Nearly winging it Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
The plan for this loaf started out to be the Overnight Country Brown, from Flour Water Salt Yeast. However, I ran out of all purpose flour and made up the difference with whole wheat from my red winter wheat berries freshly milled for the occasion.
For the flours, I autolyzed 200 grams KA AP flour with 680 grams of the whole wheat flour. I decided to use 699 grams of water and that seemed just about right for moistening all of the flour. After an hour or so, I added 22 grams of salt and the levain.
Unfortunately, as I was measuring out the levain and seeing that I was not going to have enough, I realized, I messed up somewhere along the way, most likely in not zeroing out the scale before I started removing the levain, since I was pretty certain I had made enough.
Sure enough, when I weighed my dough and container, it was a bit heavier than it should have been, so instead of the 216 grams of levain I had intended, I had probably used 228. Not a terribly large difference, but I think it made the bread tangier than usual. It is quite soft, but easily sliced without tearing and tastes great with butter.
The crumb was quite closed but not dense.
Comments
a near 70% whole grain bread. Bet it tastes great too. A very nice looking loaf inside and out David.
Well done and happy baking.
I suppose my expectations were not any different. Made a great peanut butter sandwich. It is just a bit too tangy for me. Probably not tangy enough for you though!
I will definitely bake this again with more careful attention paid to the amount of levain that I use. On the plus side, besides getting a lovely bread that is easy to chew and not the slightest bit dry, it was super easy to shape, did not stick to anything and expanded nicely in the oven!
is a nice comfy loaf to work with. 85% next time might open the crumb some. I can say without a doubt, that 88% hydration for 50% whole ancient grains that are half sprouted is too much water:-) I'm surprised you could tell the difference in taste with the tiny bit of extra levain you added. No way i could tell the difference - taste buds are way too old and worn out !
This is a very nice looking loaf David.
I would imagine your sour notes are derived from the addition of more whole grain to the mix as opposed to the tiny bit of extra leaven you added to the dough. In fact, when more sourdough is used in a recipe the less sour the bread due to the fact that it proofs more quickly hence the bacteria count is less than if you were to use a smaller quantity of leaven that would take longer to proof giving the bacteria more time to 'infect' your dough.
Janet
Looks good enough to eat..., Sour note bread is fairly unbelievable when used in melted cheddar cheese or toasted tuna fish sandwiches. And of course there's the half-sour fermented pickle that accompanies it for completeness...,
Wild-Yeast
We eat a lot of it, because it goes so well with the bread I bake. Happen to think it makes fabulous toast as well. Well, it is so darned tasty it is good for anything. :)