I was inspired a few weeks ago by Maurizio's Brown Rice and Sesame recipe to make a multi-grain sourdough using various cooked grains as a porridge addition. After thinking about it for a while, I finally got a hold of all the ingredients that I needed last week and threw together the dough yesterday morning and baked this morning.
To make the porridge, I boiled 50g each cracked hard white wheat, steel cut oats, brown rice, pearled barley, and polenta in 3 cups of water with a few grams of salt for 10 minutes, then spread it out on a baking sheet to cool. I made the porridge ahead of time and stored it in the fridge, then microwaved it up to approximately room temp before mixing up the dough.
I forgot to make a levain specifically for this dough the night before, so I just used my slightly overripe starter. I was also thinking about including whole wheat flour, but I didn't have time to grind in the morning (I was already losing workout time with my wife to mix up the dough).
Dough formula:
- 700g bread flour (GM Harvest King)
- 250g whole spelt flour (Arrowhead Mills)
- 50g whole rye flour (Arrowhead Mills)
- 600g water
- 20g salt
- 50g starter
60% hydration (60.2% if you count the starter) is lower than I typically use, but I didn't want the porridge to overwhelm the dough with all it's water. Total hydration with the porridge ended up being about 86%, and after shaping I definitely wouldn't have wanted it any higher than that.
I mixed all the dough ingredients together and let them rest for 1 hour before mixing the porridge. After mixing in the porridge, I did 3 stretch and folds 30 minutes apart, then left for work and let it bulk ferment at room temp.
After work, I split the dough into three balls and shaped them into batards. At 800g, these are a litttle smaller than my typical batards (900-950g), but I cared more about keeping the total flour at 1000g for this first test than getting a specific amount of dough in the end.
I'll post crumb after work when I can cut into one of them, but I'm very pleased with the oven spring and crust color on these. When we moved 3 months ago we got a gas oven after doing all my baking in electric. There has been a learning curve, but I've just about dialed in the settings I need to get my bread the way I want it in this oven.
