Raspberry Sea Dog Grana Padano Cheese Bread

Cheese....the next best thing to bread.

What is a Sea Dog you ask?  It's man's best friend wrapped up into a bottle of ale.  This particular beer is actually from Main, although when I bought it at the northern end of Long Island I thought it was a local brew.  Nevertheless, it sounded like a good fit for this bake which used the 36 hour sour dough technique I've gotten great results from in the past.

I made a starter using my trusty AP starter mixed up with some Rye, French Style flour, Spelt and First Clear flour.

The flours for the main dough were mixed at the same time so they could absorb all that salty cheese and beer goodness.  I used mostly the same flours as the starter but added some potato flour as well.

The next day when I mixed the dough together I added some salt, olive oil with garlic and herbs and the extra water.

The final bread came out as good as I could have hoped with a nice open and moist crumb.  You can really taste the cheese along with the flavorful combination of flours.

Directions

 Starter

Mix ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined.  Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around 8 hours.  The starter should almost double when ready to proceed.

 Main Dough

Mix the flours, 63 grams of water and the beer together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute.  Next add the cheese and mix for another minute.  Put the dough in a slightly covered oiled bowl and put in the refrigerator for 12 hours.

The next day add your starter, rest of the water (52 grams) and salt to the dough and mix by hand until it is thoroughly mixed and evenly distributed.  Due to the high water content in the 100% hydration starter this dough is very easy to mix by hand and is very silky and smooth.

Bulk rise at room temperature for 2-3 hours until it grows around 1/3 in volume doing stretch and folds every half hour until it has developed the correct amount of strength.

Put the dough back into the refrigerator for around 20-30 hours.

When you take the dough out of the refrigerator you want it to have almost doubled in volume.  Mine only rose about 1/3 in volume.  Let it rise at room temperature for around 2 hours or until the dough has doubled from the night before. (I used my proofer set at 83 degrees for 2 hours).

Next, shape as desired.  I made 2 loaves and placed them into my bannetons.  Make sure you use enough rice flour with flour in your bowl/basket to prevent this moist dough from sticking.

Cover the dough with a moist towel and let sit at room temperature for 1.5 to 2 hours.

When the dough is ready to bake, score as desired and prepare your oven for baking with steam.

This dough is very wet so the loaves flattened out a bit when I took them out of the bannetons but they had excellent lift in the oven.

Set your oven for 500 degrees F. at least 45 minutes before ready to bake.  When ready to bake place the loaves into your on  your oven stone with steam and lower the temperature immediately to 450 degrees.   When the loaves are nice and brown and reached an internal temperature of 200 degrees F. you can remove it from the oven.

Let the loaves cool down for at least an 3 hours or so before eating as desired.