dabrownman's blog

We were out of red and white rye malt when we made out last batch of SD multi-grain bagels with sprouts.  Since our multi-grain bakes that we like the best have been a combination of spelt, rye and whole wheat we decided to make a batch of red and white  multi-grain malt using these 3 grains.

First soak the berries in water for 3 hours and then sprout them for 3-4 days between two layers of damp kitchen towels covered in plastic.  I re-dampen the towels ever 24 hours so they don't dry out.  When they look like this:

Then dry them in the oven on a rimmed cookie sheet.  Start out at 150 F, no higher in order to make diastatic white malt.  Any higher temperature and you will kill the enzymes you just made by malting.  Once dry,  about an hour or so,  take half the berries and grind them into white malt. 

Take the other half of the berries and continue to bake them starting at 200 F and raising the temperature 25 F every 5 minutes until you get to 350 F.  Watch them carefully so they don't burn.  Grind them into red non diastatic malt when they are cool.  Red malt adds flavor and color to any bread.  You should get red and white malts that looks like this:

We made another batch of our YW / SD bagels trying to work out the kinks with a few minor changes starting with 26% whole grains.  Instead of a 20 hour retard, we retarded the shaped bagels for 15 hours.  The whole grains this time were spelt, rye and whole wheat in stead of just WW.

Another change we made was to use the excess sprout soaking water and yogurt whey along with water for the liquid in the dough. 

We also added some sprouts, 5%, to these bagels utilizing spelt, rye and whole wheat berries that were soaked for 3 hours and sprouted between damp paper towels under plastic wrap for 2 days. We did not use any white rye malt since we were out.

To see the modified Stan Ginsberg Favorite Bagel methods,  go to here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/29681/15-whole-wheat-bagels-yw-and-sd-desem-combo-starter

This batch did not rise as much in the oven, bake up as brown or have as many blisters as the last batch but the crumb was more open and they tasted better.  Don’t know why since this batch was baked in the mini oven too because of its ability to blister anything to death.

We tried one new seed combination this time adding oregano seeds to the basil seeds we like so much.  Oregano seeds need to be treated like coriander – use sparingly.

The additional seed types we used were white and black poppy seeds, white and black sesame seeds and on the combo bagel we added nigella seeds and salt with all the rest of the seeds.

We have baked lots of bagels and think these taste the best but the 15% whole grain ones looked the best.  As usual, these bagels were best toasted with cream cheese but they were not bad with butter and jam too.

A schmear on one side                                                                             Butter on the other ----Just Yummy!

Formula

Here is week #2

It's already been two weeks since the last Parade of Sandwiches and fall is here.  Yes, it is still in the 80's but it feels wonderful after 5 months of the AZ heat.  Fall flowers are starting to bloom again. 

We had two experiments going on at the same time and thought we would kill two birds with one stone by combining them sort of like a YW SD combo starter.

Our 1 gram SD 36 hour before retard levain build went well and we split it in two to make a white flour one and a whole grain one here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30755/sd-starter-experiment-how-long-can-it-ferment-counter-goo-overtakes-it

We also had our 15% whole grain SD project that we wanted to increase up to 40% whole grains too.  So we used the whole grain levain(after a 24 hour retard in the fridge making it a 60 hour build) to make a 40% whole grain SD bread using spelt, rye and WW.  To make things interesting and even more tasty we included a bulgar and flax seed scald to round out the flavor

With the white flour 60 hour levain we made another 15% whole grain SD but also perked it up some with pumpkin, sunflower, chia and hemp seeds inside and out.

We decided to bake both in Chacon shapes and also in Dutch Ovens.  The white seeded Chacon was made with one central knotted roll surrounded by a non twist rope and covered with a huge bialy shaped main dough.  Hydration was 75,5%.

The flours and water were autolysed with the salt for 3 hours for both breads.  Each started out with 10 minutes of French Slap an Folds followed by a 30 minute rest in a plastic covered, oiled bowl.  Then 3 sets of stretch and folds we done every 30 minutes with the add ins being incorporated on the 2nd set.

