Sesame Whole Wheat levain batards ala PiPs

Phil Agnew – PiPs, is either a baking genius or a mad man.  Or maybe a mad man genius.  Only now am I starting to pay attention to what he had published on TFL a few years ago, prior to my time trapped in this other dimension known as the TFL Zone.  I had long ago noticed and admired the Also on TFL photo and link to his Sesame Whole Wheat Levain Double Hydration batard.  And now, not only being caught up in my own batard frenzy but also with a planned glut of sesame seeds on hand, well, that just nudged me over the edge.  His photography is wonderful, and did indeed capture my attention.  After my recent forays into David Snyder’s Sourdough Italian Bread, and my sister in law’s declaration of a mutual love of sesame seeded breads, I was ripe and ready to give this formula a go.

So here am I on the exact opposite end of the earth trying this formula out.  Well, actually a few thousand miles adrift into the Atlantic according to the antipode map, but what’s a couple of time zones off between friends?  

A few weeks ago, I baked his 100% WW Levain Batard at 88% hydration, due to my noticing it on Also on TFL.  And that was way further than I had gone before in terms of hydration.  But these loaves today hover around the absurd 102% hydration mark and called my name.  Wow!  The man must be a baking genius or and expert at mirrors or...

A few differences:

• scaled down his formula for three 500g batards
• off the shelf whole wheat flour
• the interior sesame seeds are white hulled instead of black unhulled
• bench rest bulk fermentation for 1 hour, with letter folds at 20, 40 and 60 minutes.
• retarded for 1 hour before divide, rest and shaping.
• couched, covered and into the retarder for an overnight snooze and long proof
• couched seam side down
• scored and baked right out of the refrigerator.
• used my standard forever levain starter.  Therefore this isn’t technically a 100% WW  formula, with literarily just a few grams of AP and Rye slipped in  
  

And the results are in, of which I’m generally quite happy about.  Not as much grigne/ear as I was expecting, nor was there significant loft.  Maybe I'll go for an even sharper angled score the next time around.  But the sheer density of the dough was a likely culprit.  The lack of color in the crumb’s sesame seeds translate into being almost transparent to the eye, but they are there.  

I let it bake for the full ~15 minutes of steam followed by ~ 30 minutes of continued bake and then an additional 5 minutes of venting.  A rather long bake for a 500g batard.

After the second hydration the dough was very loose for the majority of the French Folds, but did tighten up a little toward the end.  A one hour retard made for a very easy pre-shape and shaping the batards.  Considering the insane level of hydration - extra flour on the couche, but the dough still stuck a little.  However no damage was done and the loaves were very easy to score.

I’m not so sure that I’ll be revisiting this formula again as the whole wheat flavor is a bit reminiscent of a cross between a farm and a health foods store smell ;-) .   But it surely was fun and a challenge to take on a task such as this.

Left: ready to come off the couche.  Right: scored and ready for the oven

Steam released and The Kids have been rotated.

The triplets

If you look closely you can see the sesame seeds although from this shot they are difficult to discern.

alan