Hamelman's Sourdough 5-Grain Bread

Sometimes you get the bear.  Yes, really.  After a number of recent thoroughly edible but not very interesting bakes, I finally have one that gets me excited.

Sure, I could have let the final ferment go a bit longer but ... I'm getting ahead of myself.

We got home last Friday from a 3.5 week trip to Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji.  Which was absolutely wonderful, by the way.  We are happy to be back home and sleeping in our own bed after 15 flights and 11 different hotels. 

Before leaving, I had fed my starter twice.  The second feeding was extremely stiff, almost like a biga or bagel dough, since I wanted it to have enough food during our prolonged absence.  Upon returning, I gave it two more feedings just to ensure that it was at full strength.

Since we needed bread, I cast about for ideas and this bread was the one that caught my eye. 

The rye sour and the hot soaker were mixed Saturday evening.  Since I was out of sunflower seeds, I substituted chia seeds in the soaker. 

On Sunday morning, I mixed the dough.  What with the rye sour, the soaker, and the honey in the dough, I was happy to use my mixer to do the work instead of mixing and kneading by hand.  As Mr. Hamelman notes, the dough had ample gluten development in spite of all of the seeds and it was rather sticky.  I chose to cut the yeast in half, knowing that I would be away from the house for a couple of hours.  That worked well to keep the dough from over-fermenting while I was out. 

Once the dough was near doubled in volume, it was divided and shaped into three loaves; each slightly more than 1.5 pounds pre-bake weight.  These were placed on a baking sheet, dusted with rye flour, and covered with plastic wrap for final fermentation.  When they were about 75% of the way toward doubling, I preheated the oven.  Once the oven was up to temperature, I poured water in the steam tray, slashed the loaves, and popped them into the oven.  Per instructions, the oven was turned down from 460F to 450F after the first 10 minutes. 

The slashes opened beautifully, forming sharp ears as the loaves expanded.  The crust is a beautiful deep brown with russet notes and is rather thick and hard.  The interior is moist and cool and crunchy/chewy with all of the seeds from the soaker.

So, yeah, maybe a longer final ferment would have led to a more open crumb.  I'm still happy with the outcome, though.  And, it didn't drip any mayonnaise on my lap while I enjoyed a turkey sandwich for lunch today.

Paul