Once the S& F’s were completed each dough was allowed to ferment for 1 hour before being shaped into Chacons in the rice floured baskets.  They were immediately placed into sealed trash can liners and placed in the fridge for a 12 hour retard.

The 40% whole grain Chacon was nearly fully proofed during the retard but the white one was only half way there.  So well pulled the white one out of the fridge, leaving it in the bag to warm up and proof an hour and half at room temp before we took out the 40% whole grain Chacon.

Both were baked at 450 F for 15 minutes to steam with the lid on starting the 40% whole grain Chacon 15 minutes before the white one went in.  After the lids were removed they were allowed to continue to bake in the DO for 5 minutes before being removed from the DO and allowed to finish baking on the stone.

Both were deemed done at the 25 minute mark when they read 209 F in the middle.  They were removed to the cooling rack immediately and allowed to cool for 1 ½ hours before slicing into quarters and slicing 1 quarter into ½”slices.

The seeded white Chacon browned a little more on the outside and also had a slightly more open crumb – but not much.  Both crusts went soft as they cooled and were chewy. The crumbs were soft, airy and moist with a little gloss.

For once my wife agreed.  The 40% whole grain variant tasted noticeably better to each of us and was our favorite even thought the seeded white Chacon was a fine and dandy SD bread.  Both were noticeably more sour tangy than our standard SD breads made with a normal 6 hour build and a 24 hour retard of the levain.

When ever we have 60 hours to kill and only 1 g of SD starter we now know what to do with it to make some nice SD bread.

40% Whole Grain SD with Scald Formula   

15% Whole Grain Seeded SD Formula

Go to the bottom of the post to see the extension after the ************************************************

It sounds like an interesting experiment to do for SD starter. I can use up to 20g of stater making 200 g of 80% hydration levain over 12 hours in the winter time and kitchen temperatures around 60-65 F. That 200 g levain would normally go into 800 g of flour and 600 g of water and then developed over a couple of hours. In the winter time it could possibly ferment and proof 6-8 hours on the counter before needing to go in the oven.  With yeast water we have gone 12 hours.

 I suppose that if one would use 1 g of SD starter and mix it with the entire 900 g of flour and 675 g of water and 2% salt (no levain build) it would take a while for it to be ready to bake, How long we will have to find out - unless someone has already done this test. I'm not sure, perhaps someone here knows this too, but yeast only lives about 6 days or so before croaking.

No collapse after 24 hours,

So my apprentice took 1 g of starter and tried it out on 100 g of flour and 75 g of water, 2 g of salt to see what happens. She started at 9 AM, Oct 26, 68.2 F kitchen temp and level marked with a rubber band. Lets see how long it takes to double and make a couple knotted rolls out of it :-) Here is a pix exactly 24 hours later the levain had nearly tripled but had not collapsed. Amazing for 1 g of starter and 100 g of flour.

9 AM - Oct 26                                                                                      9 AM - Oct 27. 

Here is a picture of the top of the levain too. I've decided to eventually make some bagels out of some of this and a lower hydration will slow this train down some too. Also want to get some whole grains in the mix too. So we will divide the dough in half and add another 86 g of flour, 44 g of water to get the hydration down to 60% from 75% and a little less than 2 g of salt to each half.  One half got 86 g of whole grain flours (50%rye, 32% WW and 18% spelt).  The other half got 86 g of AP and 44 g of water and less than 2 g of salt - to keep the control of white flour intact.

10 AM - Oct 27 after the 24 hour mark split into two levains one has some Whole Grains now and one is still AP only.

This should perhaps get us from 24 to 48 hours on the counter. The temperature fell to 70 F this morning from a high yesterday of 81 F in the afternoon fall kitchen.

The whole grain levain on the left doubled again at the 32 hour mark and was put in the fridge for a 24 hour retard and the white flour levain doubled at the 36 hour mark and also went into the fridge for a 24 hour retard.  Looks like 36 hours is as far as we would want to go before refrigerating or using.  Retarding the starter should make the sour really come out.

