The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Country Blonde Sourdough

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Country Blonde Sourdough

The final request for the long weekend was a basic "white" sourdough that would be sized well for a toaster.  I decided to make a blonde with cross loaf scoring to make it lengthen instead of spread and bloom.  I do like the look of the long score with a big bloom, but I must say there's something to be said for the "clean" look of this scoring too.  

I was due for a starter refresh, so in this case, I used starter discard (6-hour feed discard) as seed instead of building a levain.

Discard
64g    Bread Flour
77g    Water (120% hydration)

Final Dough
247.5g   All Purpose Flour
98g        Bread Flour
13.5g     Whole Wheat Flour
13.5g     Sifted Durum
6.8g       Dark Rye
6.8g       Barley Flour
67.5g     Raisin Yeast Water
157g      Water
9g          Sea Salt

1)   Combine Discard and all Final Dough ingredients except salt.  Mix until all flours are just wetted.
2)   Let rest for 15 minutes
3)   One set of bowl kneading (24-28 folds).  Fold in salt during the first 4-5 folds during this process.
4)   Rest 10 minutes
5)   One set of bowl kneading (15-20 folds).
6)   Rest 90 minutes at 78 deg F.
7)   Two sets of bowl kneading (12-16 folds) with 30 minute rests between sets.  Ferment at 78 deg F.
8)   Pre-shape when dough volume has increased 75-80%.  Dough should have some jiggle to it.
9)   Final proof until dough has increased 25-50% at 78 deg F (45 minutes for me).
10) Cold retard overnight (8 hours)
11)  Preheat oven to 465 deg F with Fibrament stone.  Presteam oven with about 1/3 cup boiling water 2-3 minutes before loading dough.  Score dough straight across loaves about 1/4 inch deep.  Add 2/3 cup boiling water immediately after loading dough.
12)  Bake 465 deg F (1 minute), 400 deg F (19 minutes); vent oven; 425 deg F (10-15 minutes).  Remove when you have hollow thump.

 

They're taking this one home, so no crumb photo.  :-)

Comments

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Pretty loaf. How is the crumb?

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Thank you Floyd!  Unfortunately, I don’t have a crumb photo for this one.  My parents were in town for a week and I had a few requests while they were here.  This one was for them to take home when they left this morning.  

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Fair enough. That's a very nice gift.

Benito's picture
Benito

I agree with Floyd Troy, very pretty loaf.  I like the blisters, the oven spring and scoring.

Benny

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Thank you Benny!  Almost didn’t let them take this one.  🤣

GaryBishop's picture
GaryBishop

It makes a beautiful loaf.

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Thank you Gary!  I owe you a shaping video too….  😉

troglodyte's picture
troglodyte

That loaf looks stunning. I especially like the blisters, but the scoring, color, rise, and everything else are also great. Well done indeed.

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Thank you for the comments!

JonJ's picture
JonJ

Love the blisters!

-Jon

naturaleigh's picture
naturaleigh

Pretty loaf!  Looks like the RYW is working a treat!  Curious about the barley flour as far as what flavor profile you notice it brings to the bread?  I use a similar combo for my seeded and wheat berry loaves but have never used barley flour as a small addition.

I actually have 3 doughs that I'll be baking off this morning, using only AYW instead of sourdough starter, as I'm trying to get more experience working with AYW.  During shaping last night, the dough seemed a little more fragile than my usual process with sourdough leavening (and I haven't baked enough with YW to really have a 'normal' yet).  Have you noticed any difference when working with your YW doughs compared to sourdough?  Wondering if I need to cut back on some of the hydration or not.  Could've just been it was super humid here yesterday too, but the last time I used YW in a loaf I noticed similar differences in the dough.  I'm only using YW in the levain and not for any of the hydration.

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

This particular loaf used sourdough discard as the main leavening, and in most cases, I use a mix of sourdough starter and YW in my bakes.  It's not often that I use either or.

I have noticed some of my doughs getting fragile at times, but I can't tell you why and I can't give specific examples on the amount of YW. I'll have to get a little more structured and do some test bakes with only YW and only sourdough to compare them.  :-)  I can say that levains from my sourdough starter tend to have better gluten development than from my YW.  Don't have any concrete data.  Just observations...