Dabrownman, I had some questions about...
Dabrownman, I had some questions about your http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/43380/lucy%E2%80%99s-favorite-methods-make-healthy-and-beautiful-bread post:
Key point 4. Make sourdough bread and use less pre-fermented flour to do it. And Key point 6. ... Create recipes that have low pre-fermented flour amounts...
- If you're seeding your pre-ferment with a starter culture (no commercial yeast), and the concept is that the biochemical changes in the flour as a result of fermentation are beneficial healthwise, then why is it advantageous to have less pre-fermented flour in the recipe?
Key point 5. Sift your milled whole grain and use the sifted out 15-20% hard bits to feed the levain.
- What size sieve do you use in order to retain approximately 15-20% of a given whole grain milling?
And in the recipe: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/43300/double-levain-sprouted-4-grain-sourdough-seeds you write After slashing it went into the oven on the bottom stone and covered with the bottom of a heavy aluminum turkey roaster. After 20 minutes of steam the lid came off and the bread finished baking under convection to dry it out.
- Did you steam the oven while the turkey roaster was over the loaf, or are you referring to the steam the loaf would naturally produce inside the roaster? Also, was the roaster preheated?
- In the formula, the Levain builds each show a total of 67g for a total of 134g combined. Does that mean that you did 3 builds of each levain at 22g each, for a total of 67g, or did you build more then remove all but 67g?
- When doing your levain builds did you follow the temperature recommendations from the Detmolder link you provided? And with regard to the build times, were the builds roughly 3.3 hours apart for a total of 10 hours, or were they 10 hours apiece?
For the sprouted 4-grain mix, I have not progressed in my baking far enough to justify to my wife the cost of a grain mill. However, in another thread a poster mentioned that for small quantities a coffee grinder can work pretty well. How much grain exactly is 150g going to be? Am I going to be spending hours feeding a coffee grinder a tablespoon or two of grain at a time, or will it just take a few minutes? Also, would using a coffee grinder affect the sieve size I asked about above?
I've been trying to figure out your timeline on this bake. With the sprouting of the grain taking 2-3 days, then having to dry and mill it, the levain builds, and the long retards, my rough guesstimate is that it took you close to a week to make this bread. Am I close?
Sorry to be so literal in my interpretation of your information, but your loaf looked so amazing and I really like seedy bread (sorry you and your daughter weren't that impressed after all that work). I'd really like to give this bread a try and I've always been a "know everything you can before you start" kind of guy.
--Mike
4-6 The idea is to have the wee beasties work on the flour for a as long as possible to develop more flavor. Less time means less flavor and a less complex one as well. If you use more levain then things happen much faster. Either way the dough will ferment and provide the additional health benefits only SD can vs yeast breads. But less is more when it comes to maximum flavor and health benefits
5 any oven proof pot can be turned over a loaf to steam it if you don' have a DO. It is called a cloache. Works just a well as a DO. You preheat it with the oven . I got a couple of pots at Goodwill for cheap - a dollar each on dollar Thursdays.
Each levain, white and dark, was 67 grams and were built over (3) 4 hour stages if winter time and (3) 3 hour stages if summertime. Each stage is progressively larger in size - in this case 4, 9 and 18 g each of flour and water plus the 5 g of starter for 67 g total for one levain. I didn't use detmolder for this bread mainly because the starter itself was retarded for many weeks at 36 F and 66% hydration whic would be like a stage 2 of detmolder. If i had a counter top starter like may do - I would use detmolder.to build the levain.
I used a Krupp's coffee grinder for years to mill my whole grains and used the same sieve. a cup is about 130 g of whole grainsand a 50% whole grain bread would take about 2 cups. I ground 1/2 cup of seeds at a time in batches. Each batch got about 3 passes so that the flour could cool off between each pass. of about a minute each. It took about 20 minutes to get it done and why i have a Nutirimill now.. I also have a new unused Wonder Mill if you you are interested for $150 . A nice Christmas present..
