Return to Wild White
I haven't baked a white loaf since my disastrous encounter with Leckford Estate bread flour, so I thought it was time to excise some demons and have another try - with a different flour!
Having had success with a bulk retard in my last bake A Trio of High Extraction Loaves [1] I decided to use the same technique again.
The only thing I wasn't totally happy with last time was the scoring and ears on the loaves baked uncovered, so I thought I might as well give the "double retard" a try on one of the loaves; I've always had good loaf appearance after a retarded final proof.
Flour mix
- 3% Aldi whole grain rye passed through a fine kitchen sieve
- 20% Walk Mill stoneground BF
- 38.5% Marriages strong BF
- 38.5% Waitrose strong Canadian BF
Levain
- 22.5% young levain at 56% hydration, 30% of flour is Rubaud wholegrain mix
Other
- True hydration 72%
- Salt 1.8%
Process
- Levain made in a 2 1/2 stage build at e5, e11, m8. The half build is a small top up one in the morning 1:0.21
- At m11, autolyse all flours in all water for 20mins. in mixer
- Add levain, mix in, stand 15min
- Add salt, mix in
- Mix on high speed 1mins 55secs
- Turn out of the mixer into proofing bowl, dough temp 25C (I was looking for 27C)
- Bulk ferment at 28C for 2hrs with in bowl S&F at 45mins and 120mins
- Transfer to fridge for retarded bulk
- Out of fridge next day (14 elapsed hours)
- Rest 50mins at 24C
- Preshape to 3 rounds, BR 25mins
- Shape to 2 650g boules, 1 680g bat
- Boules FP in woodpulp brotforms for 1hr 15min at 24C
- Boules baked with steam for 12mins, 13mins without.
- Bat FP for 15mins at ambient, then into fridge for rest of FP (8hrs 30mins)
- Bat baked same as boules
Thoughts
- Nice loaves with good flavour and very open crumb. The double retarded bat was much easier to score than the boules, as you would expect with chilled dough.
- It baked with a good ear and nice blisters.
- The flavour of the single and double retarded loaves was similar
- The double retard makes for a long process cycle, but seems to give the best of both worlds - a good flavour from the retarded bulk and good appearance from the retarded FP.
After the mix:
Start of Bulk Proof:
Out of the fridge:
Nice & bubbly!:
Onto the bench:
Preshaped:
Ready for FP:
Baked boules:
And the batarde:
Nice blisters!:
Lance