100% Semolina Black and White Sesame Seed Bee Striped Sourdough 81% hydration
This is the third time I’ve bake this formula I first put together for the semolina CB. I hadn’t baked it since that time and wanted to try it out again. I finally received my new pH meter, the Hanna bread and dough model and used it for the first time for this bake. I’ll know how it worked out when I finally slice this open, I will say I was surprised at how little a rise in the aliquot jar corresponded with the pH readings at which other well known bakers follow. Now of course, pH will vary greatly based on the hydration and flour composition of the dough. Semolina is a very strong flour, so I wonder if pushing the pH lower might correspond with a more open lacy crumb.
Overnight levain build and saltolyse
1:7:7
9 g starter 70 g water 70 g Semola Rimacinata
429 g Semola rimacinata
333 g Water (hold back 20 g so use 313 g, add the hold back water during bassinage)
143 g Levain
10 g salt 2%
in the morning when levain at peak, add all levain to the dough along with 20 g hold back water, the Rubaud kneading for 5 mins. Rest for 10 mins then slap and fold to full gluten development.
Rest 30 mins then strong bench letterfold and set up two aliquot jars, one for rise and one for pH.
Rest 30 mins then lamination.
At 30 mins intervals do coil folds until dough showing good strength.
Shaping done at 50% rise pH 4.35
applied seeds and into banneton and allowed to rest at room temperature until aliquot rise 70% and pH 4.15, then cold retard until morning. Aim to bake when pH 4.1
The following are the aliquot rise and pH readings at various times.
1130 am bench letterfold pH 5.38
1200 pm lamination temp 76ºF
1230 pm coil fold pH 5.25
100 pm coil fold pH 5.13
130 pm coil fold pH 4.95
200 pm coil fold pH 4.81
300 pm pH 4.46 aliquot 40%
330 pm pH 4.35
340 pm aliquot 50% shaping done
430 pm pH 4.18 aliquot only 65%
440 pm pH 4.15 aliquot 70%
Cold retard
800 am pH 4.12 baked.
Comments
Beautiful, Benny, love the pattern, very creative! And the bread looks great, looking forward to the crumb shot.
Thank you Ilya, there is a baker on IG from Ottawa Canada who does incredibly artistic patterns with seeds. This is a very simple pattern of course and I didn’t get the usual density of seeds stuck as I usually like.
Love the seed application Benny and it looks like you had a nice bloom. Love that yellow/gold color of the crumb peaking through in the bloom. Hope you got the crumb you're looking for!
The seed application wasn’t as dense as I prefer, but not bad for a first time doing this type of patterned thing. Thank you Troy.
Where do you find the black sesame seeds? I’ve never seen them here in the Co-Ops and bulk food stores.
If you can’t find them in those stores or Amazon, go to an Asian market. I’ve seen them in Korean and Chinese grocery stores here in Toronto. Make sure they’re toasted for the best flavour, otherwise you’ll need to toast them, although if you’re using them on the outside of loaves, then toasting isn’t important. Anyhow, Asian markets will have them, they are a staple or our cuisine.
Based on the crumb of this bake, despite essentially hitting the target pH of 4.1 for bake time, I think this needs more fermentation. When I look at my notes when I baked this, the last time I also did 70% and noted that I should go further next time. Now after this bake, I should have taken my own advice LOL. I’d say that given this very strong flour it can tolerated more fermentation than weaker flours, at least that seems logical to me. So next time I’ll aim for 90-95% rise in the aliquot jar and see what pH that happens to correspond to.
3DC636E4-55B8-431A-AC14-019BBEECB52F.jpeg
E5A27032-4474-4A17-9A33-2BC4BA5841BB.jpeg
EE79FD89-15BB-47B0-9538-E9B7FEC4531A.jpeg
I agree with your assessment it could be taken a little further, and yet this crumb also looks great!
Thank you Ilya, yes the crumb does look good, but I’m always looking to improve it. Still chasing and not catching that lacy crumb LOL.
Benny
Benny, what a gorgeous-looking loaf. I really like the two-toned seed stripe and your crumb is looking perfect to me. I've tried a 100% durum bake numerous times but I can never get my flour fine enough on the Komo mill to produce a light crumb. I'm thinking of maybe attempting another go with trying a double coarse/fine grind on the Komo with your formula. I don't want to bolt the flour since I really want to keep it a whole grain bread. I'd also have to pass on the sesame seeds due to food intolerance and would opt for rolling some of the durum to make flakes for the decor. It's on the top of my bake list now.
