Advice for sprouted Kamut® loaf from Tartine Bread Book 3
Hey all I need some input:
I'm baking sprouted Kamut® loaf from Book 3. 60%bread flour + 40% whole wheat Kamut, and 85% hydration. I autolyse for ~10hrs at ~75 deg. F, then mix in the levain; I use ~4hrs primary fermentation.
I have done this loaf several times with good flavor results but disappointing oven spring and crumb results (e.g., the crumb does not have the open hole I have come to expect.
In the first tries I thought I over did the primary fermentation, so I backed it off a bit, only to achieve the same results. I found the dough slouched (for lack of better word), so I thought maybe I had not built up the gluten structure sufficiently. I then tried more vigorously stretching the dough during the scheduled turns, and in one bake used slap-n-fold for several minutes during several of the turns. I keep getting the same results, disappointing oven spring.
Any advice or input is appreciated.
Cheers:)
Brian
hydration. No wonder you don't get good oven spring. You should be looking at 60-65%. Obviously hydration is a preference and lower or higher wrong per se but at 85% it'll struggle.
When forming the dough give it a 10minute old fashioned knead to get the gluten formation off to a good start. Then incorporate some gentle stretch and folds. Vigorous is not necessary. Better to add in a couple extra.
The sprouted Kamut will take up less water than whole Kamut and Kamut historically is baked at lower hydration to begin with - even though it supposedly can tale up more water than European white wheat. Bread flour and sprouted grains do not need more than 1 -2 hours of autolyse - 10 hours is asking for trouble because of the extra enzymes associated with sprouted Kamut. This bread at 75-78% hydration would be about right if the bread flour isn't from Europe. I have a 70% AP and 30% sprouted grain bread with 13% pre-fermented flour at 78% hydration on final proof right now.
2 hour autolyse so salt and no levain, 4 slap and fold sessions at 30 slaps each on 30 minute intervals with 2 sets of stretch and folds at 45 minute intervals - 3.5 hours gluten development - no bulk ferment at all, 18 hours of bulk retard in the fridge and hour warm up on the counter then 1 hour of shaped proof.
Hope this helps
Thanks dabrownman for your insightful response.
To be clear I autolyse the flours not sprouted grains, but would agree the additional enzymes in the sprouted grain could cause some craziness (like a malted grain being extracted for beer) if included in the autolyse. I add the sprouted grains about an hour into the bulk fermentation. My bulk fermentation includes all the folding steps, i.e., I include the 45 min folds into the bulk fermentation time. Our primary fermentation times (what I call bulk fermentation) are close. Out of curiosity do you think the longer autolyse without the sprouted grain (or salt or levain, of course) could create issues? I don't see how and have read to the contrary.
Another commenter was also very surprised at my high hydration, and I will try lowering it to 75% to see results. Robertson (in Tartine Book 3) indicates this Kamut flour (along with other so-called ancient grain flour, including rye) take a much higher hydration, and he likes to push hydration pretty high anyway. My standard white flour is not from Europe, local Northern CA flour. Anyway, I will attempt your methods to see how it turns out. Oh, BTW, I did not mention but I retard in fridge too for 12-18hrs depending on my schedule.
I will post some pictures after my next bakes.
Seems to be the trend to try and go as high as possible. Recently I've adopted to lower hydration for a couple of reasons.
1. Our European flours need less water.
2. As Drogon says "huge holes don't hold spread nor do they have any taste".
3. I get better oven spring since my loaves are freestanding.
I too have heard that kamut needs more water but not in my experience and I do whatever works for me. For my own experience 65% hydration was good. I haven't done sprouted grain so can't comment on that however I do think such a long autolyse isn't necessary and if dabrownman says its bad for what you are doing then its bad!
Best of luck and look forward to photos.
For a FEW reasons :)
so i thought the sprouted Kamut you were using was milled into flour. Now it sounds like you are sprouting them and then adding them in whole - after the autolyse?
No need to autolyse bread flour more than an hour. iI isn't a whole grian like WW when you might autolyse overnight in the fridge for 8 hours or on the counter if it is cold enough. Some think you don't need to autolyse sprouted flour at all since it has already been soaked for a day before being dried and milled but I like to soften the hard bits anyway since they re-harden when dried. i think you will love 75% - 78 hydration.
Here is my sprouted bread posted a few minute ago. I bake a lot of sprouted grain breads but likely won't know it well for a few years. Abe is too kind - but rarely wrong :-)
Double Levain Sprouted 4 Grain Sourdough with Seeds
Happy baking
Thanks again to all who commented. Attached are photos of last prep and bake, with much better results. I would prefer a better oven spring rather better crumb, but am happy with the improvement. I'm thinking that the Kamut flour plus grains just over weights the structure. I'm using whole wheat Kamut®, maybe I'll sift out some of the bran from the Kamut. I followed the following: 60% bread flour; 40% WW Kamut; 4% wheat germ; 150g levain (50-50 bread/ww @100% hydration); 250g sprouted Kamut (whole); 25g salt; 75% hydration. Autolyse ~10hrs (just flours + wheat germ + water); add salt, mix; rest 30 mins; slap-n-fold 30x; rest 30 min (repeat 3x); normal folds at 30 mins, X2; shape into ball with 20mins bench rest; shape; retard in fridge overnight; bake at ~475 in cast iron for 25mins; bake out for 25 mins. I had to reshape the the loaves a couple times (intervened by 20min rests) because I did not feel comfortable with the structure/feel of the dough (it slouched or pooled onto the board). End result was pretty good, flavor excellent. I still need some work on this loaf.
BTW, tried uploading picts, but the quality was terrible do decided not to do it. will look into better ways to upload.