May 22, 2020 - 1:56pm
Red Spring Wheat loaf
Today's bread is made from fresh ground, sifted Hard Red Spring wheat from Montana Flour and Grains
Very basic bread -
400 gr bolted fresh ground flour
320 gr water (80%)
8 grams salt
30 gr olive oil
2 tablespoons honey
60 grams levain (stiff starter ~65% hydration)
Process:
2 hr autolyse flour and water
Mix dough including autolyse, levain and salt - let rest ~30 min
mix in honey and oil.
Bulk ferment until nearly doubled (~4 hr as warm room temp)
preshape, rest 20 min, shape - into refridgerator overnight
Bake in covered pot at 450 deg F directly from fridge. 20 min covered, 15 min uncovered
Here's the crumb (I cut it hot, so it's a bit wet in the picture. It dried off after a while).
Comments
I have the same problem of cutting open a loaf too early. the smell of fresh-baked bread makes me salivate.
I do 90% whole wheat, and the "sweet spot" for timing, for flavor development, is 20 hours after removing from oven.
One thing that helps me resist the temptation, is to have some of the previous loaf still on hand to nibble on.
But, I have never waited 20 hrs to cut open a loaf of bread. The most is about 10, when the bread comes out late in the evening, it is (sometimes) spared until morning. The crumb definitely sets up better when the loaf sits around a few hours. The flavor improves the next day whether or not the loaf is cut early.
The existence of previous loaves is somehow never compelling at our house. ;-).
Wow, that looks incredible for 100% whole grain Sumi, so good.
Benny
Thanks, Benny. I’m happy with it ( and with the consistency of my results with this grain). It’s not 100% whole wheat, though, because I have sifted out the coarser bran with a #40 sifter. That removes about 10% by weight and makes it easier to get a lighter loaf.