76th bake. 12/29/2021. WW, whole rye.

Dec. 29-30, 2021.

Goals:

• About 1200 g of mostly whole grain dough to fill an 8" inner diameter banneton which matches well with the pot of the 3.2 quart Lodge Combo-cooker.  This is also the maximum size that fits in a 1-gallon zipper seal plastic bag. After the loaf cools (2 hrs), I like to keep it in a plastic bag to soften the crust.
• 25% Malsena brand (Lithuanian) whole rye, 55% BRM stone-ground whole wheat, 5% whole grain durum (roller milled, Sher Brar Fiber Wala), 15% white flour (AP + bread).

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Dec. 29, 2021. Wednesday.

Soaker:

• 12 g whole dry chia. 
• 40 g water. 
• 1-1/8 tsp whole dry raw (untoasted) caraway. 

This time I implemented two new-to-me things:  1) adding flour to the water, as the Italian bakers and the Ankarsrum users do.  2) sifting the flours into the water to aerate and minimize clumping.

• 508 g bottled spring water in the main mixing bowl. 
• Weighed the following into separate bowls/cups, then sifted them into the main bowl with a #12 sieve: 
• 31 g whole grain roller-milled durum, Sher Brar brand Fiber Wala. I lost my love affair with whole grain durum, and just need to use this up bit by bit.
• 155 g whole rye flour, Malsena brand from Lithuania, purchased from a nearby Russian grocery store. 
• 341 g Bob's Red Mill stone-ground WW hard red wheat. 
• 30 g Arrowhead Mills organic AP flour.  I'm not enamored of this flour either. I only bought it because it was on close-out and ridiculously cheap. But I need to use it up. Just FYI, it is not malted, and my starter did not grow well with it 
• 41.5 g Gold Medal Bread flour. 
• 10.5 g salt. I decided to go lower than 2% due to getting flavoring from the bread spice.  It's a mixture of 2/3 Himalayan pink salt, and 1/3 iodized table salt.
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• Hand mixed to homogeneity. It was rather sticky. 
• Let soak/autolyse from 2:35 pm to about 3:30 pm.
• Around 3:30 pm worked in the soaker. 
• Worked in 44 g of cold 100% hydration starter from 3 sources. 20 g was from a rye starter that I made using my Cultures For Health San Fran Sourdough starter as a seed.  Was going to just use the rye starter and the CHF San Fran starter, but ran too low on the latter. 
• The dough felt a little too loose, so I added 10 g of corn meal when I folded in the 1.5 tsp of bread spice*. I wanted to use 1.75 tsp, but ran out.
• Kneaded some, let ferment, and kneaded every once in a while. Added a little bread flour each time I kneaded because it was sticky.
• 7:30 pm, fold, shape, and put in lined and dusted 8" inner diameter, 8.5" outer diameter banneton. Used a 50/50 mix of AP flour and rice flour for dusting banneton. 

Total calculated weight should be 1213 grams. Less what stuck to hands, plastic gloves, spatula, and bowls. And not counting caraway seeds, bread spice, and bread flour added during kneading. I forgot to weigh dough when I put it in the banneton, and when I took it out of banneton to bake.

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Dec. 30, 2021.

To be continued.

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* Bread spice: 2 parts by volume whole coriander seed, 1 part fennel seed, 1 part caraway. Roast in a dry pan on stove-top burner until fragant, let cool, grind in a coffee/spice grinder.

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Note: the paper plate is 9" in diameter.

Gonna try wating 22 hours before cutting open.

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