August 10, 2020 - 8:12pm
20200810 Golden Durum Bread with CLAS
To learn more about concentrated lactic acid sourdough (CLAS), please see here and here.
Before I show you my bread, let me introduce my new friends to you. 
I've started a new hobby - vermicomposting - during the COVID quarantine. These red wigglers will produce "black gold" 
that will be very beneficial to my plants.
Hopefully, I will show you more beautiful flowers from my garden next time. 
Now, back to the durum bread. My formula and procedures are straightforward, and the bread is very delicious. By now you probably know my trick - CLAS. I bought a bag of durum berries, which cost me an arm and a leg
, to make a durum CLAS so that my bread is 100% durum. 
Given the speedy one-day delivery and the successful outcome of the durum CLAS, I'd say the 
13 was well spent. 
I have lots of durum flour. It would be nice if I can make CLAS out of it. Then I don't have to buy another bag of berries that takes up storage space. I'm making a batch of CLAS using flour to see if it works.  |
Total dough weight ~ 1.1 kg Autolysis overnight at room temperature, 97% extra fancy durum, 55.5% water, After autolysis, the dough became very pliable, smooth, and silky after a few folds. Dough Autolyzed dough, 3% durum CLAS, 4.5% water, 0.6% yeast, 2% salt, Mix in KA 600 speed 10! x 2 minutes to fully incorporate all ingredients, a few folds to smooth and tighten the dough, Bulk 88F ish x 150 minutes, Two sets of folds in between, Shape, Proof 88F ish x 20 minutes Bake Preheat @ 550F, 482F x 10 mins with steam, 374F x 40 mins w/o steam, Share
Comments
That’s beautiful Yippie, i love the colour the durum gives the Crumb, so nice. Now that I’ve read your formula more carefully I see that CLAS contributes the LAB to the dough while you add a tiny amount of commercial yeast. Very interesting this CLAS. Do you make it each time from scratch or do you keep some in the fridge and refresh it as one would with a sourdough starter?
Worms are great, cool that you started to keep them for turning your green waste into great soil.
Benny
Benny:
According to Rus, we need to refresh the CLAS if we make high % rye/whole wheat bread. Since I've made mostly white loaves recently, I just use it as-is straight out of the fridge. I only keep a small amount of CLAS, so that I use it up quickly, then I will refresh it more frequently.
Thank you for your compliments.
Yippee
The loaf pictures, the slices, the crumb, the colour, the worms and their choco sprinkles!
The method is neat, I'll have to try it.
Have you read this post?
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/64850/smart-sourdough-book-testers-needed#comment-466196
Hi, Mini:
I found that Mr. SS's method is not much different from using traditional sourdough-it still requires multiple feedings. It's just that the feeding schedule is compressed within 24 hours. Because of the necessary prep work, one cannot bake instantaneously as he/she wishes, this method is not flexible enough for me.
Glad you like my bread. Thank you for your kind words.
Yippee
Yippee, that is a beautiful loaf in every aspect.
I have baked twice using CLAS in the recipe, but I have not seen difference in flavor as compared to straight commercial yeast. I am not measuring the final PH, but the CLAS is tasting as described by Rus in his blog. Since CLAS contributes LAB to the dough, I wonder if a tablespoon of yogurt would have the same effect?
I can tell the difference between yeasted bread and CLAS bread - yeasted bread is noticeably bland even if it is made with the same ingredients. As Rus said, one must control the temperature when using CLAS; otherwise, it will fail! From the incubation of starter to the fermentation of bread, I monitor the temperature carefully. So far, CLAS works for me.
I am not sure if using yogurt will produce the same results as CLAS. Maybe you should let the scientists on the forum answer this question. :-)
Yippee
beautiful bread there. never heard of CLAS before. very interesting.
Questions:
Do you have a bread slicer machine or did you cut those so evenly by hand?
I don't see any of the worms or rose petals in the loaf, how were they incorporated? ; )
-James
Hi, James:
There is no way I can slice a loaf so evenly by hand! If I were to use worms and rose as ingredients of bread, I probably would fry the worms and distill the rose petals into rosewater before adding them in the dough. :-)
Thank you for your compliment.
Yippee
Great to hear from you. Hope you and the family are safe and well. The crumb looks perfect and I’m sure this tastes as good as it looks. I’m jealous of your new friends! I used to get a delivery of horse manure every season from a coworker but that stopped a while ago. So many worms came along for the ride?. Those roses are so pretty. I can grow just about anything else but roses ? just don’t do well for some reason.
