Formula Development VII – Miracle on N-tee-Nth Street

I may have mentioned somewhere in passing on these pages that I have a koi pond in my backyard.  It is a beautiful and peaceful thing in the warmer months, but can be just a little grim in the clutches of a Rocky Mountain winter and fatalities among the inhabitants can occur.  Since I am an omnivore, I try to be unsentimental about this, but there are always two factors that come into play in any fish death.  One, even though fish must die some time, as with all living things, I always feel that it has been some failure on my part to provide them with the right environment that caused their demise.  Two, these are not small fish.  Death involves finding a place and digging a fairly large hole to dispose of the remains. Pulling the body from the water in winter conditions cannot accurately be described as being easy.

So it was with sinking heart that I saw the tail of one of my 10 year old fish projecting from the rocks at the edge of the pond moving limply with the movement of the water.  Thinking there was little I could do, I went about more urgent business and mulled over where the burial would take place.  It seemed like the coldness of the water had preserved it well and the death had been recent since the scales still had a sheen to them.

My house sitter dropped by to tell me a fish had been missing for three days. As we surveyed the protruding tail, I saw real movement.  "That fish is alive," I said, "But stuck in the rocks." (Koi are not over intelligent, but they do have creative ways of getting into jams that will eventually do them in.) Without a moment's hesitation I lifted the heavy blocks that hold down the winter netting and began to remove rocks.  The pond is a beautiful thing to look at, but was not built with rock moving in mind.  Rock moving has to be done with one hand - one hand in water that in some places was still crusted with ice.  If you wish to try this at home, take a large bucket of water and drop in a rock about the size of your head.  Let the water stand in a warm sunny area until surfaces are uniformly covered in algae.  Then chill the bucket until a crust of ice forms.  Break through the ice with your non-dominant hand and attempt to pick up the rock.  Imagine that if you drop the rock you will crush the life out of the creature you were trying to save.  Let me know how it turns out.  For bonus points have a small cut on one finger.

In the end, the rocks were moved, the fish spent a few moments collecting itself, and then simply swam away to join its buddies.  They're tough little spuds.  My finger got some extra special attention (the infections one can get from pond water are many and can be quite nasty) and is recovering nicely. 

Life - Death - Life, again.  A miracle on the pond.

So what does this have to do with formula development?  Well, a second miracle occurred at the Crumbled Abode on that day.  I really liked the flavor of my developing formula.  With the formula math corrected it turned out to be a lovely balanced bread with both the flavor of the grain and the sweetness of the molasses.  I even liked the color which with the return of the molasses had turned back from tan to brown (which is not really shown well in the picture.)  I really think that I have achieved contentment with the base ingredients. Perfection?  No.  But contentment. Yes, the doctors at "The Place" would call it a miracle.

The crumb remains a bit too fragile, but I am still reluctant to try higher gluten flour.  Examining a loaf that I had shaped using a different method, I am convinced for now that the fault, dear readers lies not in our gluten, but in ourselves.  After years of light handed shaping, I think I am not putting enough oomph into forming the simple loaf.  Also I transitioned to a larger pan at some point during my formula addling and I may be over proofing to compensate. Perhaps I will need to beat myself up for a few weeks over this until I give in and use bread flour or high gluten flour or perhaps I will just give in and steal from the best sooner rather than later, but I don't want to turn this bread into a chewy textured bread.  (Geez, back to struggling to get the crumb right...)  If anything, though, this bread rises too well and the crumb is too airy - which would seem to indicate that gluten itself is not a problem.

But contentment with the base flavor frees me to consider inclusions.  This bread already has some visible inclusions in the form of the steel cut oats and I don't want to turn this into seedy, nutty bread, but I think it could use just a little jazzing up in the form of another inclusion.  Since the mighty Diamant stands ready, there are any number of cracked grains to consider.  I've thought about millet - which is something I used to add to a beer flavored quick bread, but I'm not sure I want the crunch.  Although I know that nuts would be flavorful, again, I am reluctant to put them in a sandwich loaf.  I kind of feel the same way about dried fruits (although I ponder that once I get the base dough right loading it up in this way would be a tasty variation.)  Well, I have time to consider.

This week's formula:

Mix pre ferment and allow to ripen 8-12 hours

Pour boiling water over the two types of oats and allow to cool to lukewarm.

Combine oats and pre ferment with the remaining ingredients and mix for 6 minutes on the sole speed of a spiral mixer (or use your preferred mixing method) 

Bulk ferment 4 hours at room temperature (warmer this week...). One fold.

Shape. Proof 1.5 hours.  Bake at 360F for 45 minutes.

Have fun!