************************************************************************************************************************

Now that we know it takes 24 hours for our 1g of our Desem /Rye SD starter  tpo double 100g of flour at 75% hydration, we are going to extend the experiment to see if we can do a 36 hour bread on the counter top.

We mixed 7 g of 67% hydro starter with 50 g of water to thin it out and liquefy it.  We then added 22 g each of home ground whole: spelt,  rye and wheat along with 2 g each of white and red malts made from the same flours and mixed it up well.  We then added another  455 g of water and mixed again before adding 315 g each of bread and AP flour and mixing again.  This gave us a 72% hydration dough that has 10% whole grains and 1% SD starter. 

We let the dough autolyse for 30 minutes before adding 11 g of salt and starting 15 minutes of  French Slap and folds.  We expect to let the dough ferment for 24 hours before  letting it rise again for 12 hours before baking.  The gluten was well developed after the slap and folds and the dough ball looked like this:

Michael Wilson has had a positive effect on my dough balls!  Can't wait to try out his panettone !

11 AM  11/04/2012                                                                                 7 PM 11/04/2012  +- 10% increase in volume

11 PM  11/04/2012   +-20% increase in volume                               3 AM  11/05/2012  +- 30 %increase in volume

7 AM  + 100% increase in volume

It only took 20 hours to double in volume starting with 1% starter to flour ratio.  Time to split it up and and proof a loaf of fig, pistachio, sunflower and pumpkin seed bread and one plain old SFSF - and see how long they take to double.  The round is SFSD.

The reality was that the dough had doubled again in 4 hours and was ready for Big Old Betsy to bake up so we did.  At our hot kitchen temp of nearly 79 F  Doc.Dough spreadsheet said we would ne ready to bake in less time but we might have over proofed it a little too.

Here they are proofed.  24 hours on the counter from mixing the dough to baking it off worked for this starter, flour and hydration combination.

I will do another post to cover the bread itself which baked up very well.

After watching David Snyder develop his SFSD and baking it several times it tuned out to be as good as his San Joaquin and Pugliesi Capriosso.  All 3 are fine SD breads but each is a little light on whole grains that we love so much around here for taste, as well as, health reasons.  We would like to get to at least 25% whole grains in most of our breads.

The problem is that the more whole grains you put in, the more likely the big holes are going to disappear.  But Empress Ying has no problem getting big holes in her famous 36 Hour Baguettes - even with 40% whole grains.  Both David and Ying are amazing bakers - really!

So, we feel that with a little luck we should be able to get some decent holes in some SF style SD bread with up to 40% whole grains but, we realize that we won’t get the holes Ying or David manage to coax out their breads - at least not in this lifetime or even on this planet for that matter.

We decided to start with 15% whole grains made up of equal amounts of Spelt, WW and Rye and work our way up over time to 40% whole grains and see what happens.  We started out with 72% hydration on the initial bake and will up the percent as the whole grain increases.  We like the flavor that these 3 whole grains bring to SD breads.

We used 15 g of our Desem and Rye Sour starter and made one build to 175 G of levain over 6 hours.  The levain ended up being 20% of the total weight of the dough - a percent that we like to build to for a 12 hour 37 F retard.

We also did a 3 hour autolyse with the salt, water and flour.  After the levain was hand mixed into the autolyse, we did 10 minutes of French slap and folds and then allowed the dough to rest for 30 minutes in an oiled plastic covered bowl.  We then did 3 sets of S&F’s on half hour intervals.  We stopped each set when the dough started to resist the stretch.

The dough was then pre-shaped into a boule and allowed to rest for 10 minutes before final shaping and placing seam side up in a floured basket.  It was immediately placed in a trash can liner, end closed with a rubber band and placed into the fridge for a 12 hour retard. 

The next morning the basket and liner were removed from the fridge and allowed to come to room temperature and the finish proofing – about 3 hours total.  I’ve used this basket several times before, with much wetter dough but this time the dough pushed itself out through the lower set of  holes for some reason.

