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Back from two weeks off without any baking. My starter was refreshed two weeks ago at 50% hydration, given 1 hour at room temperature then refrigerated. The pH had only dropped to 4.4 or so when I returned so there was plenty of food left. I discarded some, then brought the hydration up to 100% and did a small feed. He tripled in 3 hours but had not yet peaked, so I discarded and fed him again. 5 hours later he had peaked at 3.5-4x with the dome just starting to flatten. He was ready to build a levain for this bake.

You may have noticed my gradually increasing the whole wheat in my Hokkaido sourdough milk breads lately. I finally decided it was time to do 100% whole wheat and this didn’t disappoint.

For a 9” x 4” x 4” pullman pan

Sweet Stiff Starter
• 53g stoneground unsifted organic whole wheat flour
• 24g water
• 18g light brown sugar
• 18g sourdough starter ~100% hydration
1:1.33:2.9:1 starter:water:flour:sugar

Tangzhong classic 1:5 ratio
• 89g milk (adjusted down to 1:5 ratio from original)
• 18g stoneground unsifted organic whole wheat flour

Dough Dry Ingredients
• 9 g vital wheat gluten
· 424 g stoneground unsifted organic whole wheat flour
• 54g sugar 12.5%
• 7g salt 1.6%

Dough Wet Ingredients
• 180g milk (consider adding more milk 5 g next time, dough was stiff)
• 50g egg beaten (about 1 lg egg)
• 60g butter 13.9% softened but do not melt, unless you are mixing with the mixer then melt. Combine with 30 g of flour to make easier to add to dough if hand mixing.

Total flour = 513 g

Total weight 1004 g

Pre-bake Wash
• 1 egg beaten
• 1 Tbsp milk

Post-bake Wash
• 1 Tbsp butter

Instructions
Starter
Mix the starter ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 50% growth.  In fact I usually get 2.5-3.5x growth.
Press down with your knuckles to create a uniform surface and to push out air.
At room temperature, it typically takes up to 10 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.
Tangzhong
In a sauce pan set on med-low heat, whisk the milk and flour until blended. Then cook for several minutes until thickened, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Let cool in the pan or, for faster results, in a new bowl.

Dough
In the bowl of a stand mixer, briefly whisk the dry dough ingredients, and then add the sweet stiff starter, separating it into 5-6 portions as you add it to the bowl.
Now pour/scrape in all the wet ingredients (including the tangzhong), with the melted butter last. With the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed for a minute, scrape down the sides, and then mix on medium speed for 15-20 minutes. The dough will seem very soft, but as you approach the 15-20 minute mark, it should not stick to your hands and should pass the windowpane test.
Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, form it into a ball, flip it smooth side up, cover and let rise for 6-12 hours depending on room temperature. You can place the dough into the fridge to chill the dough for about 1.5 hours, this makes rolling the dough easier.
Prepare your pans by greasing them or line with parchment paper.
Scrape the dough out onto a clean counter top. Lightly flour the bench. Press the dough into a rectangle and divide it into four. Shape each tightly into a boule, allow to rest 5 mins. Using a rolling pin roll each ball out and then letterfold. Turn 90* and using a rolling pin roll each out to at least 8”. Roll each into a tight roll with some tension. Arrange the rolls of dough inside your lined pan alternating the direction of the swirls. This should allow a greater rise during proof and in the oven.
Cover and let proof for 2-4 hours (more if you put the dough in the refrigerator). I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan.
Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash. Just prior to baking brush with the egg-milk wash again.

Bake the loaves for 50 minutes or until the internal temperature is at least 190F. Shield your loaf if it gets brown early in the baking process. After 50 mins remove the bread from the pan and bake a further 10 mins by placing the loaf directly in the oven on the rack with the oven turned down to 325ºF. You can brush the top of the loaf with butter if you wish at this point while the bread is still hot.

Wonderful flavour, there isn’t any real sour tang and certainly no bitterness that I had always thought was characteristic of 100% whole wheat breads like this that I ate as a child. I’m not sure that the Vital Wheat Gluten was necessary, but I wanted to ensure that I was able to get the shreddable crumb that this type of bread should have.

Benny

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Josey Baker Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

David Snyder

February, 2019

Browsing cookbooks at a branch library, I found Josey Baker's “Josey Baker Bread.” I have driven by and peeked into his bakery in San Francisco, but have never tasted his products. I confess I found what he charged for a slice of toast off-putting. But, folks seem to like his bread. Looking through the book, I found some recipes for 100% Whole Wheat sourdough bread. It certainly looked good in the photos, and I am still looking for my personal favorite 100% whole wheat sourdough. So, I checked out the book.

