The Fresh Loaf

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Sourdough

nadira2100's picture
nadira2100

I decided to attempt Pain au Levain again, but this time with a few changes. 

1.) I added Flax meal, Corn meal, and Rye to make my own "Country" Pain au Levain. 

2.) I baked it as 1 huge boule instead of 2 smaller ones. 

3.) I proofed for 4 hrs BEFORE retarding in the fridge this time. 

4.) I had to significantly increase the baking time due to the size of the boule.

5.) I used the starter I had stored in the freezer because I managed to screw up the one I had going in the fridge. I refreshed it 2 times before using in this recipe. 

Ok, so now that I've stated the changes, let me say that this is the first time I've ever experimented with a loaf....and by that I mean alter the flour composition and types of flours used. I think this turned out better than my first loaves in that it's definitely prettier....but I'm not overly pleased with the crumb yet. The crust is also significantly better than my first attempt. 

The day before I mixed the dough, I cut my starter into 6 equal pieces (weighing a total of about 7oz). I kneaded in 1/3 c water with 4.5oz unbleached bread flour and let that develop for 4 hrs before refrigerating it overnight. 

The next day I made the final dough by cutting the starter into 6 equal pieces (about 11.5 - 12oz) with the flours, water and salt. Here are the percentages I used....

100% UnBleached Bread Flour (18 oz)

89% Water (16oz)

64% Starter (11.5 oz)

11% Rye (2oz)

11% Flax Meal (2oz)

11% Corn Meal (2oz)

1.7% Salt (0.3oz)

I hope I did my calculations right...please tell me if I didn't. The decimal demon still gives me problems every once in awhile. Ok...maybe all the time. 

I kneaded the dough and let it rise in a lightly oiled bowl for 3 hrs. It seemed to swell a little but I couldn't tell if it was a "flattening out" compared to a swelling. Before....

After....

But either way I continued on to shaping. Before I made my boule, though, I did do a few stretch and folds to help with structure because the dough was soft and a little wetter than my first attempt. I was nervous and decided it wouldn't hurt. So then I made my boule and put it back in my clean glass bowl to proof. I let this go for 4 hrs....I had made this at night so when I went to bed at 10pm I set my alarm for 2am to stick it in the fridge. 

The next night, I turned my loaf onto a cookie sheet dusted with cornmeal and scored it, topped it with a little Flax meal and popped it in the oven.

I baked it at 475 degrees with a pan of hot water for 2 min., spritzed the oven and loaf with water and then lowered the temp to 450 for 30 min. At this point I could already tell I was a step closer to getting the loaf I want because of the oven spring (even if it wasn't as much as I would have liked to see it was still there). I kept increasing the baking time by 10 min. until the loaf registered 195 degrees. This took about 1hr 35 min.

I left it to cool until the next morning.

The crust was "crustier" and more crackly than last time (MUCH BETTER!) and the taste was great....I was able to get the mild flavor of sourdough with the nutty flax.

However, this bread is still pretty dense and I noticed it was more moist than the first loaves I made. A little more than I'd like. I'm guessing I should cut back on the hydration? As far as getting a softer/lighter crumb....should I let it proof longer? Add some instant yeast for added boost? Knead it longer? Make a better/more active starter even though when I was refreshing it, it tripled in volume within 8 hrs each time? I'm not sure what to do or what to try next so any suggestions would be very helpful!

Anomalous's picture
Anomalous

Since I started bread baking last year I've been aiming mainly at sourdough and have made some reasonably good loaves at the weekend but it has been a challenge to fit it into the week's work schedule. The comparatively long rise of approx. 4 hours means I'd be baking at 22:50 if I made the loaf on getting home from work. Letting it rise in the fridge while I'm at work seems a pretty good solution to this, and here's how I've worked it so far.

08:00 Tuesday: mixed 50g starter with 50g wholemeal rye flour and 50g water (the starter is 50% hydrated wholemeal rye and lives in the fridge all the time. It's pretty active despite this). Left it at room temperature, went to work.

18:00 Tuesday: home from work; added 50g strong white organic flour and 50g water. Still at room temperature.

22:00 Tuesday: added 100g white flour and 100g water, still at room temperature.

07:00 Wednesday: added 300g strong white flour, 100g water, 11g salt, a glug of olive oil; mixed, a little bit of folding and stretching, formed a round, left whilst showering, dressing, breakfasting.

07:50 Wednesday: a bit more stretching, folding, gentle kneading and it's looking good. Shaped into a stubby cylinder, into the banneton, bagged, in the fridge. Off to work.

