(3-results) Journey to perfect a 100% WW Sourdough Pullman Loaf

Dang!!! What a bake! Great Loaf!

Weird day though... my wife is a paramedic and I woke up with a really runny nose. I figured it was allergies, but for me allergies normally just go away after about 20 minutes. Not today, stuck with me all day. Anyway, her coworker happened to be having the same symptoms as me, and work told her she had to get tested for Covid. So, we informed her work that I was having the same symptoms and now I am quarentined and am going to get tested tomorrow. I highly doubt I have covid (no fever, no headache, I just don't fit the symptoms very well), but I guess it is better to be on the safe side.

Anyway... my head is full of snot and my bread looked fabulous, but since my nose is so stopped up with goo, my taste is a bit off. I assume the loaf tastes better than it did on attempts 1 and 2, but I won't know for sure until my head clears.

Recap:

The wife has tasked me to come up with a sandwich bread recipe our family can bake at least once a weak to completely replace our regularly purchased box store sandwich bread.

This post is for the results of my third attempt to make the perfect loaf.

Requirements

• Soft and light
• 100% whole wheat
• Recipe must be easily repeatable and easy to execute.
• Recipe must be designed for a covered pullman loaf pan.
  (https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/pain-de-mie-pan-pullman-loaf-pan-13)
• My 12 year old daughter must be able to bake the bread from start to finish
• Sourdough leavening only.
• From start to finish, the bread must be completable in 1 day.
• Process must exist to enable the baker to know with reasonable certainty that the loaf is perfectly proofed.
• Dough needs to contain a few softened chewy seeds, grain berries, etc. for texture and flavor.

Summary of the Bake

The Good:

• the outer crust color was just perfect!
• the crumb was no longer too moist!
• the crumb was super strong! Strong enough for a thick peanut butter, I mean, it was stronger than I ever thought it could be based off of the previous 2 bakes! So happy with it!
• I don't know, I am just so happy with this bake! The extra 30 minutes of baking really paid off.

The Bad:

• Nothing really bad, but I guess if I were nitpicking...
• My rise times were about 15% longer than I planned, but my kitchen was about 5 degrees cooler than normal, so I guess that was probably expected.
• I started my recipe and then realized I hadn't milled any flour yet. I usually try to mill the day before. So... I had to take a break from making the bread and mill flour. whoops.
• I cut into the dough after 1.5 hours out of oven... I should have probably waited 2 to 2.5 hours, the crumb was still a bit warm after 1.5 hours.

What to do Next:

• I am on the fence. Part of me wants to bake the exact same thing one more time just to make sure the results are repeatable, but the other part of me wants to keep progressing forward.
• Assuming I decide to progress forward... I have a few things I want to try out. I'll list them in order in the next few bullets.
• I want to try DanAyo's suggestion of skipping the bulk ferment and just loading the dough directly into the pullman right after kneading with the ankersum.
• I want to add some soaked seeds and other chewy bits.
• I want to experiment with no scoring... my daughter doesn't really have the skills to score, especially dough as soft as this. I am not sure how best to not score but also make sure the top of the loaf doesn't bust open. My guess is that you have to slightly overproof so that you don't get as much oven bloom.
• I need to increase my ingredient amounts to fully fill the 14" pullman AND then re-zero in on the ideal bake times.

I am probably going to work on DanAyo's suggestion next. I'll sleep on it before I decide.

The Final Recipe:

Ingredients

• 60g (12%) sourdough starter (50:50 hard red)
• 50g rolled outs
• 30g (6%) honey
• 10g (2%) non-iodized salt
• 30g (6%) virgin olive oil
• 475g (95% if you include rolled oats) well water
• 450g hard white wheat (sifted to remove bran)
• sifted bran to be used as topping

Process

• 8:13a: In large mixing bowl, add: 475g of boiling water, 50g rolled oats, 30g honey, 10g salt. Mix and let sit for 10 minutes.
• 8:15a: Started milling some hard white wheat.
• 8:23a: Mix in 30g olive oil
• 9:15a: Finished milling, then sifted some of the bran, no fancy sifting equipment, just the normal kitchen sifting stuff.
• 9:34a: Without kneading, mix the 450g of hard white wheat to combine into a shaggy mess. Let autolyze for 10 minutes
• 9:44a: Smear 60g starter over the top of the dough mess. Use mixer or hand to knead at medium speed for 5 minutes.
• 9:49a: Transfer dough to proofing container with lid. Siphon off 20g of dough to aliquot jar.
• 10:19a, 12:30a, 1:06p: Stretch and fold in bowl 4x times.
• Aliquot jar showed a 1.8x rise at 4:57a.
• 4:57p: Preshape dough into ball, let sit for 10 min.
• 5:07p: Shape dough into log and place into prepared pullpan pan, cover with plastic wrap.
• 5:15p: Preheat oven to 375dF
• Aliquot showed a 2.25x rise after 45 minutes proofing
• 5:52p: sprinkle bran on top of loaf, put lid on pullman and stick in oven for 1 hour 30 min.
• 7:22p: Pull from oven, transfer loaf to rack. Let rest until cool, probably 1.5 hours.
• 9:00p: Slice using slicer then put loaf in plastic bread bag to keep it soft. (crumb was still slightly warm, should have waited another 30 min to 1 hour before cutting.

Here is a aliquot jar a few seconds before I loaded the loaf into the oven.

I am telling ya'll, this dough felt awesome during preshape. It felt like a cloud. It was wet, which might be hard to handle if you haven't practiced.