I won't comment on the book's style except to say it is an attempt to seduce some one into baking bread at home who is still a bit frightened and mystified by the whole process. It is certainly a worthy objective.

Anyway, here's my first bake of this bread.

Note: Baker does not call for a true autolyse. He combines all the ingredients in the “Final Dough” at once and, after a mix to just distribute them evenly in the dough, he lets it sit for a half hour before beginning a series of stretch and folds at half-hourly intervals. The procedure described below is what I actually did. I mixed the final dough, including the levain but not the salt, and let it rest for a period before adding the salt. This is the way I was taught at the San Francisco Baking Institute to autolyse dough when a liquid levain is used.

1. Mix the levain ingredients well in a 4-6 cup bowl. Cover well.

2. Ferment at room temperature (72-76ºF) for 8-12 hours.

Note: The sourdough starter I used to seed the levain is 100% hydration. It is actually 70% AP, 20% WW and 10% whole rye. For purposes of the “Total Dough” formula, I treated it as if it were entirely whole wheat.

Note: Because of a social obligation, I was not able to mix the final dough right when the levain was ripe. I refrigerated the ripe levain overnight and continued the process the next morning.

Procedures

1. Mix the flour and water and levain to a shaggy mass. Cover and let rest for 30-60 minutes. (Note: I actually autolysed for a bit over 2 hours.)

2. Sprinkle the salt over the dough and mix it in with a spatula, spoon or your hand.

3. Distribute the salt evenly using a pinching procedure (as described in FWSY or Tartine No. 2), alternating with stretch and folds in the bowl.

4. Cover the bowl and ferment until increased in volume by 50% and well aerated with bubbles (about 3 hours at 80ºF). Perform stretch and folds in the bowl every 30 minutes for the first 2 hours.

5. If making more than one loaf, divide the dough evenly into the desired number of pieces.

6. Pre-shape piece(s) into balls. Cover and let rest for 10-30 minutes.

7. Shape into boules or bâtards. Place in floured baskets and cover or place in food-safe plastic bags.

8. Proof the loaves 3-4 hours (per Josey Baker). I proofed 1 hour at room temperature, then refrigerated to bake the next day.

9. Pre-heat oven to 475ºF 45-60 minutes before baking.

10. Bake either on a baking stone with steam for the first 15 minutes or in a Dutch oven, covered for the first 20 minutes. The total bake time should be 45-50 minutes, to an internal temperature of 205ºF.

11. Remove to a cooling rack. Cool completely before slicing.

Note: Baker says one can cold retard this bread, either in bulk (after Step 4.) or as formed loaves. (after Step 8.) He does not say whether or not he would ever do both retardations.

The flour I used was Turkey Red wheat, freshly milled in a Mockmill 100 set at its finest setting. I did not sift out or remill any of the bran. The dough was soft and tacky but very manageable. It seemed to be developing some strength curing the stretch and folds, but was quite loose during shaping.

Lovely dough made with 100% home-milled Red Turkey wheat

Formed loaves, ready for a 12 hour nap at 40ºF

Baked loaves, cooling

The crumb

I sliced the bread after it had cooled for about 3 hours. The crust was chewy, except for the ears which were crunchy. The crumb was very moist and tender with a wheaty and mildly sour flavor. My experience has been that this type of bread improves after a day or so.

Happy baking!

David

There are several posts on TFL for bread with cranberries but there are almost no posts using tarragon and nothing about a combination of tarragon and cranberries. In Slovenia, where I live, one of very popular national dishes (cakes) is tarragon cake ( in Slovenian language “pehtranova potica” ). In this cake, which is made for different holidays, we mostly use fresh (green) tarragon. “Potica” is made from dough typical for Italian panettone. The dough is spread after bulk rise and topped with a mixture of fresh tarragon, young or cottage cheese, crème fraiche or something like this with some sugar added. Then everything is usually rolled together and put in a typical model for the final raise. For a while I had idea to combine cranberries and tarragon and make special kind of bread which would not be as sweet as a cake, but would be an ideal one for eating at breakfast topped with butter and cranberry jam or with some camembert cheese.

My wife likes cranberry jam and her birthday was just a perfect occasion to put my idea in practice. The dough recipe is following the idea for a Tartine County Loaf. The additions are dried but rehydrated cranberries, chopped fresh tarragon (one can also use dried tarragon) and 2 teaspoons of honey. I used fresh tarragon from our garden. If you don’t like sweet bread you can omit completely two teaspoons of honey.