It made for a more difficult dough removal and I had to sort of rotate the dough and basket as I jiggled and pried the dough out gently.  It did deflate a little bit but I was surprised that it didn’t really deflate like a higher hydration dough surly would have.  We slashed it in a triangle shape with a non serrated paring knife and will never use a single edge razor blade again.  We tried a different method for each slash.  The first one was 30 degrees and ½” deep trying for an ear, the 2nd was 45 degrees a ¼” deep and the 3rd was 90 degrees and 1/8” deep trying to get bloom.  All 3 worked out great for once as the pictures show.

We chucked it with peel and parchment onto the stone in the 500 F preheated oven (45 minutes) with 2 of Sylvia’s steaming pans.  We also tossed in 1/2 C of water into the bottom of the oven as we shut the door.  We immediately turned the oven down to 450 F.

At the 12 minute mark we removed the steam, turned the oven down to 425 F convection and baked the bread for another 10 minutes turning it 180 degree on the stone every 5 minutes.  At the 22 minute mark it registered 208 degrees.

We turned the oven off and let the boule crisp on the stone for another 10 minutes with oven door ajar.  It hit 210 F while crisping.  We removed it to a cooling rack and let it sit for 1 ½ hours before slicing. 

This is the best looking inside and out and best testing SFSD bread we have ever manage to bake.  The spring was very good.  The crust went soft as it cooled, was well blistered and was a beautiful shade of reddish brown.  The crumb was open, soft and moist.  The taste was tangy sour but not overly so – just delicious.

Can’t wait to start the next bake upping the whole grains and hydration to see if we like it better but this bread will be hard to beat.  It is nice when a bake comes together so well.  Thanks goes out to David Snyder for his work on his fine SFSD version 4 that this bread was based on.

We never have pizza night on a Tuesday so it seemed like the perfect time to have one.  We wanted to test out a new multi-grain pizza dough made 3 ways - Yeast water, Sourdough and a YW / SD combo starter to see which one we liked the best.  My wife played her part as taste tester with me this time since my apprentice never gets pizza of any kind for taste testing as she wolfs it down - faster than a shark.

This was a new formula of ingredients that included corn meal, Chi Ch flour, whole wheat, oat flour, whole soft white wheat, instant potato flakes and AP.  It turned out not to be our favorite crust.  It was good but not our favorite.

Our commercial yeasted version of Focaccia Romana remains our favorite pizza dough even though we no longer stock commercial yeast at home.  We continue to search for as good a replacement crust using natural yeast as we can find or develop and will not stop till we do.  It’s more fun searching and looking than having sometimes.

In this case we tried 3 versions of the same dough by making one sourdough, one yeast water and one a combination of the two.  We did this by building the single stage levains separately over 6 hours and splitting the autolysed flours after 3 hours.  Half the dough was mixed with the rye and Desem SD seed and AP levain and the other half mixed with the yeast water and AP levain.

Once the first 4 minutes of French slap and folds were complete for the 2 variations, 1/3 of each was taken from each and combined to make the 3rd combo YW / SD levain.  Then 4 more minutes of slap and folds were completed for all 3 variations followed by a 30 minute rest in an oiled bowl.

Then 3 sets of stretch and folds were done on 30 minute intervals. Once the final S & F was done the dough was refrigerated at 37 F in an oiled, plastic covered bowl and allowed to ferment and develop in the cold for 18 hours. An hour and half before being made into pizzas, we pulled the dough out of the fridge and allowed it to come to room temperature and relax.

The SD version had risen the most in the fridge, more than doubling, the SD / YW combo was 2nd with a double and YW was 3rd with not quite a double being held at first base.   So with a triple, double and a single at World Series time we spread each out by hand to between 1/16’ and 1/8”thick since we like out pizzas as thin and crispy as possible.

Each was topped with some combination of home made; sauce and sausage, store bought pepperoni, yellow and red peppers, caramelized; onions and mushrooms, fresh basil, mozzarella and Parmesan.  Even though we cut up some black olives we forgot to get them out of the fridge some now we have olives for tonight’s salad.  I did sneak some goat cheese on one pizza while my apprentice and wife weren’t looking.