Best regards,
Ian
2020 is a strange year for sure! Bad things happen one after another! We've experienced a heatwave, then lightening, and now the lightening ignited wildfires! There are 14 of them in CA. The air quality is bad-the pools may close, then I can't swim! Darn! I hope you and yours are doing better on the east coast. I thought of your garden while I was tending mine. Boy, it sure takes lots of work to upkeep a garden, but I am glad that I am reconnecting with my house during this pandemic. We are doing creative things in our yards--camping, sunbathing--just to name a few. I have big plans for my garden, but I can only take one step at a time. Right now, I want to take care of the four fruit trees so that we will get better yields. Since I take over caring for the roses, there have been several problems such as powdery mildew and leave yellowing. I am new to gardening so I have to look up the issues and tackle them one by one. I feel like a new parent--for the garden, and my worms :-) The worms are doing great because I keep feeding them like babies! I expect to harvest the first tray of "black gold" pretty soon. I hope it will make the soil and my plants healthier! Oh, I have also started a few compost bins. They are nearly full, but it takes much longer before they are ready to be used in the garden. I hope one day my garden will be as beautiful as yours. Maybe you can teach me a few tricks!
Glad you liked my bread. Thank you for your compliments!
Best,
Yippee
Hi Yippee, your bread looks great! As a Rus fan myself I have some questions:
I understand that you want a 100% durum loaf so you also created a durum CLAS. But do you think 5% of total flour makes much of a difference in taste? I remember that I once experimented with white breads and different percentages of rye in it and I couldn't tell the difference when it was 0% or 5% rye inside. So I wonder if you could tell if the bread was made with durum or rye CLAS with those ratios.
Besides that, do you use the same procedure to make a non rye durum CLAS? What do you replace the rye malt with when doing durum or WW CLAS? I use the rye malt and rye flour method but refreshing doesn't require the malt....
And about temperature control, how do you do it? Are you using a proofer box of some kind? I live in a hot country so I can almost always find a 29°C - 34°C spot during the day, but I wonder how other bakers control this very important part.
On another note, bit connected to this, but I really should prepare my first post here about another method and levain for rye baking from here: https://registrr.livejournal.com/102092.html
Some months ago I received some derivative of an original Kvass which is a special super liquid levain you feed with Scald only, and it just smells amazing! Needs only once a month refreshing and is way stronger then traditional sourdough...I dried my sourdough starters after my first Kvass bake since I knew I wouldn't use them anymore. Several months later I discovered Rus and now I'm using like you commercial yeast lol how life can be weird. CLAS is amazing and all those years I wondered what that sourdough powder is that they sell in Germany ;)
I think I have never looked for the taste of specific grains used in bread. I care more about the overall flavor. If anything, I would say that rye CLAS is the most delicious of all the CLAS I have created. I make the others just for fun- so that I can make "100%" wheat or durum bread, but Rye CLAS alone is sufficient for baking.
As I told you before, making WW CLAS is simple - wheat malt, 150% hydration, 40-42C, and then following rye CLAS procedures.
When making durum CLAS, I use freshly milled durum flour only. Similarly, 150% hydration, 40-42C, and then following rye CLAS procedures.
I use a proofer or Instant Pot's yogurt function to control the temperature.
When I found out about CLAS, I threw away all the old sourdough starters I had-I didn't even bother to save them because I knew I would not use them again!
I feel so comfortable using CLAS to make straight-dough bread that I haven't made any "complex" bread lately. I hope to see your post on the Belarusian bread soon.
Yippee
Hi Ba Tou,
Can you tell me more about using a scald to feed the "derivative of an original Kvass which is a special super liquid levain"?
How do you adapt this to feeding or making more batches of clas?
Is your scald with whole rye flour along with sold (fermented rye malt)?
I look forward to your reply!
Thanks a lot!
Hi @jo_en, with derivative I just meant that I got my hands on a fresh batch of kvass.
I know two methods, this is one of those. Here an article in russian with the recipe: https://registrr.livejournal.com/102092.html
Another article about an old lady who does this traditionally: https://registrr.livejournal.com/101641.html
This has nothing to do with clas and yes the scald is just whole rye flour, boiling water, diastatic rye malt once at 145 F / 63 C and then 4h in the oven for 63 C