Hamelman Semolina Levain, Alfanso Style
Last week I tried my hand at the Hamelman Semolina Levain bread with 125% bread flour liquid levain. With semolina coarse grain #1 used instead of the powdery durum, for experimentation. And it worked out, mostly just fine. But the flavor just wasn't grabbing me. Hence take 2 here has a few changes, while keeping everything else the same.
I substituted out the bread flour in the levain and used rye flour. Also went back to using the durum rimaccinata flour. For a final change from last week I dumped my raw sesame seeds and used toasted seeds instead. And I think the whole process went along just dandy. Once again the oven spring blew past a few of my score lines, but in the realm of heartaches, it sits pretty low on the disappointment scale. Still too recent out of the oven to break into. But I think that the flavor will be heartier than before with the addition of the 15% rye.
365x3 baguettes, 650x1 batard
Crumb shot of the batard added.
Ciao bambini, alan
Comments
What a nice bake, congratulations. I till didn't have time nor opportunity to try baguettes. But they will eventually come. Now I am focused on 1st State Level Evaluation of Bread Baked in Wood Fired Oven in Slovenia which will be on December 2nd and I am now considering which category I should choose what means actually the type of bread. The propositions are simple: bake bread in form of boule from 1kg of flour and must be baked in wood fired oven.
Well done and happy baking Alan!
Joze
Probably like hundreds of others too! Seems very exciting to participate in. Is this a competition or a "certificate of proficiency" type of evaluation? Is it just for your own satisfaction or is there a potential pot of gold at the end of this rainbow? Please make sure that you give a report back to the curious, like me, here at TFL.
thanks, alan
Bread evaluation is going on for about 10 years now. Actually baking bread at farmers house was something traditional still when I was a young boy - let us say 50 years ago. Mothers were baking bread typically on Saturdays so there was fresh bread for Sunday's breakfast and lunch. That bread was stored in place with relatively high humidity and was consumed during next week until next Saturday's bake.
This tradition is still alive and was even revived in last years and now more people are baking also SD. These facts led to start organizing bread evaluation events which are typically organized in rural areas of Slovenia by "Associations of Rural Women" (probably very bad translation). They typically publish invitation to evaluation with accepted rules in advance, so everybody can participate with one bread. The majority of evaluated samples are breads which use baker's yeast as raising agent. Now SD becomes more popular.The judges don't like sour SD so I will have to be really careful to make SD which will be sour really just a little bit.
There is an absolute winner - bread with the highest score of points (maximum is 80). All breads that get 75 to 80 points get gold award, 70-75 silver award and 60-70 points bronze award. The biggest number of breads is in the gold class. Actually the quality of samples is improving every year due to the fact that committee with 3 members does the evaluation and everybody gets the detailed report of evaluation so it is clear where you were good and where you should make some progress in future. So no "golden pot" award :-)
It is also fun and networking, exchanging experiences and usually there is also bread tasting together with some good homemade salami or ham and local wine. This time official announcement of results will be together with St. Nicholas celebration for children.
I will definitely make a post of the event with some pictures. This year I got already five gold awards. Let us see if I will be lucky also this time. I have to decide whether I will bake at home in my pizza wood fired oven or I will use my daughter's oven which I built several years ago and is much bigger with a lot of thermal mass.
Happy baking Alan!
Joze
The oven spring is amazing! Well done Alan.
I really like how can turn anything into a baguette, its such a cool signature to have.
I like the changes you made. Toasted sesame seeds are awesome and i'm a big fan of rye.
Looking forward to the crumb shot :)
Ru
When we were preparing to downsize a dozen years ago, I decided to PDF all of our bills and statements that were weighing down our file cabinet drawers. Since then "just about everything" is either received or scanned as PDF's here at home. I will occasionally say that if something stands still long enough I'll turn it into a PDF too.
Yes, the most fun is when I can find little evidence that something has never been done before as a baguette and do it, or vice versa and turn some classic baguette dough into batards (boules are just too boring for me ;-( .
I decided to not "kill" a baguette in the name of a crumb shot, so I'll wait until I get to the batard. Should not be too long as two of the baguettes were delivered to folks around here an hour after baking.
I made the "mistake" of buying raw sesame seeds last time. Didn't want to expend the energy to toast them myself, as I probably would have burned or scorched half of them anyway.
thanks, alan
I can't wait for the flavor analysis! I though sesame seeds can get burnt when sprinkled on bread toasted. Have you tried to shape a Tartine country loaf into baguettes?
Haven't yet had problem with the seeds being scorched or burned during the bake.
Yes, just about a year ago I gave the tartine country dough a run as baguettes. I think that I can do better now, but I'm in no particular hurry and I'd probably drop the hydration down a little more anyway.
I think that next time around with this "keeper" of a formula, I'll also replace some of the final dough bread flour with with some whole wheat or some more rye. The prefermented flour is only 15% of the total flour mix, so I'll likely add some more to that final mix.
These should be as tasty as the first batch too. They look grand as usual.
Well done and happy baking Alan
The first go-round I found the unseeded baguette to be insipid. For this iteration, whether it is due to the 15% preferment rye, or the final mix durum in place of the coarse semolina or a combo, I don't know. And which violates my standard of changing only one parameter at a time. But feeling that I have only a few scant decades left on earth, dog willing, I was in a rush to change the two in the same run.
The next time through I may well replace some of the final mix BF with more rye or WW. But this one is another keeper in my growing list of semolina levain breads.
thanks, alan
These are the breads that would appear on the cover of a bread book...They elegantly showcase your craftsmanship. You've raised the bar so high, Alan! How can we ever match that?!
I've been submitting these types of photos in vain to Playbread Magazine for their centerfold. You know, the monthly publication for gluten-free voyeurs and breadophiles. So far, no luck!
alan
Keep trying...