We always put a little minced, sun dried tomato, rosemary and garlic in the crust and par bake it for 3 - 4 minutes at 500F, on a stone - once it is formed, docked and brushed with Mojo de Ajo.

All 3 baked up equally well, nicely browned; on the bottom, the edges and cheese.  Each was thin, crispy and would not bend when sliced no matter how heavily topped.  This isn’t your soggy, wimpy, foldable, bendable 3 times too thick crust pizza that New Yorkers think is real pizza to die for.    Each crust edge puffed up nicely, with large holes too.  The soft white wheat and the garbanzo bean flour made the dough really nice to spread by hand and get really thin without tearing.

My wife said they all tasted the same which is why she won’t be taste testing anything else any time soon.  But for me they all tasted different.  All were very good but different.  The SD was the best followed by the SD /YW combo with YW bringing up the rear – no question about it.   Now we have to covert our favorite Focaccia Romana formula to SD and see if it can be as good as the original.

Formula

We wanted to take a new look at Pierre Nury’s Rustic light Rye from Daniel Leader’s book ‘Local Breads’ that ZolaBlue posted about here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5500/pierre-nury%E2%80%99s-rustic-light-rye-leader

And my initial attempt here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/keyword/pierrenury039srusticlightrye

We went with our original plan to put some more rye and whole grains (spelt and WW) in this bread to enhance, broaden and deepen its flavor profile to make it something we would like better.

The whole grains ended up to be 20% of the total and it was all used in the levains as has been our choice lately.  We also wanted to use separate YW and SD slevains for this bread to see what difference it might make from the original.  We used coffee instead of water for this bake too. 

We changed some of the methods too.  Instead of the first S&F set, after the 12 minutes of kneading on KA 4, we did 4 minutes of French slap and folds because we like doing them and it seems to help gluten development of high hydration dough considerably.

Once the dough had doubled on the counter after a 2 hour ferment, we chucked it into the fridge where it supposedly wasn’t going to rise much during the 12 hour 37 F retard.

But it did – a lot.  In fact, it rose so much that it stuck tightly to the un-oiled top of the Tupperware tub and if I didn’t have the cheesecake sitting on top of it, would have exploded all over the fridge.  This is a very sticky dough due to the extra rye, spelt and WW and 80% hydration and these additions also contributed to its continued rising in the cold fridge.

So when we tore the dough from the lid after coming out of the fridge, it completely deflated from 5”high to 1”.  You are supposed to gently push the dough out to a 10”x10”square, cut it in half and then gently pick it up from the ends while stretching it out another 2” (making it 12”long) and then plop it on a parchment covered peel for a final rise of 1 hour or until it doubles.  Then it goes into the oven cold without slashing.

We should have shaped each half into ciabatta and let it rise one more time at room temp but we just chucked it in the 450 F steaming oven as a flat bread - 17 " long - without any further proofing toppings, oil or dimples to get a bread made for sandwiches – and it worked!

The bread did spring nicely in the oven increasing its height over 50% and ending up the right thickness to cut in half and be perfect for a lunch sandwich that we hardly ever get a chance to eat.

It baked 12 minutes with steam and then 10 more minutes at 425 F convection without steam rotating it every 5 minutes on the stone. So in 22 minutes it was done and tested 208 F on the inside.  We left it on the stone with the oven off and the door ajar to crisp the skin.

The crust didn’t brown as much as we wanted but it was done.  Since it wasn’t slashed it did crack where it wanted to and the crumb was open, soft, a little glossy and moist.  It was also as tasty as our previous attempt, maybe even more so and made for a fine sandwich at lunch.  Just delicious and would be terrific in a panini.

Formula

Yesterday when I woke up and saw Phil’s post on Word Bread Day I knew we had to get cracking in order to get some kind of bread at least started on this world wide day devoted to bread.  Phil’s and Ying’s fantastic posts this week using figs seemed like a good place to start - not that my attempt would add up to half of their masterpieces.