17:30 Wednesday: home from work, dough looks ready. Oven on, 230°C, baking stone in. Oven ready, baking stone out, turned loaf onto stone, dusted with wholemeal rye, slashed, into the oven, 300g boiling water into a hot baking tray for steam. Baked for 20 min at 230°C then 25 min at 190°C. It needs longer baking due to going into the oven fridge-cold.

Result: pretty good. Nice, crunchy crust; moderately airy, moist crumb; reasonably good sourdough tang. For such a relatively small amount of wholemeal rye, it has a surprising amount of wholemeal flavour. I'm not sure where to take it next to get a lighter, airier crumb, but I think I might experiment with leaving it out of the fridge a bit longer before baking in order to let it warm up a bit and do some more rising.

The overall hydration is about 62%. The starter came from a training day at e5 Bakehouse with a reputed 200 year trans-European pedigree and seemed better than my own home-grown starter. I always feed it with equal amounts of wholemeal rye and filtered water and keep it in the fridge.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

We always seem to have smoked and BBQ ribs for many holidays. This Memorial Day was no exception.  In KCMO where I grew up, the ribs are famous and are always served with Wonder Bread.  I was looking for a different bread when I saw Floyd’s Sweet Potato Rolls in the home page.   I though this might make a great bread to go with ribs.

 Quite unlike my wayward and undisciplined apprentice, I try to stay as close to recipes as I can but, in this case I don’t stock any commercial yeast, so I hope Floyd doesn’t mind that I subbed a SD and YW starter and converted the rolls to a bread - boule style.   I think my apprentice threw in some rye and WWW while I wasn’t looking too!   Other than that, we were true to Floyd’s intentions – pretty much.

 To commemorate Ian’s first home page cover for his Semolina, Toasted Almond Multi-Grain Bread, I used his signature T-Rex slash for this bread and for once it was near perfect – a real first for me.  Ian must finally be rubbing off on me.

 The beauty of this bread is unmistakable.  Sweet taters give this bread a lovely orange cast inside and out.  The color is what drew me to it in Floyd’s post.  I was so glad it didn’t stick to my cheap basket. 

 It also smelled great while baking from the cinnamon and nutmeg light spice in the dough.   My wife was asking what that smell was?  If it’s not Thanksgiving, I guess it is harder to pin down.

 The crust went soft as it cooled and we cannot wait to have it for dinner in about 2 hours.  Crumb shots after that.

 Method

 The levain was built over 3 stages of 4 hours each and the YW and SD were mixed together from the beginning as has been the usual lately.  After 12 hours the levain had more than doubled and into the fridge it went for an overnight stay.

We micro waved two small sweet potato and mashed the with a fork to get the ¾ of C required.

In the morning I mixed everything together in the mixing bowl (including the salt so I don’t forget it), except the levain and let it sit for 30 minutes to autolyse.  Then the levain went in and we mixed it on KA 2 for 6 minutes and the KA 3 for 2 more minutes. The dough was then transferred to a plastic covered, oiled bowl to rest for 15 minutes.

4 sets of  S&F’s were done 15 minutes apart each time on a slightly floured work surface  and then the dough was allowed to rest on an oiled bowl and ferment / develop for an hour. 

After an hour rest, 1 more set of S&F’s were done to help shape the dough into a boule.  The dough was dragged across a non-floured surface to make sure the skin was taught.  It was flipped over and the bottom seam was completely pinched off and sealed.  Then the boule was flipped over and dragged again to stretch the skin tight.   It was placed upside down in a rice floured basket to double in a plastic bag on the counter.  It rose ½” above the top of the basket in 2 ¾ hours and passed the poke test.

After 2 hours the oven was readied by preheating to 500 F with steam and stone in place.  I use 2 of Sylvia’s towel in a baking pan method for steam now.  In 45 minutes the oven was ready.  The boule was un-molded by putting parchment on the top, a peel on top of that and then the whole shebang overturned.

 Into the oven it went and the temperature was turned down to 425 F.  after 15 minutes of steaming the steam was removed and the temperature was turned down to375 Fconvection this time.  The boule was turned every 5 minutes and after a total of 38 minutes it was deemed done.   The bread was not allowed to crisp in the off oven with the door ajar as usual but was immediately moved to a cooling rack since we wanted the crust soft like Wonder Bread.

