Multigrain Sourdough with Buckwheat Soaker
Hello everyone!
Today's bake was a multigrain sourdough with a buckwheat soaker. I happen to love buckwheat and often eat it instead of rice -- a practice that is customary in many Lithuanian cafeterias (not that I'm praising the cafeteria food) -- so I wanted to incorporate some buckwheat flavor into a bread. There is always the option of using buckwheat flour, but for this bake I went for the buckwheat soaker/scald.
The flour breakdown is 70% bread flour, 10% whole wheat, 10% spelt, 10% rye plus an additional 20% of dry-weight buckwheat. The hydration is 75%, which was pretty much right, though the dough felt a bit dry at the beginning. Dough was cold retarded for 16 hours during the final proofing stage.
The bread has a mellow sour to it, but the sweetness of the wheat is the dominant note, followed closely by the distinct flavor of buckwheat. As you can see, not all of the "grains" dissolved into the dough, so you are liable to get a surprise similar to when you bite down on a pepper berry in a soup, just a lot more pleasant!
The crumb is not too open, but because I use this bread for sandwiches, it's not too much of a problem. Some more water in the dough could definitely help open it up a little more, since the whole grain flour portion is only 30% and the buckwheat is too soft to do much damage.
You can check out the formula here .
Process:
1. Build levain according to instructions in spreadsheet. First and second builds fermented for 6 hours at 22C, the third build -- 8 hours at 25C.
2. After mixing third levain build, make the soaker: scald the buckwheat with 1.5 its weight of boiling water.
3. A few hours before mixing the final dough, autolyse the flours with the remaining water.
4. Mix final dough. The buckwheat in the soaker will be very soft, so it is OK to incorporate them together with the levain and salt.
5. Bulk ferment for 4 hours at 21-22C.
6. Divide, rest, shape. Final roof in refrigerator for 16 hours.
My general baking setup/routine:
Comments
Of Bread ya got there. I'm not too familiar with buckwheat as a whole grain but I love the flavor when using the flour. Must add some nice texture. That crust looks amazing.
Cheers
Josh
Half of the loaf is gone already and it's only me in the house these days :)
I'm planning on trying out some buckwheat flour myself, but haven't gotten around to it yet. What % would you normally use? I was thinking maybe in the neighbourhood of 10?
The only place the buckwheat adds texture to is the crust, inside the loaf the grains are very soft and if it wasn't for the taste it would be difficult to even feel them. In some way this is a blessing -- adding a good amount of whole grains to a bread without compromising the structure too much. Could actually be a good way to introduce people used to white bread gradually towards those with some amount of whole grains.
A great looking loaf, congrats! I like buckwheat, but have only seen it as flour over here. I will snoop around a bit more the next time I am in the grocery store.
My situation is the complete opposite: there are maybe 15 different varieties of whole buckwheat in even a medium-sized shop, but I've only ever seen one brand of buckwheat flour. Buckwheat flakes are pretty good for breakfast if oatmeal gets boring as well.
That is really good looking bread. The crumb is perfect. Personally, I wouldn't want it any more open than that seeing that you intended this loaf to be a sandwich loaf. I would say that you hit it spot on. It looks nice and moist, too.
Nice baking,
Syd
it was really nice and moist. Buckwheat soaks up a fair bit of water and then releases some back to the loaf when baking.
Great looking bread. I have used Buckwheat flour and it you reminded me to make another loaf soon using it. I will have to try and get some buckwheat grains to try in a soaker.
Thanks for sharing.
Ian
Great looking bread. I have used Buckwheat flour and it you reminded me to make another loaf soon using it. I will have to try and get some buckwheat grains to try in a soaker.
Thanks for sharing.
Ian
I'm going to be on the look out for some buckwheat flour loaves :)
What's the material of your baking pan - cast iron? (looks like cast iron) - something else?
Do you cover with a lid at the beginning of the bake? If NO, what (if any) steaming technique do you use?
What's the temperature and timing of the bake?
Sorry if I missed this info in your post but the bread looks wonderful so I just wanted some more detail.
Looking forward to your reponse. Many thanks
I'm happy that you liked it! My setup is pretty generic, apart from the shape of my dutch oven. It is cast iron with ceramic coating on the inside (great for roasting chicken and such, nothing sticks very much). The lid is made from oven-safe glass and it seals tightly enough to be good for baking bread. One drawback is that the DO is pretty short, so I can't bake batards which are much bigger than 1 kg, because the upward spring would be too great.
Since the DO is covered I don't use steam. This loaf was misted with water so the basket flour would not be so visible, but that doesn't impact much. Other than that, it's all a matter of course: preheat oven up to say 220-230C, bake for 25 minutes covered and however long it takes to brown uncovered -- this loaf was about 10 minutes. When uncovering, lower the temp to 200C. Those temperatures are a bit iffy, because my oven seems to be running somewhat hot on the front end. The loaf was 750 g of dough.