Phil’s had anise and Ying’s had hazelnuts top go with the figs.  We can’t find hazelnuts for sale locally but we did have pistachios - one of the most overlooked nuts to include in breads.

Method

We also like sprouts and got some rye, WW and spelt berries soaking for 3 hours first thing even before we got the SD levain started and then got them sprouting between paper towels covered in plastic wrap.

This levain was a Desem and Rye sour SD combo since we combined our seed for both into one 4 days ago.  The levain totaled 220 g and used whole rye, WW and whole spelt for the flours.   The levain was a single stage build of 4 hours when it doubled.  The levain was 18% of the total weight and 40% of the total flour weight – pretty much our recent standard.

While the levain was building we also did a 4 hour autolyse of the flours (whole rye, spelt, wheat and some AP), salt and the 2 malts with the liquids, in this case water and a little coffee.  The 35 g of coffee was left over from breakfast and we hate throwing anything away food or drink wise.  We can’t find any difference in the bread of when the salt goes in the autolyse - before or after - so we have been putting it in at the beginning or at the end if we forget to put it in the beginning.

Once the autolyse and the levian came together we did French slap and folds for 10 minutes before resting it for 30 minutes in an oiled Tupperware tub.  We then did (3) S&Fs on 30 minute intervals and incorporated the add ins during the last S&F.  We like combining the two gluten development methods when there is a higher percentage of whole grains, over 42% in this case and higher hydrations 83% here.

Once the 2 hour fermentation with S&F’s was complete we put in the fridge for a nice cool 37 F retard of 14 hours. In the morning we warmed it up for an hour before pre-shaping and final shaping it into a boule and placing it seam side up in a well floured basket.  This is a sticky dough so some flour on the hands really helps in this regard.

Once shaped and in a basket we bagged it in a trash can liner and let it final proof on the counter for 2 hours before firing up Old Betsy to 500 F for a 45 minute pre-heat with 2 of Sylvia’s steaming Pyrex loaf pans with water and towels in place.   Total final proof was 2 and ¾ hours and it had risen above the basket.  

When we went to un-mold the dough on a parchment covered peel the basket slipped and half the dough never made it to the peel.  We tried to lift the part that didn’t make the move with a scraper and slide it further on the peel while sliding another piece of parchment under it but the middle stuck to the peel.

The middle of the loaf deflated and we should have immediately turned it into a Fendu since the middle was the most severely disfigured.  We slashed it instead and tried our best to get it off the peel without doing further damage.  But alas, 2/3rds the height in the basket disappeared as it was pulled apart to spread faster than oil in a hot iron skillet.

Still, the bread managed to recover to half its basket height in spring while under steam for 15 minutes after turning the oven down to 450 F when the bread went in.  At the 15 minute mark the steam was removed and the oven turned down to 425 F - convection this time.

Every 5 minutes the mishap prone boule was turned 120 degrees every 5 minutes there after over the next 15 minutes until it read 208 F in the center when tested.  The boule was allowed to rest on the stone in the now off oven and the door ajar for 10 minutes to crisp the skin.  It was then removed an allowed to cool before being used a Frisbee by my apprentice and her buddies in the back yard, well she wanted to play with it .... 

This bread smells great, looks unusual and the crust is unique as a result of the harsh un-molding technique that we will definitely use more often to coax some individuality and character in out breads.  Plus we are already tired of having stuff turn out perfect every time now that peace and perfection have broken out in the world after Bread Day!  This bread plain tastes amazing.  The anise is subtle but comes through.   The sweet figs go so well with pistachios.   The crumb, even though the holes were 1/3rd what they should have been still is light and airyand it  just looks stunning with the contrast between the 2 kinds of figs and the green pistachios.  This is one of those breads we make over and over again.  Thanks to Phil and Empress Ying!  Well done you two!

We originally made this bread for the dentist but am now unsure how much more pain I sould suffer over this bread.   If it cuts well and has at least one hole bigger than a pea, then we will cut off the best part for the Pain Miester and take our chances.  So this bread is called Pain Maître douleur - Pain Master Bread.

 Formula