January 3, 2016 - 11:17am
LEVELING UP plain sourdough with grains - help!
Hi there - I'm using Chad Robertson's Tartine Bread recipe for sourdough and have had some solid results.
I typically use 900g of hard white flour (sometimes substituting a portion of this for spelt flour) and 100g of hard whole wheat flour, 700g of water and 200g leaven.
I'd like to start introducing some heartier grains into the dough (like oats, sesame, flax, etc) to present more complex flavours and textures, however, I can't find a simple recipe or guide that shows how much flour to remove (if any) in favour of the seeds.
Any guidance would be appreciated!
Mike (in Toronto, Canada)
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Is a good guide. So you've got 1000g (1kg) of wheat flour. So I'd start off with swapping 100g for another grain and if all goes well then up it to 200g.
P.s. depending on what grain you might wish to keep the wheat flour you've got in the recipe and add a soaker in on top of that. So with Oat flour or another non gluten flour! you can substitute up to 20% but for rolled oats and flaxseed it would better suit a soaker as an addition not a substitute.
You may also need to adjust the total water added to maintain the "workability" of the dough. Hydration with added grains is a little tricky in that you may tie up water in the grains and have a very dry, non-workable dough with a "normal" calculated % hydration. I try to maintain the same feel of the kneaded dough. You can always add water before your first rise. Playing with grains and new flours is a good time to allow a 15 to 30 minute autolyse for the water to have time to equilibrate.
Last night I started my "Go To" recipe - http://www.homecookingadventure.com/recipes/easy-sourdough-bread-vermont-bread .I added in 1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill 10 Grain, 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, 1/4 cup cut oats, and 1/4 cup sunflower seeds. The only change I made was to the liquid, I added a splash more water for the seeds to soak in. Even with the addition of a cup of seeds/grain the recipe worked just as it had in my previous attempts. I don't think you really have to drop any of the other ingredients provided you anticipate that little bit of extra moisture if you are working with something that tends to drink up your liquids - bran, whole wheat, etc.
I've noticed that crushed flax does change the final bread, BTW. It is an added oil and the crumb is softer because of it.