Son of SJSD, as batards
Now enamored with stiff levains (until the next thrill comes along), this adventure had me bake a batch of SJSD dough. But instead of as baguettes, I am also somewhat enamored with batards these days (until the next thrill comes along).
One with sesame, and one with two scores. Both just for fun. I'm curious as to whether the sesame will depart a roasted flavor to the bread as it does with the Sourdough Italian . Still getting a lot of great performance out of retarding them on the couche already shaped, and baking straight from the refrigerator.
Using my stiff levain - hence the "Son of SJSD" moniker, and adding a few extra grams of water to balance out the hydration, these three batards come in at around 475g each. 480dF, 10 minutes steam, rotate and then ~16-18 minutes more. The final 2 minutes as vented.
Through the "looking glass" during steaming
Steam released, and rotated
The trio
Getting some fantastic oven spring
The kids
Comments
I am wondering what changes besides the firm levain and retardation of formed loaves you made. Would you outline the procedure you used?
And I hope you will post a crumb photo.
David
I have to say that I'm really impressed at how well they came out. In fact, everything that I've done this way except when the skin had warmed up a few bakes ago and was tearing like crazy while I attempted to score it. And even those came out okay. This will be a little long-winded, but as a former IT person, I guess that's just me being anal.
75% hydration, 60 AP, 20 WW, 20 Rye. I'm starting out with the "discard" from prior levains, left in the same refrigerated container - never gets washed - cause I imagine that the ancient bugs in there are doing good, but really, who the heck knows?
**or whatever it will take to bring my levain up to the necessary weight.
The discard from the 2nd build goes into another tupperware container. I'll incorporate that into the existing discarded levain from prior builds. As I mentioned earlier, I took dabrownmans' suggestion and used that accumulated discard for a different bread, with only a baby boost of 100g feed to give it some life. And that worked fabulously as well.
I'll make a few dozen more grams levain than I need, and that will be what lives in the refrigerated container for the next set of builds. They have legs and will certainly last for at least a few weeks. If I were to extrapolate this scheme continuously, I'd never have to do a refresh - ever.
Okay, so now I have my levain and I'll just follow the formula - in this case your SJSD, with some changes to the mix & ferment (that "make it your own thang" thing). Except, as mentioned, I'll add a few more grams of water to compensate for the lower levain hydration. For ~1500g I added 10g of water more.
To me, still being a neophyte with levains, this has been extremely gratifying these past few weeks. And I'm still feeling like I'm groping my way through this, but the confidence factor has started to kick in.
And I sincerely thank you for asking and for being an inspiration!
Crumb photo to follow...
alan
The subject was just to tweak the geek. ;-)
Ahem! Okay. Back to bread now.
Your reply did answer my main questions. Whatever you have done has stellar visual results. I wonder about flavor with the different fermentation approach. How would you compare the flavors of the "Son of" breads with the original?
<Start of musings>
Clearly, Ken's calling the levain he says to discard "spent fuel" is an unfortunate choice of words. You have demonstrated how vigorous it can be with just a taste of fresh flour. I would wonder about flavor, except that you are going through 2 feedings of the "discard" which should cleanse the levain of most off-flavor byproducts, assuming each feeding at least doubles the levain. I do this myself sometimes, but never with leftover levain that is more than 3 or (rarely) 4 days since the preceding feeding. However, my other option is to start with my stored levain and put it through 2 to 3 feedings. Is that really different? Probably not.
<End of musings>
Still waiting for crumb photos.
David
These are two slices about 2-3 inches apart. Open crumb, but not hugely so. The surface of the crumb does exhibit some gelatinous shine. I get the feeling that if I were to slice the batard horizontally, then a more obvious open crumb would appear. Except for the fun of it, I can't quite say that I'm hung up on getting a really open crumb. Maybe I just have crumb envy, Doc?
In the FWSY Field Blend #2 bake I did use mostly the discarded levain from a number of prior builds over a few weeks' time. The formula calls for 360g levain, and I probably built about 400g, maybe a little more. For that single build I used only 100g new feed, so the vast majority, let's say, 300g of the 360g was basically the discard. And yet there was also some exceptional oven spring and no perceived off notes.
As far as flavor I just had a very small slice but the butter dominated. I'll wait until my morning toast to get a better idea. Most of what I bake is given away, else I'd have to grease down the door jambs to fit through!
alan
as good as they look. Outstanding crumb for a 40% whole grain bread. Well done and happy baking - keep up the experiments!
David's SJSD has a combined 11% whole grain. As I'm adding a little more whole grain here through the levain itself, mine isn't pushing that %age much further.
The taste ins't quite as sparkling as the original on this one. But then the original SJSD baguette has an awful lot more (crust per tooth area squared / slice bite) * (baguette length / crumb) than this one does.
Anywho, here's what is left in my refrigerated container from this bread's levain build. Under 100g which will remain just as is until I start the next build in that container.