The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Honey Oat Sleeping Giant Northern Logger Beer Sourdough 

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Honey Oat Sleeping Giant Northern Logger Beer Sourdough 

It was time to try replacing all the water in the main dough with beer. I looked for a locally made lighter tasting golden beer. And of course, this is another porridge bread. The porridge is made with water, butter and honey. I blame Ian for getting me hooked on porridge breads! 

 

 

I’m also experimenting with doing only 2 builds of my refrigerated starter instead of 3. I make sure to give my refrigerated starter a good stir before putting it back in the fridge. If it’s getting low, I feed it so that it’s quite thick and pop it back in the fridge without counter time. Since I bake once a week, the beasties have time to build up, but still have lots of food. I don’t want it going too acidic again. It definitely smell better with this routine. I don’t have any hootch on top and no acetone odours. So far, so good. 

 

Recipe 

 

Makes 3 loaves

 

Porridge 

100 g large rolled oats

200 g water

40 g Honey

40 g butter

 

Dough

800 g strong bakers unbleached flour

200 g freshly milled wholegrain Red Fife flour 

650 g Sleeping Giant Northern Logger Beer + 25 g

23 g pink Himalayan salt

40 g yogurt

250 g levain (procedure in recipe)

Extra wholegrain and unbleached flour of your choice for feeding the levain

 

The night before:

1. Mill the grains if you are using Red Fife berries. Otherwise use the freshest wholegrain Wholewheat flour that you can find (freshly milled flour does make an incredible difference in flavor). Place the required amount of flour in a tub. Add the unbleached flour to the tub as well. Cover and set aside.

2.Take 10 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 20 g of water and 20 g of wholegrain flour. Let that rise at cool room temperature for the night. 

 

Dough Making day:

1. Early in the morning, feed the levain 100 g of filtered water and 50 g of strong baker’s flour and 50 g wholegrain flour. Let rise until doubled (about 5 hours). 

2. About two hours before the levain is ready, put 650 g beer in a stand mixer’s bowl and add the flours from the tub.  Mix on the lowest speed until all the flour has been hydrated. This takes a couple of minutes. Autolyse for at least a couple of hours at room temperature. 

3. Make the porridge: Add the water, the butter and the honey to the rolled oats and cook on medium heat until the liquids are absorbed and porridge is very thick and creamy. Let cool. 

4. Once the autolyse is done and the levain has doubled, add the salt, the yogurt, the porridge, the extra 25 g of beer, and the levain to the bowl. Mix on the lowest speed for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on the next speed for 9 minutes.

5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place in a lightly oiled covered tub. Let rest 45 minutes in a warm spot (oven with light on). 

6. Do 2 sets of coil folds at 45 minute intervals and then 2 more set at 30 minute intervals. Let rise about 30%. 

7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~780 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 30 minutes on the counter. 

8. Do a final shape by flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and cross over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice tight boule.

9. Sprinkle a  mix of rice flour and all purpose flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge overnight. I try to keep proof under 12 hours. 

 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, about 11 hours later, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully but quickly place the dough seam side up inside. 

2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 20 minutes at 425 F. Internal temperature should be 205 F or more.

Comments

Benito's picture
Benito

Beautiful Danni.  I’m interested in your review of the flavour having used all beer for the hydration.

Benny

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

That’s it at least to my taste buds. Here is a shot of the crumb. I really can’t complain! I’m so happy I got my starter back up to snuff!

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Now Danni, that’s my idea of great crumb!

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I’m a big fan of using beer in place of the water.  I’m sure this one tastes great.  One of my favorites is the porridge rye I’ve made with Guinness.

Happy baking!

Ian

technically_bread's picture
technically_bread

Those loaves look wonderful. I haven't tried making bread with porridge before but it sounds intriguing. I may have to attempt your recipe sometime soon. Thanks for sharing.

Also, beer names make great bread names!

Simon

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

because of the extra step of cooking rather than soaking but it truly makes a huge difference in the resulting bread. I usually make the porridge right after starting my autolyse. I’m sitting around waiting anyhow so it’s really not a chore.