Sourdough Multigrain Infinity Bread

It seemed like a good time to make a multigrain sourdough bread, so I reached back to the Infinity Bread template from the Community Bake of the same name.

The flour components for this bake included bread flour (34%), whole wheat flour (33%), whole barley flour (20%), and whole rye flour (13%) totaling 1000g.  

I made a levain using 20% of the flour (from the blended whole grain flours) with an equal amount of water and about 35g of refreshed starter.  I also made a hot soaker that included sesame seeds, millet seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds, and bulgur wheat.  The total soaker components were 11-12% of the flour weight and combined with an equal weight of boiling water.  Both the levain and the soaker were left overnight; the levain because it needed that time and the soaker just because.  

This morning, the levain and the soaker were combined with enough water to yield a 65% hydration, the remaining flours, 2% salt, plus 2g of ADY just to make sure that everything kept moving.  Everything was mixed by hand.  The texture was interesting, in that it wanted to stick to my hands (compliments of the chia and flax seeds, plus the rye flour, I think) but not the countertop.  Not surprisingly, the dough was stiffer than I wanted it to be at that hydration, so I worked in enough additional water to bring the hydration level up to about 72%.  That yielded a softer, more flexible dough.  The dough still stuck to my hands but not to the counter.  Odd, that.

Bulk fermentation ran about three hours.  The loaves were scaled at about 655g each and shaped.  After shaping, final fermentation was another 1.5 hours.  The loaves were scored and baked in a 375F oven with steam for 35 minutes.

The loaves show some slight cracking at the ends and between some of the scores, so they would have benefited from a slightly longer final fermentation.  Still, they show good ears and good oven spring, plus good coloring, so I'm happy.  It may be a day or so before I cut into one of them and can see the crumb.  My guess is that it won't be very open, given the amount of wholegrain flours and the seeds, and the fact that the barley and rye flours don't have much gluten to contribute.

Paul