(1-results) Journey to perfect a 100% WW Sourdough Pullman Loaf
These are the results of my first attempt. See the (1-recipe) blog post to see what the plan was.
Recap:
The wife has tasked me to come up with a sandwich bread recipe our family can bake at least once a weak to completely replace our regularly purchased box store sandwich bread.
This post is for the recipe for my second attempt to make the perfect loaf.
Requirements
- Soft and light
- 100% whole wheat
- Recipe must be easily repeatable and easy to execute.
- Recipe must be designed for a covered pullman loaf pan.
(https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/pain-de-mie-pan-pullman-loaf-pan-13 [1]) - My 12 year old daughter must be able to bake the bread from start to finish
- Sourdough leavening only.
- From start to finish, the bread must be completable in 1 day.
- Process must exist to enable the baker to know with reasonable certainty that the loaf is perfectly proofed.
- Dough needs to contain a few softened chewy seeds, grain berries, etc. for texture and flavor.
Summary of Results
The Good:
- The bread tasted amazing and was quite sour. After toasting the bread and adding a bit of butter, I think this might have been the best sour tasting bread I have ever eaten.
- Including the oven bloom, I'd guess the there was a total volume gain of 3x-4x.
- The crust was nice and soft.
The Bad:
- The bread was too sour for an everyday sandwich loaf. My sourdough starter isn't typically this sour, the increased sourness was most definitely the result of the long long rise time (20 hours at an average of 76dF). This should be easy to fix by taking steps to significantly increase the rise rate. I took those steps in (2-recipe).
- The cooked bread was too heavy (by weight, not by texture/taste/fullfilligness). Me thinks this is due to too much water being retained in the dough after the bake and if I were to have cooked the dough significantly longer, the loaf would have been lighter.
- The bread was undercooked, there was dense very slightly uncooked dough at the very bottom of the loaf. I will increase the bake time from 45 min to 1 hour to hopefully remedy this problem.
- The bread broke too easily when being handled. I think this too is due to the bread being undercooked.
The Final Recipe:
- 30g (6%) sourdough starter (50:50 hard red)
- 50g rolled outs
- 30g (6%) honey
- 12g (2%ish) non-iodized salt (Accidentally added to much salt)
- 30g (6%) virgin olive oil
- 450g (90% if you include rolled oats) well water
- 60g home milled hard white wheat (sifted to remove bran)
- 390g home milled hard red wheat (sifted to remove bran) (I ran out of hard white, had to use hard red for the rest)
- sifted bran to be used as topping
The Bake:
- 2:00p: mixed 450g boiling water (all of the water), honey, oats, and salt until evenly combined. let it sit for 10 min to soften the oats.
- 2:10p: mixed in olive oil.
- 2:11p: added all flour, used ankersum to mix long enough to make shaggy mess.
- 2:21p: smeared 30g of starter over the top of the dough mixture, then used ankersum to knead using dough hook for 5 minutes.
- 2:26p: transferred as much dough as possible to clean bowl and covered. Took 20g of dough and put into aliquot.
- 2:30p, 5:30p, 9:30p: Stretch and fold, the entire time, there was no sign of sourdough activity.
- 11:00p: first obvious signs of sourdough activity in the aliquot, no visible increase in dough bulk.
- 7:00a: Dough in aliquot had risen 2.5x. Preheated the oven to 375dF. Turned dough out onto counter and preshaped into ball.
- 7:00a: Prepped pullman pan, brushed butter on all sides of pan, sprinkled bran flakes on butter.
- 7:10a: Shaped loaf into log and put in pan and covered.
- 7:40a: Brushed top of loaf with melted butter, sprinkled bran flakes on top, and scored. Loaded loaf into oven and baked for 45 min covered (note: I have misplaced my pullman loaf lid, I used an inverted cookie sheet to get by, the cookie sheet was in the warming oven, so it was already hot.)
- 8:25a: Put dough on a rack to cool. Took about 1.5 hours to cool.
- 10a: Sliced dough and enjoyed!
Side Note: As I type (it is currently 11:55a) the dough in the aliquot is STILL RISING! See photos.
I took the photo above before I brushed with butter, added bran flakes to the top, and scored.
You can see in the photo above the dense crumb at the bottom of the loaf. I assume this is the pure result of being slightly undercooked and the weight of the dough pushing down on itself after I took it out of the oven and set it on the rack to cool.
On the left is the aliquot for today and represents the level that the aliquot on the right was at originally. This photo was taken at 11:20a on bake day. So, that would be 21 hours AFTER kneading the starter into the dough.