Latest bake and a question...
I was going through the pantry and I found some stuff I had forgotten we had, so I thought it would be worth experimenting with. We had some amaranth seed and some flax seed meal, so I added them to a sourdough loaf I made. Here's the loaf:
And the crumb:
The formula I used:
AP flour 360g
WW flour 40g
Flax seed meal 10g
Amaranth seed 20g
100% hydration culture 100g (2-week retard in refrigerator since last feeding)
Kosher salt 10g
Water 320g
All ingredients were added to mixing bowl and stirred for a few minutes to combine, then allowed to rest for 30 minutes to hydrate.
This was followed by 300 slap-and-folds then a 2-hour initial bulk ferment on the countertop and an overnight retard in the refrigerator.
In the morning, there was a 1-hour rest back on the countertop to take the chill off, followed by 3 stretch-and-folds separated by 45 minutes each.
I initially shaped this into a batard and it was holding the shape nicely (despite the high level of hydration), but then I chickened out and put it into a loaf pan for the final rise.
We ran some errands and I checked the dough every so often. The loaf pan turned out to be a good idea because the dough finally passed the finger dent test and was just peeking over the rim of the pan at the 5-hour mark. I'm afraid it would have been more pancake-like had I stayed with the freestanding batard.
At the last minute I got a crazy notion and decided to top it with sesame seeds, then I scored the loaf. I learned my lesson on that one - dragging the blade through the sesame seeds was a pain. Next time I'll score first, then sprinkle the seeds on.
The oven was preheated to 450F with a cast iron skillet on the lowest rack. One cup of hot water went into the skillet for steam at the same time the loaf went in. It baked for 30 minutes in the pan, then out of the pan for another five to darken up the sides.
My wife and I have enjoyed the bread greatly - mildly sour taste, nutty accents from the seeds, chewy crust and tender crumb. Great as toast and untoasted with butter. Still working on getting my 6-year-old to relinquish his cherished white bread to try a slice of this... but I ain't holdin' my breath ;-)
My question is a two-parter related to the bakers' percentages:
- Based just on the flours and the water I'm at 80% hydration, but 100g of 100% hydration starter would add 50g each of flour and water, so does that bring the hydration up to 82%?
- The flax seed meal is very flour-like in nature. Should non-flour additives with flour-like properties be added to the flour total for the hydration calculation?
Thanks for taking a look!
--Mike
Hi Mike,
Looks like an interesting loaf.
I think there are different views on barker's percentages, so I'm going to give my personal answer to your questions and see how often I get shot down in flames…
(1) I would include the quantities of the starter in your calculation of the overall formula and it will make a slight difference to the percentage;
(2) I haven't used flax seed meal, and dont know how absorbent it is, but at a guess, I'd say it doesnt get included with the weight of the flour, as you don't generally include seeds.
I hope that helps, and look forward to seeing if others disagree with either of the above.
Best wishes and happy baking
Colin
When you use add-ins that absorb water, it means some of the water goes to hydrate them rather than the flour. So in effect, the amount of water that actually goes into the flour is less than the full amount, which means your effective hydration % is less than 80%.
I don't know how bakers % handles this. With this caveat, what I do is either (a) soak the weighed add-ins separately then pour off the unabsorbed water before mixing them into the dough (I usually use the excess water as part of the regular water), or (b) add some water that I don't include in my hydration % calculation. If (b), how much water depends on the add-ins since different things absorb quite different amounts; e.g. sunflour seed absorbs roughly 1:1 by weight while rolled oats take up more like 2:1.
While I haven't used either flax meal or amaranth seed, I'd guess that they used 30-40g of your water, so that your effective hydration % would have been in the range of 70-72.5%.
Check out the baker's percentage tutorial on King Arthur Flour here > http://www.kingarthurflour.com/professional/bakers-percentage.html. If you read through the whole thing they discuss how to calculate for the hydration of various starters.
If I'm going to use add-in's I don't usually include them as part of the flour (even if they are flour-like), but if the dough seems a little slack or dry I adjust on the fly, without fussing too much about the hydration percentage. Just what feels right!
I do have a question for you - how does your starter perform when you use it straight in a dough like that, without refreshing it first? I find that mine doesn't have as much oomph after about 3 or 4 days in the fridge, so when I make dough with it I always refresh a bit of it overnight first, so I have enough fresh active starter for however much bread I want to bake. It certainly seems to improve the dough.
Also, what does the stretch & fold sequence after the overnight retard do for the dough? Do you find this develops it further?
I have been using the metric system since I started baking bread a few months ago and measure everything in grams. I did this because I knew if I screwed up an ingredient weight, I could recalculate adjustments. I apologize for being the noob here, and thank you for providing the link to understand percentage - makes sense to me :)
The starter worked beautifully right out of the fridge. I had fed it six times on 4-hour intervals over a two day period, and the activity level of the yeast was very high, but the sourness had gone way down. I asked about this here and found that a frequent feeding schedule like that at room temperature favors the yeast a lot but the LAB not so much. To stimulate the LAB growth higher temperatures should be used. So I stuck it in the fridge and took a look (and sniff) every couple days to see how it was doing. It amazingly kept making fresh bubbles for over a week even in the fridge. After about 2 weeks, the bubbles slowed down and the sour smell started to return - that's the point at which I started this bake.
I got this idea from Dabrownman - if you take a look at some of his recipes he frequently makes use of starter that he has retarded in the fridge for several weeks. I gave it a try on his suggestion and I was very pleased with the results!
--Mike
I have a bucket of 'discarded' starter in the fridge that has accumulated over time (a pretty long time, actually). I keep thinking I should compost it, but hate doing that. I wonder what kind of bread it would make?
include in the calculation
it is very absorbent
While using your scales, take 50g of flax seed flour and add 25g water (50% hydration) compare to your wheat flour using the same amounts? Add a teaspoon of water (5g) at a time to each and compare giving the flours time to hydrate and absorb the water yet still remain a soft dough.
30/50 x 100 = 60% 35/50 x 100 = 70% etc.
At the same time, it might be interesting to take 20g of Amaranth seed and soak it for an hour or so. Drain, weigh again and see how water it absorbed. :)
Fax seeds can soak up their own weight in water no worries. Chia seeds can do 4 times. I grind amaranth into flour so that is what it is calculated as Amaranth seeds can soak up a lot of water too, even if not ground but they are so small they are almost ground. My rye meal is chunkier then a=they are whole.
The bread looks grand by the way and has to be tasty. Well done adn
Happy baking