Sprouting of the grain takes 24 hours. 3.5 hours to dry it and 2 minutes to mill it and 5 mins to sieve it, Once it is sieved, I start the levain which takes 9-12 hours and then i retard it for 12 - 24 hours depending. With an hour or 2 auotlyse and 2-3 hour of gluten development maybe an hour on the counter before 12-24 hours of bulk retard in the dough then a 1 hour warm up, shape and a 2 hour final proof with baking taking about 30 minutes, For a normal bread i start early Monday morning and finish baking sometimes on Friday. -n 5 days or so. Most folks don't have the time for such nonsense or retarding of the levain for weeks and weeks too. But I do. Not many make the kind of weird bread that Lucy comes up with but then they don't get to taste how great it usually is,either:)
This Friday's bake is Latvian Black Bread that required a rye starter to made fresh from scratch first so, it is a full week bake like most dark rye and pumpernickel breads seem to be around here.
i encourage you to try this bread out or one like it. It is a good way to get into all the various weird but rewarding ways Lucy and i make bread together. All these techniques are good to know if nothing else.and there are so many other ones too:-) You will learn so much by doing and have some more questions no doubt
happy baking
You will learn so much by doing and have some more questions no doubt
Funny you should mention that... ;-)
The finest educator I ever had in my school years always told us that for every question that was answered, we should have at least five new ones arise.
Thank you for the clarification of the levain building volumes and times. I made a nice white sourdough about three weeks ago and put the mother starter back in the fridge at that time. Would I just take my 5g right out of the crock and start building from there? Also, I keep 2 cups in the crock, and when I feed it I pour off 1 cup then add 1.25 cups AP or bread flour and 3/4 cup distilled water (our tap water is extremely hard and heavily chlorinated - starter performance is night and day different between tap and distilled water) so it hovers right around 100% hydration. Would it be best to go with the 66% hydration for the purposes of this loaf, or could I achieve comparable results at the higher percentage? I could easily make another sourdough this week and use the 1 cup pour-off to start a second batch at the lower hydration. Then it would be ready just after Christmas - which is when I'll most likely have time to actually try this bake.
I do have a nice DO that I could use for the cloche, but it is round. So I'll probably make a boule instead of a batard. That would probably work better with the round bowl and towel that I'll most likely proof in too.
Was your Krupps' grinder a burr or blade style? When you used the Krupps did you decrease the size with each pass, or did you make 3 passes at the same setting? My wife's burr grinder is about 4 years old and she wants a new one for Christmas, so I could run a couple batches through it to get the coffee out, then use that. Or I have a little blade-style grinder that has never been used. If you don't have any takers on your WonderMill, I would be interested in buying it from you in the spring after Holiday purchase payouts have settled down.
I'm interested to hear how your Latvian loaf goes. One of the doctors I work with is Latvian - born in the US, but his father emigrated from Latvia. I told him I had seen discussions here of Latvian black bread, and he said he had not seen that style before. In his family they make a "yellow bread" around holidays that contains saffron. I'm gonna pump him and see if he'll share his grandma's recipe. I'll definitely share here if he's forthcoming.
I was checking out the WonderMill online and I read that it can be adjusted from superfine to coarse grind and I was wondering... I can't seem to find fine durum flour around here anywhere, but I can usually find coarser semolina grind in 1-pound bags pretty easily. Since most recipes I've seen calling for durum or semolina don't use that much of it I don't want to order a huge bag online and have it go rancid. Could I run the coarse stuff through the mill and make it finer, or do you usually have to start with whole grains from the get-go?
--Mike
Hi Mike,
Did the Dr. Ever shsre his grandmother's tecipe for Latvian SD Rye?
I am seeking a recipe for the darker black bread for a friend. Can't seem to locate the amount of rye malt to use or if extract or powder is best.
Any guidance as to where I might find details or recipe would be greatly appreciated. Looking to have loaves ready to bake about March 25 or 26, 2016.
Thanks,
Lisa
whosinthekitchen
depending on the size of the loaf.
That doctor rotates through the ER I work at on an infrequent basis, and his schedule and mine have not meshed up in the last few months. But I'll post here if it is ever possible.
--Mike
my mother made this bread once every two weeks 5 loaves at a time. My sons loved it and spent an overnight to learn how to make it. Mom was in her late 80s and boys were teens. When they asked where she got her starter she hesitated and then said “why, you ask your neighbor”. They thought this very funny. So do I but a nice neighbor (Latvian) actually shared her starter with me 5 years ago and I have not had to make my own since. I remove a cup or so of finished dough, cover it with water, place it in an old margarine tub and tuck it into the back of my refrigerator for next time. Here is mom’s recipe.
