Sourdough

My first attempt at making SD using S&F, long retard and David's parchment paper technique.  The only change I made was using 50 g of home ground WW berries instead of the rye that David used.  No rye to be found anywhere.  I also used a WW, and AP flour build for the levain.  I'm not sure what David's was but I am guessing he had some rye in it.  I was very happy with the  results.  Nice exterior crust, great open crumb and fine taste.  It was better the next day too.  I liked it with oiive oil, fresh basil, pecorino, parm and pepper.  On Davids's blog you see my ordeal trying to bake the San Joaquin.  He said my saga proves his recipe is bullet proof :-)  It is bullet proof too!   There is also a photo of my second recipe of my home made Puff Paste Blueberry Cream Cheese Braid inspired by the one on TFL with bread instead of puff paste.  What a great site for bakers like me!!!

Mischbrot variations

In earlier experiments with breads having a higher percentage of rye flour I found that adding spelt, emmer or semolina complemented the rye very well.

With this bake I wanted to compare the effect of substituting the wheat part with emmer and spelt in breads with 70% rye. The flours are all from Shipton Mill.

The outcome:

I used my tried and tested Mischbrot formula as a base, this time using a rye starter with 100% hydration. The starter is made with dark rye, while the remaining rye in the formula is light rye.

Here the formula:

At the current cooler temperatures (about 23C / 73F in my kitchen) the starter took 16 hours to mature.
With 70% rye the doughs / pastes are very sticky and require only a short mix/knead so that all materials are mixed well.

After 100 minutes of fermentation at 23C / 73F I shaped rounds with very wet hands (in mid-air), and put t hem into baskets (floured with light rye) for the final rest..After 60 minutes the rounds showed cracks, a sign that they are ready for the bake.

The bake (on a stone, with steam) started at maximum temperature (ca.  240C / 464F), after 15 minutes I turned the loaves and lowered the temperature to 210C / 410F, After another 20 minutes the bread was ready.

I am very happy with oven spring and bloom. All three breads performed equally well and were indistinguishable from the outside.

After a day I cut into the loaves. The crumb is quite similar in all three loaves, the bread containing wholegrain emmer  is a bit darker and more dense.(The wheat bread got a bit of a shadow - bad photography!)

Although the crumb looks fairly dense, the breads actually feel light.

The crust could be thicker, but that's my oven – not much I can do about this at the moment.

The taste of the three breads is also very similar – quite complex with rye dominating, and a distinctive tangy after-taste. The emmer bread has the most complex taste.

There are a few things I would like to try with this formula:
1. using all wholegrain flours
2. going back to the original German way: using all medium rye and refined flours (which would be called ”Berliner Landbrot”)
3. Reducing the amount of rye sour and using some of the wheat/emmer/spelt in a stiff starter as a second preferment
4. using a wheat/emmer/spelt poolish as a second preferment
5. adding spices

Lots to do!
Juergen

Been trying out a lot of recipes since my last entry, nothing worth to mention what had not been done before, I played around with my sourdough starter

I exclusivly use white flour/bread flour now. The rise may it be bulk fermentation/proofing is nothing much sensational on the contrary, but every

bread i make lifts off in the oven. A guy at the mikrobiology department told me over time strains take over others, one may become dominant, and it is not

said that visibility of activity always indicates the lack of it, this starter is easy to test with the water test, when you taste it it tingles on the tongue and i have a 2-3 day window of using it since right after refreshing it goes right in the fridge, a day later to 4 days its potent, this allows for more flexibility, with

rye starters i could see more development during the rest phases but the window of opportuinity was smaller using the starter. With this i get constant great results and it is also apt to venture into spiking bakers yeast recipes with sourdough. (sourdough/bakers yeast pizzy is a delight) I was pretty amazed at this result country bread form tartine bakery....

I used bread flour instead of white flour, it has more aleurons, and much higher protein content, you could say it is partly wholegrain :)

I recieved my new delivery from King Arthur Flour the other day so decided to use some of my new ingredients and threw together a sourdough bread with eggs and corn flour (it's supposed to be finer and less gritty than corn meal).  I also decided to add some Barley flour which I find adds a nice nutty flavor to the bread.  The final loaf was a little dense, but overall I was satisfied with the end result.   This bread is perfect for a hearty stew or simple toast and butter or jam in the morning.