SD and YW Sweet Potato Bread     
      
Mixed StarterBuild 1Build 2 Build 3Total%
SD Starter20100304.72%
Yeast Water20200408.00%
Rye0025255.00%
WWW0205255.00%
AP403007014.00%
Water2030106012.00%
Total Starter1001104025050.00%
      
Starter     
Hydration85.19%    
Levain % of Total17.90%    
      
Dough Flour %   
Rye255.00%   
White WW255.00%   
AP45090.00%   
Dough Flour500100.00%   
Salt71.40%   
Milk33066.00%   
Dough Hydration66.00%    
      
Total Flour635    
Milk445    
T. Dough Hydrat.70.08%    
      
Hydration w/ Adds75.12%    
Total Weight1,397    
      
Add - Ins %   
Sweet Potato16032.00%   
Total31062.00%   

Note : 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of fresh grated nutmeg are added with autolyse.

 

MaximusTG's picture
MaximusTG

 Wanting to bake another sourdough bread with a larger portion of whole rye, I started searching on the internet, and came across this recipe:

http://beginningwithbread.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/sourdough-rye-with-walnuts/

This was interesting because I had some walnuts left from something else. Not quite enough, so I added some sunflower seeds. Roasted them a bit.

I had already fed my sourdough starter and put it in the refridgerator before it reached its peak. The recipe mentions adding instant yeast in the final dough. I omitted that, because I wanted it pure sourdough.

Around midnight last Saturday I made the levain, whole rye, water, my starter. Did add a bit more than in the recipe. Left this out to ferment. 14.00 in the afternoon on Sunday I made the final dough, but did not let it rise outside, but instead kept it in the refridgerator (I had a party, so I didn't have time to bake it then). A 24 hour rise in the refridgerator later I took it out, formed a batard and let it proof for about 2,5 hours on a couche. 
Baked following recipe, and this came out: 

Update: Crumb photo's:

Jaymo's picture

Why does my leaven sink?

May 27, 2012 - 7:34am -- Jaymo
Forums: 

I'm a new baker working on the Tartine basic loaf. I was going to bake yesterday, so followed the instructions "the night before you plan to mix the dough...". The next morning, about ten hours after feeding the starter, the leaven sank when I put it in a bowl of water. The kitchen temperature was about 72F. I let it stand another couple hours; same result. I let it stand another couple hours; same result. I let it stand another couple hours; same result. You get the idea... I re-fed last night, with the same results this morning.

jamesjr54's picture
jamesjr54

Made this today in my new Cajun dutch oven

120 g 100% hydration starter (fed night before)

202 g KAP202 semolina (fine)25 g rye25 g oat bran10 g salt300 warm waterMix all but SaltAutolyse 30 minKnead 10 min w/saltProof 2 hours room temp with stretch and folds at 30 and 60 minutesPre-shape, shape, and proof in refrigerator 2 hoursPreheat oven to 500f with Dutch oven insideTake loaf out during preheatBake 475F for 20 covered, 25 uncoveredNotes: this was very wet, 72% or so. Starter is so active it's proofing like IDY. Temp today is >85F. Had to put it in fridge to slow it down. Could have baked right out of fridge. It's delicious!
dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Hanseata’s wild rice bread looked so enticing we had to move it up to the top of the bake list.  To her recipe, which hardly needed any changes at all if one of us was sane and not barking, we used high alcohol ice beer for most of the water and upped the hydration about 10 %.  We didn’t use all beer for the liquid because it had to pass quality control to make sure it was not spoiled in some way.  It actually took two or three tastings just to make sure, but it finally passed.

We also added hemp (since wild rice is a grass), anise, fennel and coriander seeds, as well as, some prunes for their sweetness, cleansing reputation and black color to go with the wild rice.  For the balsamic vinegar we used a pomegranate flavored one.  Last but not really last we added some rye, WW, spelt and barley sprouts to go with the beer.  We also add some molasses and honey to go with the barley malt and some home made red and white non-diastatic and diasatic malts.   Then we moved the salt to 2% or we thought we did after we remembered we forgot to add it.  So, all in all, only a few minor changes were required.

 The batard doubled in the proofing basket coming all the way to the top after it doubled in the fridge overnight too.  The spring in the oven after a slightly deflating diamond cut was also good.  The batard only sprawled 1” in length and ½“ in width after coming out of the basket.

 The crust took on a dark brown color as expected, the bloom was good and was still unexpectedly a little crunch after it cooled.  This is the best slash job we have managed to date.  The crumb was fairly open for so much stuff inside, very moist due to the YW and the texture was just the way we like it. The sprouts, wild rice and seeds gave it an nice nutty, chew and flavor but the hemp seeds were a crunchy contrast and unexpected.  Don’t soak your hemp seeds for this bread!