To 4 cups dark rye flour add 5 1/2 cups almost boiling water. Add a large handful of caraway seeds. Stir to combine. Cover bowl and wait until it it is just warm.Mix the starter (about 1 cup and its water) into the warm dough. (I proof one package of yeast and add that also). * the little bit of extra liquid is fine.Add 4 cups light rye and stir to combine. Cover bowl and leave overnight.
In AM add 4 cups white wheat flour ; 1 1/2 cups sugar (yes!); 2 tsp salt and knead vigorously. Put in a warm place for 1 to 2 hours (covered). Divide dough among 3 greased bread pans. Cover and let rise until about 1/2” from top (don’t let it rise too high you want more rising in the hot oven).
Bake 30’ at 375; 30’ at 350; 30’ at 325. Brush with sugar water for shine while still hot.
so sorry to be this late . I don't even know Krups has a burr coffee mill. Just make sure you donlt overheat it when you are milling flour. Best to just let it coo down when it gets hot.
The WonderMill is yours any time you want it. $150 and you pay the freight or pick it up here in AZ. I am going to LA CA in June if you live there. You can run semolina through it to make it finer. Millers use the term semolina for any medium to coarse grind of flour by the way - not just durum
The Latvian bread was interesting in that it uses apple cider for the liquid in the bread.
Yes use 5 g of starter and build from there - the hydration of the starter is not critical - what ever you have will work fine. To to get the first feeding amount all you have to do is divide the total amount for the 3 feedings, 31 g and divide by 7 ( I call it the rule of 7's) this gives you 4.4 g each of flour and water fir the first feeding . Then double it for the 2nd feeding and then double the 2nd feeding for the 3rd. Once it doubles after the 3rd feeding then retard it.
Sorry to be so late with this MD
Life is what happens when you're making other plans.
Don't sweat the late reply - I'm sure you've seen my posts on some other loaves I've made since then (I think you even responded on one or two of them) so I haven't been without something to do. Plus with the holidays, everybody gets just a little busier than the rest of the year. However, the answers you provided are on par with the usual superb quality of your contributions and I thank you very much for getting them to me. The rule of 7's is a cool way of breaking it down.
I'm still interested in the WonderMill, but we got some "interesting" news a couple weeks ago. Our new HOA notified us that we have until June to get the landscaping done on our new house. Preliminary estimates are putting that between $8000 and $10000 *cringe* so the piggy bank I set aside for saving for new gadgets will be growing a bit slower for the next couple months. I hope your Nutrimill is doing well for you, and there's no reason to have a second mill sitting around not being used. So if you have any other takers, by all means go with that. If you haven't sold it in the next few months, we'll do the deal. :-)
I'm going to try using the little coffee grinder I mentioned above to do the milling, and all I have to do now is go buy the whole grains. I also need to read through the posts here about sprouting and drying grain, so I get that part right.
I like that the Latvian bread uses apple cider, that sounds delicious. There used to be a restaurant here called The Harvest that specialized in healthier cuisine, and they made their oatmeal with apple cider. When I learned that, I played around with it and discovered that a mix of 2 parts oats, 3 parts apple cider, and 1 part water, plus 1/4 cup raisins almost duplicated the taste of the restaurant oatmeal exactly. I've got a bunch of old recipes for my bread machine that used fruit juices instead of water - you've inspired me to dig them out and cook one up. There's one I remember I always wanted to try with pineapple juice and coconut - supposedly reminiscent of a piña colada.
Thanks again!
--Mike
get the landscaping done but being an architect and general contractor I did it mu self.for less than $1,500 for the front and back yards with sod, auto sprinkers with drip irrigation and all the plants and associated walls and planter rocks; Planted some pdp80 sod for a putting green too. 10 years later and the plants had taken over so I ripped out 3/4th of them with a chain and the Jeep and got rid of all the bougainvillea - pretty they were but such a pain to maintain.
My suggestion is plant way less than you think you need because they will just take over and grow to be huge monsters.
Have fun with the yard.