continue to make a pre-dough in the future. I made this bread with a 9x4x4 tin, so the slices are standard size.  I used organic white hard wheat berries to grind flour for one of the loaves because I ran out of red berries.  

 

I kept the loaf that was made with white whole wheat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent this loaf (made with hard red wheat) to my friend with kumquat and homemade marmalade.

 

 

 

Harvesting kumquat makes me happy!

 

Comments

mariana's picture
mariana

Such a beautiful little loaf with the cutes slices ever! Did you like it? 

 

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Hi, Mariana, 

This cute little loaf is chewy-spongy and super aromatic, exactly the way I'd like it to be. The texture I like is mostly attributed to properly ground flours. Without your advice, I would not have ground it fine enough, and the bread would have turned out less desirable. Thank you!

This bake is the first time I've used CLAS to bake a high% rye bread that is not a Rus recipe. I am very excited to take the first step to explore CLAS independently!

Yippee

mariana's picture
mariana

Yippee, I am happy for you and with you.

The general rule for baking with CLAS is to introduce 10-15% of all flour in bread with CLAS, if it's a straight dough method, as in Chlieb from The Rye Baker, where dough ferments for 2-3hrs.

If it's a two step method (sponge/levain + dough stages), then CLAS is added to the yeasted sponge, 5-10% of all flour coming from CLAS. Sponge ferments for 3-4hrs, dough for 1-2hrs.

alcophile's picture
alcophile

That’s a very attractive loaf. I’ll bet the flavor is much better than my version. The CLAS method for sourdough sounds very interesting. Unfortunately, I do not own a device that can maintain the narrow temperature window (40 ± 2 °C) required in the method. That’s a tighter range than many of the chemical reactions that I used to perform when I was in chemical manufacturing. Biochemical processes often are more sensitive to temperature.

As a chemist, I am curious about the lactic and acetic acids in the culture. Because the CLAS has no yeast, is it possible to add lactic and acetic acids to a dough to mimic the CLAS? I realize sourdough is more complex than just the low pH, but what other effects do the LAB have on the starch and protein in the flour that are due to the higher concentrations of the organic acids?

Thanks!

Yippee's picture
Yippee

I use Instant Pot's yogurt function to make CLAS. Other household appliances such as bread makers and ovens that have a proof function can also do the job. Therefore, you do not need special equipment to make CLAS. 

Since I have very little knowledge of bread science, please forgive me if the information I provide below is incorrect. And I hope that if my answer is incorrect, the experts will correct me.

Yes, I believe you can add lactic acid and acetic acid to the dough to imitate CLAS because bakeries are already doing so to ensure uniform bread quality. There are commercially prepared sours consisting of blends of lactic acid and acetic acid to acidify rye bread dough chemically. However, even though the degree of protein degradation may be similar between the sourdough-fermented dough and chemically-acidified bread dough, bacterial proteolysis during sourdough fermentation may produce a more typical sourdough flavor in baked bread. Sourdough fermentation with LAB increases the concentration of amino acids during fermentation, increasing their conversion to aroma compounds, thereby improving the sensory quality of baked loaves.

In rye flour, pentosan is the carbohydrate that causes the typical stickiness in rye dough. Its excellent swelling ability enables it to compete with gluten-forming rye proteins glutenin and prolamin for water and form complexes with them, thereby reducing their gluten-forming ability. Fortunately, organic acids can hydrolyze pentosans and eliminate them during fermentation and baking. Therefore, the quality of sourdough-fermented rye dough is better than that of yeast-fermented rye dough.

The gas trapping capacity of gluten formed by rye proteins is insufficient to create a good bread structure. Therefore, rye flour relies on the gelatinization of its starch to do the job. But starch gelatinization is susceptible to degradation caused by the excessive activities of an enzyme, amylase, during the baking process. Luckily, organic acids can inhibit amylase, thereby protecting rye starch from degradation to maintain a good bread structure. 

