Bushturkey's blog

Sourdough baguettes - crumb

Sourdough (mini) baguettes

I made my own version of sourdough baguettes.

I made a liquid levain (125% hydration) from my white sourdough. I elaborated it into a poolish (100% hydration). The final dough had 70% white bread flour (but I increased the gluten to 14% with added gluten flour - I was worried, the 30 % rye might weaken my dough), 30% rye flour.

Because my preferment was around 24 hours old (but I'd given it two feedings at 12 hour intervals) by the time I mixed the final dough, I didn't know if the starch would've been depleted, so I added about 5g malt (to a total of 610g flour). I found some "light dry malt" at the brewing section of a local shop. The packet said "Malted Barley" as the ingredient. It didn't say it was roasted (it didn't say it was not roasted either), so I assumed it was diastatic malt.

I forgot to mention that I used the "french fold" method of mixing. Just a few seconds only! Then a few letter folds during bulk fermentation.

Any commentary from any bakers out there (on the way I went about making the baguettes)?

I followed Hamelman's five-grain levain recipe, but used 3 grains: Rye, Oats and a sprinkling of roasted wattle seed (Acacia baileyana) as a hot soaker.

The flour is 50% high-gluten flour, 25% bread flour and 25% whole wheat flour. Hydration was 98% (!), but almost all the water got soaked up by the seeds.

The dough called for a liquid levain, spiked with a little instant dry yeast 0.4%.

I baked in tins for 15 minutes, then I took the bread out and finished baking on the stone. The crust came out nice and blistered, thin and crispy. The bread is delicious!

Grain levain - I've seen the bread dough arisin'....(apologies to and acknowledgement of John Fogerty)

Grain levain out of the oven --someone left their grain levain out in the rain. I don't think I can take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it......

Grain levain crumb - the first crust is the crispiest....

My apologies for the corny song lyrics!

Olive levain - cooling out of the oven

Olive levain no.2 - crumb

I'm much happier with the way this attempt came out. I left it to rise longer (I had more time). I left it to retard at room temperature over night (it got down to around 64 F). But the dough was very sluggish in rising.

I don't know if it's the acidity or the salt in the olives that slowed down the rise. The dough didn't taste all that salty, but the olives are vinegary, even after pressing them with kitchen tissue to mop up most of the fluid. I coaxed the dough a bit by putting a small bowl of just-boiled water next to the shaped loaves and covering with a big plastic tub.

The recipe called for 65% hydration, but I added less water this time ( it was way too slack the last time).

By contrast, today I also made a version of Hamelman's Five-grain levain (I used two grains - rye and oats. I didn't have the other grains. I made a starter yesterday. I forgot what I had in mind to make, so I flipped through the pages of Hamelman's book to get an idea).

The recipe calls for spiking the final dough with instant dry yeast - only 0.1 oz in 24 oz flour;  a tiny 0.4%- but the dough looked as though it was starting to swell instantly. I wasn't used to such a rapidly expanding dough. I didn't appreciate the difference between levain and commercial yeast.

May be it was also the nutrient-rich wholemeal flour. I've got it retarding in the fridge to bake tonight!

Olive levain just out of the oven

Olive levain - crumb

The recipe called for a liquid levain. The flavour was extraordinary. I didn't know the flavour of the levain can change as much as it did (going from stiff to liquid).

For a culture, I used left-over levain from the Pain au levain recipe (Hamelman's levain recipes always have an ounce or so of surplus levain in order to perpetuate the sourdough), which I made into a liquid levain (125% hydration). I found it was slower to start rising than my usual sourdough.

When I mixed the final dough, I tried to let the flour autolyse with the water. I found it a bit too dry, so i added a bit of extra water. When I then added the liquid levain I encountered two problems:

1. The hydration was way too much (the recipe called for 65%, mine felt more like 80%!) and
2. The dough had chunks of the stiffer flour/water mixture in a smooth batter-like dough.

I worked it and worked it, until I got the chunks ironed out and I added a bit of flour to make the dough less slack. Then I got worried that the extra flour I'm adding won't be as worked as the initial flour and I didn't know how this would affect the dough, so I stopped at some point, even though the dough still felt slack.

Even though my culture was active, the final dough seemed to take a long time to rise. It was at 69.8 F (close enough to 70). Even at 2.5 hours, there wasn't much rise in the dough. I was pressed for time, so instead of waiting longer I proceded with the foldings and dividing and shaping. I let the loaves rise in nylon baskets, dusted with rye flour. 

The loaves also took a long time to rise, and (something which I'm used to currently!), the dough stuck to the baskets when I up-turned them onto the baking tray to load into the oven.