Ingredients

15 ounces 65% Hydration Starter Refreshed

4 ounces Barley Flour (I use King Arthur Flour)

15.5 ounces European Style Flour from KAF (or Bread Flour)

2 ounces Corn Flour (King Arthur Flour)

2 Eggs beaten

1 Tablespoon Freeze Dried Shallots or fresh if preferred

14 ounces Luke warm water, 90 - 95 degrees Fahrenheit

2 1/2 Teaspoons Sea Salt

2 1/4 Teaspoons Instant Yeast  (you can omit the yeast if desired and let the dough sit for 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours before refrigerating)

Directions

Using your stand mixer or by hand, mix the water with the starter to break up the starter.

Add the flours, salt, yeast (if using), and mix on the lowest speed for 2 minutes.  Let rest for 5 minutes.

Mix for 4 minutes more on medium speed, adding more flour if necessary to produce a slightly sticky ball of dough.

Remove dough to your lightly floured work surface and need for 1 minute and form into a ball.

Leave uncovered for 10 minutes.

Do a stretch and fold and form into a ball again and cover with a clean moist cloth or oiled plastic wrap.

After another 10 minutes do another stretch and fold and put into a lightly oiled bowl that has enough room so the dough can double overnight.

Put in your refrigerator immediately for at least 12 hours or up to 3 days.

When ready to bake the bread, shape the dough as desired being careful not to handle the dough too roughly so you don't de-gas it. (If you did not use yeast, let it sit in your bowl for 2 hours before shaping).

Place it in your bowl, banneton or shape into baguettes.

Let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours covered with oiled plastic wrap or a wet cloth.

Pre-heat oven with baking stone (I use one on bottom and one on top shelf of my oven), to 500 degrees F.

Slash loaves as desired and place empty pan in bottom shelf of oven.

Pour 1 cup of very hot water into pan and place loaves into oven.

Lower oven to 450 Degrees and bake for 25 - 35 minutes until bread is golden brown and internal temperature reaches 200 degrees.

Let cool on cooling rack and enjoy!

This post has been submitted to the Yeast Spotting Site here: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting/.

Please feel free to visit my other blog for more of my recipes at http://www.mookielovesbread.wordpress.com

Crumb Shot

 Since school there was one nugget of sourdough wisdom that had always been drilled into me, “firm starters produce acetic acid and liquid starters produce lactic acid”, the lesson continues that breads made from the appropriate starter will also produce breads of following acidity, with lactic acid being the weaker of the two. Yet, recent discussions of the topic point to the opposite, which does make some sense, with less water to move around in, bacteria would be less able to access appropriate nutrients, therefore, energy, with which to grow and reproduce. So the by-product of their existence, acid, would be lower in quantity, regardless of the relative strength of their specific acid. 

 Two of Hamelman's sourdough formulas, the “Vermont Sourdough” and his, “Pain au Levain” are virtually identical but for two procedural discrepancies, the Vermont Sourdough uses a 125% hydration starter and is retarded for the final proof, whereas the latter utilizes a 60% hydration starter and has absolutely no retarded fermentation whatsoever. This being the perfect experimental set up for proving the truth of this question to myself, I decided to mix these two formulas, and conclusions come what may.

The main question here could be summarized as, “What differing flavor profiles are a result of extending the bacterial fermentation compared to relatively limiting their growth?” A secondary question was, “What is the optimal final proof time of a sourdough loaf?”

Vermont Sourdough

90% Bread Flour

10% Rye Flour

67% Water

1.9% Salt

15% Pre-fermented Flour

Pain au Levain

95% Bread Flour

5% Rye Flour

67% Water

1.8% Salt

15.5% Pre-fermented Flour

Both doughs were mixed to an improved window and medium soft consistency. They were also both bulk fermented for approximately 3 hours with a single fold at 90 minutes. After shaping, the procedure diverges when the Vermont Sourdough is retarded overnight and the Pain au Levain is not. The loadings of both doughs were staggered, with the first half of the batch being loaded when I felt it was appropriate, the second set, after that.

Results:

Interestingly enough, neither dough was particularly acidic. The Vermont Sourdough had some acidity on the back end with particular emphasis on the after taste, but not unpleasantly so. Comparatively the Pain au Levain had no discernible acidity. Despite the rumor that naturally leavened breads are sour, this was an exception to the rule. In both cases the oven spring was greater then desired. This was true in both the first and second loadings of both doughs. Even at a three hour final proof, there was excessive oven spring. There may have been complications with the shaping of the loaves exacerbating any underproofing here; but the second loadings had less spring then the first sets.

Next:

Dough fermented with a liquid starter and retarded overnight produced a more acidic flavor then a dough fermented with a firm starter and no retarded fermentation. This much is clear, which of these two variables contributed more to the acidity is still uncertain. This with a longer final proof will have to be explored next time!