Here Comes the Sun
Busy Busy Busy it has been. New job in a restaurant while still doing my weekly bake. But the weekly bake has found a new friend of whom has built a lovely Wood Fired Oven aimed at bread baking. It has some steam injection via pressure cooker and a pipe that works better than either of us had expected. So the past month Forno Giorgio (the oven) has been our "boss". And he's a great boss. I thought it would begin with epic fails but it turns out baking is baking and we just learn to adjust to new environments.
I've made a few new loaves that I'd love to share with you all.
The first of which is Pane de Grits a 34% Fresh Milled Grain Levain loaf (30% White Wheat 4 % Rye) packed with 50% fully prepared Cheesy Grits. This was inspired by the Cheesy grits I'm making at the restaurant that are so good. The cheese is quite mild but the loaf got much praise. Like a porridge loaf it had great moisture, made great toast, had excellent shelf life, and the grits added great flavor.
To make the grits bring the liquids (I use half milk and half water) and salt to a boil and add the grits. Whisk until they have taken on most of the liquid and become a very loose porridge (5-7 minutes). Turn the heat to low/medium and let simmer stirring every few minutes until the grain is tender (20-30 minutes). At this point shut off the heat and add the butter, pepper, and cheese. Stir to combine and cool.
| Pane de Grits | Kg | |||||||
| Total Flour | 0.647 | |||||||
| # | Weight | Seed 1 H20 | 0.006 | |||||
| Shape 1 | 2 | 0.750 | Kg. | Seed 2 H20 | 0.000 | |||
| PF1 | 0.107 | PF 2 | 0.000 | PF Flour | ||||
| Stiff Wheat | 16.5% | PF2 | 0.0% | |||||
| Seed Hyd | 66% | 166.00% | Seed Hyd | 100% | 200.00% | 16.50% | ||
| Total Formula | Stiff Wheat | PF2 | FINAL DOUGH | |||||
| Ingredients | Kg. | % | Kg. | % | Kg. | % | Ingredients | Grams |
| H20 | 0.485 | 75.00% | 0.065 | 66.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | H20 | 0.414 |
| HWWW | 0.194 | 30.00% | 0.098 | 100.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | HWWW | 0.087 |
| Rye | 0.026 | 4.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | Rye | 0.026 |
| Artisan | 0.427 | 66.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | Artisan | 0.427 |
| Grits | 0.089 | 13.75% | ||||||
| Pepper | 0.002 | 0.28% | ||||||
| Cheddar | 0.058 | 8.94% | ||||||
| Salt | 0.003 | 0.50% | ||||||
| H20/Milk | 0.217 | 33.55% | Total Soaker | 0.369 | ||||
| Malt | 0.001 | 0.17% | Malt | 0.001 | ||||
| Salt | 0.014 | 2.16% | Salt | 0.014 | ||||
| Culture | 0.177 | 27.39% | 0.015 | 15.00% | 0.000 | 5.00% | ||
| Total | 1.52 | 234.34% | 0.177 | 166.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | Total | 1.338 |
Levain - 10-12 hours @ 75F
| NOTES | |||
| Autolyse 2 hours. Hold Back 5% H20 DDT 76-78 | |||
| Add Levain, Porridge and some H20 combine. | |||
| Now Salt remaining H20. Mix to moderate Strength. | |||
| Bulk 3:00 with folds @ 20,40,1:00, 1:45, 2:30 | |||
| tight preshape, rest 30, Shape proof 1 hour and retard 15-18 hours | |||
| Bake 480 steam 15 minutes/460 Vented 25-30 more |
Next up is "The Sun Loaf" 90% Fresh Milled Hard White Wheat, 10% Fresh Milled Rye with 12% toasted Sunflower Seeds. The oven builder has his loaf which is a 100% Fresh Milled Wheat Loaf and I wouldn't want to make competition of things but do want to get back to the 100% Fresh Milled Whole Grain bread making/baking. So this I conjured up without a test run and it went over swimmingly. I probably could have proofed them a bit longer and the dough could have handled a bit more hydration.
| 100% WG Sun Loaf | Kg | |||||||
| Total Flour | 0.753 | |||||||
| # | Weight | Seed 1 H20 | 0.002 | |||||
| Shape 1 | 2 | 0.800 | Kg. | Seed 2 H20 | 0.000 | |||
| PF1 | 0.053 | PF 2 | 0.000 | PF Flour | ||||
| LEVAIN | 7.0% | PF 2 | 0.0% | |||||
| Seed Hyd | 66% | 166.00% | Seed Hyd | 0% | 100.00% | 7.00% | ||
| Total Formula | Wheat Levain | PF2 | FINAL DOUGH | |||||
| Ingredients | Kg. | % | Kg. | % | Kg. | % | Ingredients | Grams |
| H20 | 0.753 | 100.00% | 0.033 | 66.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | H20 | 0.719 |
| Hard White Wheat | 0.678 | 90.00% | 0.050 | 100.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | Hard White Wheat | 0.625 |
| Rye | 0.075 | 10.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | Rye | 0.075 |
| Sunflower Seed, toasted | 0.090 | 12.00% | Sunflower Seed, toasted | 0.090 | ||||
| Salt | 0.019 | 2.50% | 0.000 | 0.00% | 0.00% | Salt | 0.019 | |
| Culture | 0.088 | 11.62% | 0.005 | 10.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | ||
| Total | 1.62 | 214.50% | 0.088 | 166.00% | 0.000 | 0.00% | Total | 1.528 |
| PROCESS | |||
| Autolyse 20-60 minutes Hold back 10% H20 DDT 73F | |||
| Add levain with some H20 to incorporate. Add salt and combine. | |||
| Mix to medium development and bassinage. | |||
| Bulk 1 hour at room temp with folds @ 20,40,60 Retard 12 hours. | |||
| Preshape to tight rounds and rest 45-60 mintues. Shape and proof 2:00-3:00 | |||
| Bale 500 with steam for first 20 minutes. Vent for 20-30 more. Cool completely |
Here's some more pics I've pulled out of the oven in the past few weeks and maybe one of Seven at the beach
Happy Baking All
Josh
Comments
Beautiful breads and great OVEN.