The bread tasted good but, as you can see, the crumb is not as open as it could've been.

I've just refreshed my sourdough and I'll have another go. 

Pain au levain

Pain au levain -crumb. Do you reckon he/she looks French and wearing a beret?!

Holes big enough to hide a mouse?

I had a go at Hamelman's pain au levain (95% wheat, 5% rye, 65% hydration). I didn't do some things as well as I should have.

1. After mixing the final dough, I left it overnight in the fridge. It was 2300 hours, I was tired and working night shift from home.

Next day, the dough was cold and it took a long time to "wake up". May be it was exhausted. It seemed to take a long time to rise.

2. I probably under-proved the loaves. The oven spring tore the loaves apart and my scoring was probably sub-optimal.

Ah well, the journey continues. It would be nice to have a baker near by to learn from, though.

I'll let you be the judge(s) about the success of this attempt! I live nowhere near Pointe-à-Callière, so I can't really call the bread by that name. Miche Source Alice (?Alice Springs  in French).

1. I should've read the instructions!

I started by elaborating a starter. I used a 100% culture and 100% wholemeal (100% extraction - it's what I had at home). I ended up with 970g starter! Hamelman's recipe had the culture as 20%(D'oh!).

I didn't have enough wholemeal, so I used my remaining wholegrain spelt (again, 100% extraction). I made up the rest with whitebread flour (I ran out of spelt). The recipe called for 85-90% wholemeal (100% extraction) and the rest white bread flour. I ended up with 42.4% wholemeal wheat, 24.2% wholemeal spelt and 33.4% white bread flours. Hydration was 82% and I had a total of 6 Kg of elastic dough! It was beautiful to feel, but impossible to control. The recipe said that miche is a heavy loaf 2.25 Kg or 5 lb each, so I made 3 loaves.

My drama continued after shaping. I've invented the 13th and 14th steps to bread. The sticking to the couche and the scraping off the couche when it's time to bake. Very crucial steps!

The bread tastes good and the crumb is nice and the crust crispy and thin.

My dough tub.

The first of three brothers!

The crumb view

The 13th and 14th steps (in between proving and baking).

The CD in the second picture is of "Africa"- © Putumayo World Music 1999.

The loaves were bigger than what my oven could handle and I had to pick up the dough and push it back onto the tile.

The loaves just spread out on the couche. I'll get bannetons or baskets next time, I think!

17/04/2008

Miche sandwiches

One week later, the bread is alittle drier, but no sign of mold. Still tasty!

I made this bread with a white leaven, elaborated to a starter, which was pre-fermented for 12 hours.

The finished dough had 108% pre-ferment starter, 30% wholemeal Spelt flour, 70% white bread flour and 75% hydration.

The flour and water were left to autolyse in the fridge for 12 hours before the starter, salt and a cold soaker of quinoa (I didn't weigh it so I don't know the percentage) were added and mixed.

The kinky loaf resulted from my transferring it to the oven. My "peel" - a wooden chopping board- was too big to fit and flip over in the oven and the dough flopped off the tile.

Spelt & quinoa loaves

The loaves - a kinky one and a straight one!: The crumb texture is OK, I think (?).

 Panne Siciliano

Panne Siciliano - crumb

I found the flavour and texture to be better the next day (and not in the 2 hours after baking), and there was a little sourness. Is the durum flour meant to be sour? (My "sourdough" is not really sour and it's not previously imparted any sourness to breads).

I had a go at the a l'ancienne method with 27% organic rye flour (I think it was wholemeal - there were gritty bits in it), 73% organic bread flour and a 75% hydration. I threw in half a handful of caraway seeds. I also used 4% organic raw sugar (in Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" there is a recommendation to use some sweetener when using rye flour).
I fermented the starter overnight (about 12 hours) but the finished dough fermented in the fridge for about 20 hours. When I took it out to shape it, the internal temperature registered 6.1 C (43 F).
The flavour of the baked loaves was amazing!

 A l'ancienne - The Money Shot!

Sourdough Ciabatta

I used the recipe from Peter Reinhart "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" - the Biga version.

My Biga was my white sourdough, mixed with an equal amount of organic bread flour and some water to make a firm starter.

I used half the oil given in Reinhart's recipe. I proved it on a couche (well, I got a length of thick cotton table-cloth material from a textile shop and hemmed the edge).

I flipped it onto a polenta-dusted "peel" (actually the off-cut from the ceramic tile I used in my oven) and slid it directly on the hot tile. The bread Ballooned (?does this mean it was under-prooved?) and the top-being closest to the element, almost burned.