The recipe calls for using milk but one can use water instead. However, be prepared that the taste in this case will be quite different.

Several hours before you start mixing the dough you should soak the cranberries in the water and dry them before you put them in the dough. However, soaking them in the water will cause that a lot of their juice will be dissolved in water so it is good to use the water from the soaker for mixing the dough. Alternatively what I do is soaking cranberries in milk which is used in the recipe and strain that milk away before mixing the dough. It might happen that the milk will coagulate a little bit due to the acid in the cranberries but when you add cranberries to the dough you will not notice this at all. If you are using milk then after straining add missing quantity of milk to have 200 grams of milk for mixing the dough. Sometimes cranberries can be quite thirsty and you have to correct this by adding more milk.  One can also use re-hydrated cranberries. In this case there is no need for soaker.

Preparation:
 
1.) Mix with mixer 2 eggs, butter (leave it on room temp for a while to soften), honey, about 100g of the flour and some milk to get a thick batter. Then add strained milk from cranberries, levain, rest of milk/water and rest of flour and mix with hand to get a shaggy mass and let it rest from 20-60 minutes.
2.) Add 20 grams of salt and mix thoroughly with hand.  
3.) Do stretch & fold every 30 minutes. Add cranberries and tarragon one hour into bulk fermentation (at second stretch & fold).
4.) After three to four hours of bulk fermentation (watch the dough, not the hour) divide the dough and let it rest for 15-30 minutes on the bench.
5.) Do final shaping and let it rise for about 2 hours or retard immediately and bake it direct from refrigerator after 8-12 hours.
6.) Bake in Dutch oven – for 10 minutes at 240 dC (460 dF) and then reduce to 220 dC (435 dF). Open the lid after 30 minutes and bake for another 10-20 minutes.   Alternatively bake with steam for 15 minutes, after that continue with convection bake. CAUTION: As this dough contains more sugar it will brown faster so it is a good idea to reduce the baking temperatures for about 10-20 degrees. 
7.) Cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing.

 
Taste of this bread is really great in if you like tarragon you will love this bread. One can use dry tarragon for the recipe as well; however in this case use only 30 grams of dry tarragon. Actually the quantity of tarragon in this bread is completely arbitrary and depends on your taste.
 

Update 4.8.2016

Today I was baking this bread for my mother who turned 91 and also for our neighbor who turned 61. I took several pictures which I am publishing now. My today's baking is with excellent Italian "00" flour.

Italian flour type "00"

Adding tarragon to the dough

Adding cranberries soaked in milk (see some milk coagulation around berries)

Dough with added tarragon and cranberries

Dough after 8 hours in fridge before going into DO

Scored dough in LODGE skillet

After removing lid 30 minutes later

Final result

Final result - details

After slicing - crumb was very soft, not too open (this was my intention), the crust was not too strong. This bread amazes me every time I eat.

Happy baking!

Over my last two days off I made this really big Oatmeal Miche. Its subtle and earthy and maybe a little too big but it will last all week until I have time to make another so I'm pleased.

Here's how I made it

Levain build one 

• 20g rye chef
• 50g fresh ground hard red
• 20g water

Levain build two

• 25g firm levain
• 100g fresh ground hard red
•  50g water

Final Dough

• 1100g Bread Flour (69%)
• 320g Hard White (20%)
• 70g Hard Red (4%)
• 10g Rye (1ish%)
• 150g Levain (6.6%hard red 3.3%water)
• 1150g water (72%) (hold 100g)
• 400g Cooked oatmeal (25%)
• 235g Toasted Hazelnuts (15%)
• 32g Salt (2%)

First I mixed all the flours and let the dough autolyse  at room temp holding 100 grams of water for later.

Eight hours later I dissolved the levain in the leftover water and incorporated it into the dough. Fifteen minutes later added the salt and have the dough a few slap and folds. followed by a ten minute rest and a set of stretch and folds followed by a 20 minute rest.

During that 20 minutes I roasted and cracked the hazelnuts and cooked the oatmeal.

I incorporated the nuts and oatmeal and for the next hour and forty minutes I have the dough 4 sets of semi evenly spaced out stretch and folds. then I left it alone for around six hours. Then I shaped it and put it right in the fridge to proof

21 hours later I removed it from the fridge and put it right in a 500degree oven. 5 minutes later I reduced the heat to 450 and continued baking for another 55 or so minutes. once the the loaf was done I turned the oven off and left it in with the door cracked for an additional ten minutes.