 One can’t really make out the prunes other than a very slight sweetness throughout.  The anise, coriander and fennel smell and taste were muted, but noticeable, also way we like it.  A medium SD tang was also there and very nice.  Don't know what it would taste like without the beer.  All in all, this is the best looking and tasting bread I have ever been fortunate to make.  It is a delight to eat plain, toasted and buttered.  I’m guessing it will make some kind of special sandwich.   This bread takes 3 days to make but it is worth the waiting.  It is an A+.  Thanks Hanseata for the inspiration.  Formula and method follow the pix's.

This bread made for a nice ham and cheese sandwich for a lazy Saturday lunch with some of favorite lunch sides.

Method

Sprouts - The first thing to get started are the spouts.  Soak the seeds for 5 hours and them sprout between - damp paper towels covered in plastic wrap. Reserve unti;l needed about 24 hours.

Starter - Then get the combination YW and SD starter going in (3) 4 hour builds totaling 12 hours.  It should double after the 3rd build between the 8 and 12 hour marks.  Refrigerate overnight.  This bread can be made with SD starter alone just double the amount of starter.

Autolyse - Take all the flour and add all the beer and water, less 25 g of the water, add the malts, honey, balsamic vinegar, molasses and the VWG mix well and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Cook - the wild rice on low for 1 hour in at least twice as much as water as rice.  Reserve the cooked rice in the refrigerator.

Reconstitute the chopped prunes in 1 T of hot water and grind the seeds slightly in a mortar.

Then next morning combine the autolyse, the reserved 25 g of water and starter in the mixing bowl and knead with the dough hook on KA 2 for 5 minutes.  Add the salt (donlt forget like I did) and knead on KA 3 for 3 minutes.  Knead an additional 2 minutes on KA 4 for 2 minutes.  Move dough to a well oiled, plastic covered bowl to rest for 15 minutes.

Do 6 sets of S&F’s every 15 minutes on a floured work surface putting the dough back into the oiled covered bowl each time.  On the 5th S&F add in the sprouts, seeds, prunes and cooked wild rice.   After the 6th S&F form dough into a tight ball, place into a oiled bowl, cover with plastic and let rest on the counter for 1 hour.  Retard  the dough in the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning remove the dough from the fridge and let come to room temperature – about 1 hour.  Form into the shape you desire and let proof on the counter for 2- 3 hours in a plastic bag, or until it passes the poke test.  Mine took 3 hours total out of the fridge I formed the dough into one large 17” x 6” batard.

45 minutes before the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 500 F regular with steaming method and stone in place.  Bake the bread for 15 minutes with steam, the first 4 minutes at 500 F,  then 11 minutes at 450 F regular bake and then for another 20 minutes at 400 F convection until internal temperature reaches 205 F.  Rotate the bread every 5 minutes 90 degrees.   Leave door ajar with the oven off and the bread on the stone for 12 minutes to let the crust crisp.  Move to wire rack to cool to room temperature.

Wild Rice Multi-grain with YW and SD Starters, Sprouts and Hemp Seeds      
      
Mixed StarterBuild 1Build 2 Build 3Total%
SD Starter251010456.50%
Yeast Water3020106014.58%
Rye / Dark Rye - 5040205011022.92%
WW4020208016.67%
Water5020 7014.58%
Total Starter185909036576.04%
      
Starter     
Hydration76.47%    
Levain % of Total24.87%    
      
Dough Flour %   
WW7515.63%   
6 Grain Cereal102.08%   
White WW10020.83%   
Potato Flakes102.08%   
Dark Rye204.17%   
AP26555.21%   
Dough Flour480100.00%   
Salt102.08%   
Beer - 353 Water-6742087.50%   
Dough Hydration87.50%0.00%   
      
Total Flour692.5    
Total Beer / Water582.5    
T. Dough Hydrat.84.12%    
      
Hydration w/ Adds84.90%    
Total Weight1,508    
      
Multigrain Sprouts %   
Cooked - Wild Rice - Dry Weight234.79%   
WW153.13%   
Rye204.17%   
Barley51.04%   
Spelt102.08%   
Total Sprouts7315.21%   
      
      
Add - Ins %   
VW Gluten153.13%   
Hemp -20, anise, coriand, fennel - 6265.42%   
Honey153.13%   
Re-hydrated Dried Prunes357.29%   
Red Rye Malt51.04%   
White Rye Malt51.04%   
Balsamic Vinegar193.96%   
B. Malt / Molasses306.25%   
Total15031.25%   
flux's picture
flux

I had a really rough start trying to get wild yeast to colonize on everything from a bag of NoName All Purpose to grinding some wheat berries into a rough flour with a spice blender; I think I've tried every starter recipe out there including a few from books.  I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong so I sent off a SASE and cleaned the fridge of my other experiments when "Carl" arrived. Stuffed far in the back neither regions of my refrigerator was a ziplock of rye starter that was forgotten about, so I decided to try and revive that at the same time (I don't know what recipe I used, but its a very stiff starter, more like dough than batter) as Carl. I now have two starters and a kitchen that smells really nice on baking days. Flavour otoh still eludes me and will be working on how to bring out the tang.