ove the dog on the beach:)
Thanks Petra
That's Seven the Dog on her 16th birthday. She still plays like a young dog at the beach
That's awesome that your dog is still doing so well at 16. Mine are only 1.5 and 2.5 and I hope they are around as long as Seven.
You can finally make some real artisan bread with that baby. All the bread looks great with the cheesy grits one intriguing for sure.. Well done and happy baking Josh
It's nice to have seroius heat and the ability to bake 15-18 loaves at a time. The cheesy grits was loved by others more than myself. Don't get me wrong it was tasty, particularly good toast.
Cheers DAB
Classy looking oven, Josh. Soapstone? And some mighty tempting product. Thanks for posting the formulae.
Good luck with your new boss. Off to a great start!
Tom
Is an avid home baker and cook. And a very experienced builder. I met him and only the foundation was built. After sharing my copy of "From the Wood Fried Oven" by Miscovich, an excellent book by the way, his plans changed. This oven is great and his steam injection is working amazingly well (Let's hope it's not damaging the oven which some say it will).
Cheers
Josh
Oh, man! As if I needed to get more excited about my own first WFO bake, scheduled for this afternoon.
Thanks for sharing, Josh!
David
Good old Fresh Loaf trickery. But I read it in the email. So how'd your bake go? I was intimidated at first prepared for some failures before success would be found. Fortunate enough we've had mostly good bread. I did do a SJSD and under proofed it horribly but was trying to maintain a schedule for the oven and heat. Bad move. Outside of that and few dark bottoms in the early bake all is well.
I look forward to see your results
Josh
My first WFO bake certainly didn't produce wonderful breads like yours. The best I can say is, if one learns from one's mistakes, I may have set some kind of record for the best ever opportunities to learn. My true confessions can be found at My first WFO bake: Lessons in time, temperature and humility
David
similar to my first attempt last summer on a smaller WFO pizza oven. I think my 750g levain loaves baked or shall I say charred in 18 minutes. D'oh. I've learned a ton though in the past month with this new oven which was built with more of an aim at bread baking. Maybe even too much. It's capable of semi commercial numbers especially if the heat curve was used for different styles of bread.
Some really good info is gathered through tracking temps at different parts of the oven via thermo couples that go to a main thermostat for a read out. We have the sub hearth or the very bottom of the hearth. The center hearth. Right below the cooking surface. then the opposite. So the heat at the deepest part of the dome and then just an inch or so from the surface of the dome. Then we also use a gun to temp the baking surface and the dome surface. The hotter the sub hearth the more rebound heat after each bake. We await balance between these numbers after it's settled towrads baking temps to know the oven is regulated. If there is great difference in temps the heat is still moving around/soaking, meaning the bake will be very uneven. But best of all (well not best but the newest thing I've learned). The surface temp of the center of the inside dome minus 70 is your ambient bake temp. For example if the surface of the dome is 520 then the ambient bake temp is around 450 which is an ideal place for most hearth loaves. So if the bricks were reading 460 we might think its perfect but if the dome was 480 then the amibent temp is just 420 making for a slow bake with bottoms that will burn before proper color is achieved. So ideally we want the dome around 530 and the hearth is usually 30 or so degrees below this temp throughout. It's a whole new game but it's fun and really follows suit with things we already know but in a new language.
Don't stop it's fun when you get a good bake through
Josh
Thanks!
I can see that it will take many bakes to arrive at a working partnership with any new WFO. I must figure out how to acquire that kind of experience.
David
The breads AND the oven!!!
Thanks for the kind words.
Fantastic bakes Josh! Congrats on the new gig. That cheesy grits bread sounds similar to one I baked.... But only in my measly home oven :)
Best,
Ian
I thought of your breads when i went down the Cheesy Grit path.
Josh
Love that 90% white whole wheat!
Your breads are beautiful, as always Josh.
Cheesy grits... Great Job!
Thanks Khalid. I love the Sun too. So good. Cheesy grits was a customer favorite. People love toast and it did a great job of toast.
Josh
What a treat Josh. These are some loaves to aspire to. Love the bold bake and the sheen! The last crumb photos are picture perfect. Enjoy every slice for me.
John
I can't stop enjoying the Sun Loaf. In fact I just made more in my home oven since I took a week off and we ran out of all bread. It's my current favorite and maybe the best loaf of bread I've made to date.
Josh: These breads are fantastic. Amazing crumb.....and what about that oven! Congratulations and keep the reports coming. Best, Phyllis
Thanks Phyllis. I will keep ya posted on future bakes.