Hamelman Black Bread
Hope everyone had a great holiday! We took the days off between Christmas and NYE, rented a RV and drove 3000+ miles round trip to Key West. It was super fun, as we were counting down with the crowd in front of Sloppy Joe's, I felt it was one of the best NYE celebrations we've had.
Before we took off, I needed some bread to take with us - there's no oven on the RV, just a microwave and stove. Being super busy, I didn't have time to do a pure sourdough loave, and this black bread from Hamelman's "Bread" was fast (it uses instant yeast, in addition to rye levain), fragrant, delicious, healthy (by that time, we needed SOME fibre to combat all the sugar and butter in my holiday baked goodies), and uses up some of my leftover rye breads, perfect!
The old bread was toasted to very dark, then soaked in coffee and boiling water overnight, I knew the bread is going to be delicious when I smelled the soaker. Coffee flavor was not prominent in the final bread, but the flavor of rye was very enhanced.
A full flavored 60% rye, went perfectly with the smoked salmon and aged gouda cheese we brought along. Beats fastfood burger anyday!
Sending this to Yeastspotting.
Comments
That looks great.
What did you do your final proofing of the dough in/on? Wondering if you used something to help hold the shape.
KAF has a similar(same?) Hamelman Black Bread recipe on their site:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/jeffrey-hamelmans-black-bread-recipe
They seem advise(but maybe not) not to expect much development in the dough, and not to expect much height. Yours seems to have baked up nice and high. How did you knead it?
I'm just starting out on some of these higher percentage ryes. Do they respond well to stretch and folds?
Thanks.
Proof was done smooth side down in a brotform, I find it holds its shape easily since the dough was not that wet:
For kneading, I basically stuck to what the book says (adding autolyse): autolyse for 30min, KA mixer, dough hook first speed for 1min, 3rd speed for 3min. It doesn't call for any S&F, as most high percentage rye doesn' have a lot of gluten to "generate" anyway, so I didn't.
I think the key for the good volume is "NOT TO OVERPROOF". Since the dough has so little gluten, it's crutial not to go by the clock, I shortened my proofing time from what the book says (50 to 60min) to 40min, because the dough seemed ready. The parallel scoring pattern that's traditional for high percentage rye may also have helped, since it encourages upward springing.
Thank you.
Great looking Black Bread txfarmer! That's a tough one to get right and you nailed it from what I can see. Key West must have been a hoot.
Eric
Thanks Eric! The Key West NYE count down really was something, not on the scale of NYC, but still a whole lot of people. And best of all, it was warm! :P
I really like the idea of the coffee soaker - I'd overlooked this recipe of JH's. I'm curious about the addition of oil to the soaker: this is the only recipe of his I can find where he does this. Any thoughts?
The crumb looks perfect.
Larry
I notice the oil too, what's interesting is that he provides a very similar recipe to KAF website, which adds the oil in final dough, rather than the soaker.
In my experience, each soaker, with different water temperature would provide the final bread a slightly different texture/flavor. In this case, I THOUGHT the oil soaker made the crumb a bit more ... smooth, but then, I really should make the same bread with oil in the main dough to be sure.
Maybe oil in the soaker just makes the final dough mixing easier? I had thought it may interfere with the gluten network at that level, but there is no flour in the soaker, so that soon scotched that theory!
Wonderful loaf, as ever txfarmer; love the cutting, and that crust colour.
BW
Andy
Thanks Andy, I am quite cluelss about the oil question, more experiments needed. :)
David
Thanks David, I saw your SFBI posts over the holidays, looks so fun!
Bakery Grade, txfarmer!
Thank you, Mebake!
Don't you just love old bread soakers? Yum!
I have tried a few different ways of using old bread, this method (first toast to almost black, then soak in boiling water) is my favorite so far, so fragrant!