Sourdough Tzitzel

Not long ago Varda did a series of posts on her quest to recreate a non SD Pratzel’s Tzitzel.  She had the good fortune of talking to the original owners about the formula for this bread and gained some good insight.  I though I would do a SD one just to be different and I prefer SD any day, any way to yeasted breads

Varda has been modifying her formula as time goes on too as I found out when I messaged her about her recipe.  I think the key to the bread is what flours are used.  Since we can’t get the exact flour, even if we knew what it was exactly, I just sort of tried to home mill a mix of flours that I though might be fairly close and add in some WWW to balance things out.

The formula has the equivalent of 100% whole grains when including the malts, 40% rye and 40% wheat with the flours being home milled and sifted to 75% extraction and 20% additional being KA white whole wheat.  We used 4 times more aromatic seeds, mainly caraway but some anise, coriander and fennel too.

40 g of the sifted out bran and endosperm were used for the 3rd stage feeding of the levain build which make up the whole grain equivalent of 170 g when adding 10g g of malt to the whole grain - if my math is right.

Varda’s latest recipe has 41% un-sifted home milled rye mixed with KA’s Sir Lancelot at 80 % hydration with .8% caraway seds.  She says that Taitzel has a lower hydration than one would suspect.  I don’t have any high gluten wheat flour so I made my own by using the milled and KAWW wheat and adding 15 g of VWG to get the protein up a bit.  I didn’t bother to calculate what it might have been protein wise.

Varda used 80% hydration for her Tzitzel but I upped it to 85%.   The 80% home milled flours are very thirsty and at 80% hydration the dough was too stiff to do any decent slapping and folding.  Plus the extra 25 g that was added after the autolyse, was used for a 2nd hydration and to get the pink Himalayan sea salt  incorporated – so hold back some liquid to do this.

The stiff (66% hydration) rye and whole wheat starter had been in the fridge for a week.  We used 15 g or it for the levain.   The first 2 feeding were on 3 hour intervals and it doubled after the 2nd feeding   We made the last feeding of bran and 1 hour later it had risen 25% when we refrigerated it for 24 hours to improve the sour.

We want a higher than normal amount of SD levain, 20% this time, since it is the acid that keeps the rye enzymes in check and when doing a long retard with rye  it pays to up the levain and don’t let the dough sit out on the counter too long.

When we retrieved the levain from the fridge to let it warm up and finish the doubling for the 3rd stage, we started the autolyse, which included everything else but the aromatic seeds, the salt and the held back 25 g of water.   We did sprinkle the salt on top of the autolyse dough ball though.

Even leftover Pad Thai looks pretty good.

Normally we would do at least a 4 hour autolyse and prefer 8 if using whole grains but, since the whole portion of the grains was in the levain we did a 2 1/2 hour autolyse which coincided with the doubling of the levain.

After squishing the held back water through the fingers in the bowl to get it incorporated and spread the salt around, we did 10 minutes of slap and folds.  After 7 minutes the dough was no longer sticking to the counter and by 10 minutes the dough was smooth and elastic. After a 15 minute rest, we incorporated the aromatic seeds with the first of (3) sets of S&F’s where one set is 4 stretches 4 folds for the compass points.

We let the dough rest 15 minutes between the S&F’s and after the last one before shaping into a batard and pulling it tight.  We rolled the batard in corn meal that was dusted on the counter as it was plenty sticky enough.  We lined a basket with a rice flour impregnated towel and then dusted the bottom with a little more core meal.

The batard was dropped into the basket, placed into a trash can liner and immediately retarded it in the fridge for 18 hours - a little longer than normal.  We planned on letting the dough rise and proof completely in the fridge and then bake it in the mini oven still cool about 45 minutes out the fridge in the morning.

This cool dough made the scoring easier and kept it from spreading too much like it would want to do at room temperature.  This plan seemed to work OK as the dough proofed well in the fridge and the mini oven only takes 15 minutes to get to 500 F.

We micro waved (2) of Sylvia’s steaming Pyrex cups containing dish rags and half full of water until, they were boiling.   The bread was un-molded diagonally on the mini oven’s vented, broiler pan top that had been covered with parchment paper.

The batard slashed and the steaming cups were placed on the opposite open corners of the broiler pan the whole thing was slid into the mini.  A 1/2 C of water was tossed into the bottom of the oven as the door was closed to give the bread a nice burst of initial steam.

We turned the oven down to 475 F after 2mintes and allowed the batard to steam an additional 13minutes.  At the 15 minute mark, we removed the steaming cups returning the bread to the oven with a new temperature of 425 F, convection this time.

The baby apprentice is all ready for a nap under her blankey 

In 10 more minutes it was done and read 205 F on the inside.  Not the prettiest loaf of bread on the outside so we hope it tastes better than it looks.  Have to wait to slice it since it is a rye and they need time to redistribute the moisture.  Couldn't wait and wanted this bread for a lunch sandwich today.   It tastes like a very good deli rye.  i like the fact that it is over a third whole grain and has 40% rye instead of the usual 30%.  The sour really comes though too and the aromatic seeds are there in the background telling you this is a typical American S Rye.  The crumb is soft, most and open but the taste is it's calling card.

A nice breakfast of apple wood smoked bacon, a sliced peach and plum, a few strawberries, a couple pieces of this fine bread toasted with medium caramelized, minniola marmalade and a fine Denver omelet of mushrooms, red pepper and green onion with habanero jack cheese inside and Colby jack on the outside.

We like this bread very much but have to say we prefer the Prince George's Chacon that  a good stout for the liquid and rye sprouts.  Add in the whole grains and some aromatic seeds and the Royal Baby Chacon would be over the top.  This bread does not remind me of Prazel's Tzitzel though because it is a sourdough - and on a whole different level with the home milled flour.

Formula