Yippee

alcophile's picture
alcophile

Thank you, Yippee. Your discussion of rye bread science is very helpful. I do not own any of the household appliances that you mentioned and my oven does not have a proof function. That is why I was asking about the addition of the organic acids.

I am also trying to start a 100% hydration sour rye culture. The first few days looked promising, but the last two refresh cycles seemed to produce no visible activity. The pH is 4 (using pH paper) but no increase in volume is observed. I may have to start over.

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Hi, 

If you haven't seen Mariana's advice in this post, please do so before you do anything "reckless". Also, please give CLAS a try if you can, it's such a simple yet powerful tool that will guarantee excellent bread quality without frustrations. The peace-of-mind that comes with its usage is well worth the investment of a small multi-function gadget. (P.S. Sorry, I forgot that you do need something big enough to ferment your dough.)

Yippee

alcophile's picture
alcophile

Thanks for the encouragement and the link, Yippee. I have begun to see some gas generation again in the culture. I had planned to complete the instructions that I’m following from The Rye Baker. Those instructions, though, indicated that:

“…by the second or third day, the sponge will swell, show bubbles, and give off a clean sour smell. Over the next few days the activity will become more and more vigorous and the smell more intense…”

The culture behaved as indicated for the first two to three days, but then went quiet instead of becoming more intense; I’ll stick with it as instructed. I will also consider the Instant Pot for making the CLAS, especially if the culture from The Rye Baker is problematic. I would like to explore the recipes in that book but I am not experienced enough to adapt them using CLAS instead of his culture.

Benito's picture
Benito

Lovely loaf of bread you baked Yippee, it must be very tasty.

Benny

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Sorry, I missed your comment. My family usually doesn't like whole-grain stuff, but it is encouraging that all the whole-grain breads I have made recently are very popular. So, I want to make more varieties of whole-grain bread to stimulate their taste buds!

Yippee

jo_en's picture
jo_en

For autolyse, I mixed 150 gr Nancy's full fat yogurt (not Greek) with 150 gr ww flour. (will make a small batch recipe)

It was very stiff-should I add more water?

 

Follow up:

On autolyse w/ yogurt: I didn't know what to do with the stiff yogurt / whole wheat mix above  so I put it into the refrig for almost 2 days.

On my second dough with clas, I incorporated the  above autolysed dough (w/yogurt) with the Rus' usual 100% whole wheat pre-dough  and hand kneaded it all together (more ww flour, salt, warm water, about 3 min?), adding warm water to get the consistency of dough that is more typical of an 75% hydration dough.  The dough was so smooth and bouncy. It was really nice. There was no time to bake - pita was quicker to make on the stove top.

Clas is really interesting to work with.

 

Yippee- what do you think of raising the water to 85-90%?

 

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Don't push it to the point where the dough structure starts to deteriorate. I have observed that, in general, a more hydrated dough makes for a softer bread and that CLAS facilitates the absorption of water into the dough. But I would not preset an ultimate hydration target at the beginning. Instead, I would watch/feel the dough as I gradually add more water to establish a baseline for future reference. Then the next time you bake with the same grains, you'll have a better idea of what the proper range is.

Yippee

 

P.S. Only the baby loaf was baked in Zo. The second loaf was baked in the oven.

jo_en's picture
jo_en

I got the zojirushi back today!!  I can't wait to figure it out and bake in it, especially this bread above using clas.

 

 

Yippee's picture
Yippee

If making mini loaves. First of all, it's fun. And I feel that I have more control than the Zo hack above.

Yippee's picture
Yippee

the WW dough. Over time, the dough and Zo will begin to "talk" to you, letting you know when to add water and when to stop. 

Yippee

jo_en's picture
jo_en

I am not sure how these are supposed to turn out but here it is. :)

It is not dense feeling when eaten but a little pasty. The crust is not hard nor dry.

I sliced it thinly because it seems that is what rye eaters do.