I used the Alaskan sourdough recipe over on the Carl Griffith pages and divided the dough into three loaves (two boules and a loaf of cinnamon bread). I think I over proofed the loaves just a wee bit, but it's a bit hard for me to tell because I normally jump the gun and under-proof.

This time the loaves popped and crackled as they cooled on the rack.

The mouse holes are intentional. I haven't been deflating my dough after the initial mixing and have instead opted to use stretch and folds and a very gentle hand. I'm not sure what it is about this style of slowed down making/proofing/baking, but it makes for a wonderful grilled, or toasted, crumb.

 

I just wanted to thank everyone here who, without realizing it, has allowed me to pull loaves like these out of my oven. I've learnt a lot from this site.

And, if you think there's room for improvement let me know I'd appreciate the tips.

MaximusTG's picture
MaximusTG

Today I baked the bread as described on this blog:

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/07/08/my-new-favorite-sourdough/

I fed my starter yesterday evening, and it had more than doubled in volume this morning. After a quick trip to the local reform store, or "Ekoplaza" as this store is called, for some whole rye flour, I started the dough following the instructions. Made half of the recipe, opting to bake two 500 gram breads. 

Kneading and then S&F during bulk ferment went fine, so I then set up a couche from parchment paper. Shaped into two small batards and proofed for 2.5 hours. I had never really transferred bread from a couche to a peel, but I assumed I had to flip them on something and then put them on the peel, because they were supposed to proof seam-side up. This proved to be a bit of a problem because the dough had sticked to the sides of the couche. Guess I'll be getting me some cloth to use next time, I'm sure that would work better. You simply can't put flour on parchment paper, fold it so the paper is perpendicular to the table and expect it to stick ;). 

Eventually it did work out great though :) :

300,225300,225
300,225300,225

Edit:

Here are two photo's of the crumb. Didn't make them yesterday because the bread was still cooling. Thanks for the compliments!

300,225300,225

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I've been wanting to try my hand at making Phil's 100% Whole Wheat Desem bread since it sounded so simple but yet so good.  I had started preparing the Desem starter a while ago but had to abandon it when I went away for business.  I was not thrilled with the way it was turning out anyway so it wasn't a great loss.

I decided to try a different approach for building the starter from my 100% AP White Starter by doing a 3 stage build.  For the first build I used 50 grams of seed starter, 125 grams Bread Flour (KAF), 75 grams Organic Whole Wheat Flour and 200 grams of water.  I mixed this up and left it out at room temperature overnight for around 10 hours.  I then put it in the refrigerator until that evening when I proceeded to stage 2.  I added 142 grams of Whole Wheat, and 85.4 grams of Water.  I left this out again overnight and put it in the refrigerator until the next evening.

For the third and final build I added another 142 grams of Whole Wheat and 85 grams of water.  I left this out for one more evening and refrigerated it until that evening when I prepared the final dough.

I ended up making a lot more starter than I needed, but it was worth building it up to around 61% hydration as the starter was nice and fruity and ready to go to work!

Please see Phil's original recipe for the formula and his original procedures here http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27999/honest-bread-100-wholewheat-desem-bread-and-some-country-bread.  I decided to change his procedures by using my Bosche Mixer as follows:

After the flour autolyes for 1 hour I added the levain and mixed on speed #1 for 1 minute and #2 for 4 minutes.  I then did a stretch and fold, rested the dough uncovered for 10 minutes.  I then did another stretch and fold, covered the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.  I did one more stretch and fold and put it in a lightly oiled bowl for 2 hours.  I then put it in the fridge overnight.

The next day I let the dough sit out at room temperature for 2 hours.  After 2 hours I formed it into loaves and put them in floured bannetons and let them rise covered for 2 hours.

I then baked on my oven stone with steam at 450 degrees until both loaves were golden brown and reached an internal temperature of 200 - 210 degrees F.

The dough lived up to all of its good press and had a nice slightly sour/sweet taste.  I have been eating it all week and it makes great toast!

 

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