50% Wholewheat sourdough

The shorter daylights and colder temperatures have been affecting my bread baking. It has slowed down fermentation resulting in me misjudging the time required to fully proof the bread. Not to mention that it is already dark by the time I am done baking making it harder to take a nice picture of the loaf.

Anyway, back to something simple and comforting for this week - a 50% wholewheat sourdough. A nice hearty loaf with stronger flavours contributed by the wholewheat flour and the levain used. 

This time round I got a bag of Anita's Organic Wholewheat flour to try out and I must say it worked out great. The flavour of the flour is much stronger than the red fife I used previously with a hint of grass and a more rounded earthy taste. It seems weaker than the red fife flour though requiring a few more in bowls stretch and fold to align the gluten structure. The most appealing part of the loaf was the smell of it. There was this really sweet smelling flavour from the crust after it was out of the oven, sort of like molasses. Not too sure what exactly resulted in that, but I guess probably due to the higher heat used, combine with the flour type and long fermentation time. Would need to replicate again to know!

Here's the loaf cut and ready for dinner. Probably cut it a little too soon hence it was still slightly gummy but the smell was so irresistible that I had to try it in advance. 

The smell did not really affect the flavour and dissipated the next day. Here's another crumb shot:

Still aiming for a slightly more open crumb and higher loaf profile. Would probably look into increasing the overall portion of ingredients for the next loaf and give it a little more stretch and folds along the way.

-Tim