Soaker question
Gurus,
I need help w something. In Hamelman's 5Grain Levain he has a hot soaker of 120% hydration which is prepared the night b/f at the same time as final levain build. The grains are: oats, sunflower, cracked rye and flax.
In his sourdough seed bread, the sesame and sunflower are toasted (yum) and the soaker is a cold one with flax and 300% water. Also done night b/f.
Last time I did the seeded bread I added cracked rye (hot soaker 120% hydration). It added something wonderful to the loaf. So........
My question is this: Can I combine the cracked rye and flax and do a 120% hot soaker and add the left over hydration to the final dough? It'd make life a bit easier. It's my favorite bread so far and here's a crumb shot.
Thanks in advance.
hester
My disclaimer: I haven't done a soaker before but the following is from what I've learned on this site and reading about it.
When adding a soaker to your recipe one should drain it as excess water will alter the hydration. But if you drain it and use the excess water as your hydration (I think this is what you mean) then I don't see why not.
Hope this helps Hester.
If I use the warm soaker I'll have about 200 gm of unused water. The flax and water as a cold soaker creates a gel. Nothing is drainable. So if i use a warm/hot soaker at 120% i'm going to have to use that water in the dough. Sorry about the confusion.
Bit out of my league here so don't wish to guess and confuse you. Better someone with more experience than me.
My thoughts on a normal soaker, (i.e. not flax as I'm not sure about this gel), for something like cracked wheat I imagine the starches in the water would be great yeast food.
But as I say with flax it's a bit beyond me at the moment.
Sorry about that Hester.
I've done a variety of Hamelman breads that involve soakers. The water in the soaker is part of the total hydration and the entire soaker including any water that might be observed go into the mixing bowl. He's also got a list of those items that require hot soaks vs. cold soaks. One of our favorites is the whole wheat bread with sunflower, flax, and sesame seeds. This only requires a cold soaker and can be done the morning before the build as it only requires 3-4 hours. Purpose of the soaking is to keep the bread moist during the build and bake as if you don't pre-soak the seeds will absorb water and decrease the overalll dough hydration.
The bread you are referring to is my favorite, if it's the one where sesame and Sunflower are toasted and the the flax soaker is cold. I add 70gm of cracked rye made into a hot soaker w 84gm of water. (120%)
I was trying to combine the flax and the rye into one soaker. With his recipe he uses 70 gm of flax and 210 gm water (300%). when he uses hot soakers they are closer to 120%. I wanted to use 70 gm of flax and 70 of cracked rye... which would mean a hot soaker (b/d of the rye). If it's 120% hydration I need 168 gm of water (hot). But I still need to add 133 gm of water. I figured I could just add it to the dough.
I Don't think I explained myself too well.