The Fresh Loaf

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Soakers, porridge, and seeds. Help!!!

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Soakers, porridge, and seeds. Help!!!

Hello, friend.

The aim of Mr Cools, community bake really is challenging. For all intents and purposes, it is asking us to create a formula that will produce a viable (at the least) bread. Additionally, the parameters are quite complicated. So, before I go blindly into the dark night, I thought I might do well to ask for some help on the front side.

This is what I have so far.

Vevain % ? Rye flour 

50% Strong white wheat flour 14% 

20% Tibetan Purple barley flour 

30% whole wheat flour

%? Soaker? Porridge? Groat oats/ flaked corn (polenta)/Flaked flaxseed 

%? Sunflower seeds ( outer covering)

Hydration 80%

Questions

Assuming a 600g final dough

What % of rye mother/levain should I use?

What % of soaker/ porradge?

How would soaking verses cooking a porradge effect the final product? I am not sure which avenue to explore.

My plan is to cover the exterior of the boule with sunflower seed.

Does my first draft seem reasonable? Provided I use a correct amount of starter, soaker, and seeds?

Thanks for reading, I look forward to your input, before I embark of this journey.

Best regards,

Will Falzon 

tpassin's picture
tpassin

How would soaking verses cooking a porradge effect the final product? I am not sure which avenue to explore.

Earlier this year as an experiment I made three loaves with some rolled (UK: "porridge") oats:

1. Oats included as is in the dough;
2. Oats soaked overnight;
3. Oats cooked into porridge then cooled.

The taste of the loaves was in the reverse order (3-2-1).  I preferred 2) or 3) when mixing the dough since the raw oats made for dry little inclusions which needed to get distributed evenly through the dough.  Based on balancing ease and results I prefer soaking the oats, but pre-cooking them gave the best flavor.

TomP

tpassin's picture
tpassin

Does my first draft seem reasonable? Provided I use a correct amount of starter, soaker, and seeds?

 Since there will be a lot of non-gluten-forming flours, I would sift out all the bran and turn it into a soaker or scald.  That will minimize its impact on gluten development and maximize its flavor contribution.

TomP