I'm curious about the baker you mentioned on IG from Ottawa (my hometown). What is their IG name? Also, where did you pick up the Hanna meter? Here in town, or online?
Tortoise
I don’t have a mill, but durum is notoriously hard to mill finely in a home mill, you might not be able to get it as fine as you need like a Semola Rimacinata. I think for a successful semolina bread giving the flour a lot of time to hydrate is one of the keys, but without salt and a long time it might break down too much of the starch, so doing a saltolyse with the salt for me has been key. Also try to fully develop the gluten up front.
Rachel’s IG handle is sourdough_enzo she has some wonderful ideas.
I ordered the Hanna bread and dough pH meter from Geneq.com. They are in Woodbridge but I ordered online. Unfortunately these were back ordered when I placed my order more than a month ago, but the website did not indicate that. Anyhow, I finally got it about a month or so after ordering it.
I mill Durum in my Mockmill 200 all the time and have no issues with the grind and fineness. I sift one with a 30 drum sifter and then a 40 and re-mill. I hope you get your own mill and get a chance to try milling. It’s hard to go back to store flour once you start milling your own.
I’m happy you jumped in to correct me Ian.
Nice bake! Most people would be very happy with your crumb 😎. Love the seed pattern too!
Thank you Ian, if I wasn’t trying for a lacy crumb recently I’d otherwise be perfectly happy with the crumb. Darned lacy crumb.
I usually do an overnight salt-o-lyse Since I usually use fresh ground flour in most of my bakes. The dough hydrates and the gluten forms beautifully before I even mix in the levain in the am. I tried Ian's suggestion of grinding, sifting and regrinding. I have a 40 mesh screen and after a regrind, there wasn't much bran left. The flour was still fairly gritty compared to a semola rimacinata flour or Golden Temple #1 fine durum atta flour. When I mixed the levain it was very clay-like due to the coarse texture, therefore, didn't triple like my AP flour/rye levain.
When I mixed in the levain in the morning the dough was still fairly gritty but by the third fold, it was getting smoother but still a bit gritty. The bulk went quickly so shaped and proofed overnight in the fridge. I baked the following am and it was compact with a fairly tight crumb. I'm going to pick up some La Molisana Semola Rimacinata at my local NoFrills to repeat your formula for comparison to my stone ground durum. To be continued...
Thanks for hipping me to Rachel's IG. Great stuff! I called up Geneq and the lead time for the Hanna meter is 2-3 weeks. I saw your post on pH meters and starter acidity last August and am I'm curious to hear your experience using the new Hanna meter before I spring for it. I've been using pH paper but too cumbersome and I have to wonder about the accuracy.
Cheers,
Tortosie
Tortosie hanks for letting me know that at least some No Frills have La Molisana Semola Rimacinata. I’ve never seen it there at my local store so will have to check out others when I’m out. How much are they charging for it at No Frills? The last time I bought some I got it from Amazon and I think it was $3.49. Right now it is on sale for $2.49 on Amazon!
pH paper just isn’t accurate enough for what we want to assess in our breadmaking. So far I am happy with the Hanna pH meter, because it has a spear like probe it is much easier to clean than my old meter with its blunt end. It is hard to know if it is more accurate, but I do know other bakers who use the same meter. I’ve used it on this loaf in this blog post and the measurements seem to fit with my expectation. I have baguette dough in cold retard and I used the pH meter with it in bulk and again the numbers seem as I would expect. I’d say so far so good, I’m liking it much more than my old meter.
Benny
Hey Benny,
My NoFrills has the 1kg bag for $3.47. I'll check Johnvince to see if they have bigger bags. They carry Caputo OO and some other flours from Italy. I've made durum bakes before with the Golden Temple #1 fine durum flour but the flavor pales in comparison to home ground. Perhaps in your future experiments, you may give grinding your own a whirl? ( I have a KA grain mill attachment you could use just to see what the FG flour fuss is all about). Happy to hear that the Hanna probe is working out. Looks like I'm going to splurge and order one today. Thanks for the advice.
Tortoise
Hey Tortoise, I've been hesitant to give home milling a try, we don't really have extra space for anything. We're at the point where if something new comes in something else has to go out LOL. Also my KA mixer is already making clicking noises so I'm sure it won't be long before the gears go so I think the mill attachment might put it over the edge.
Benny
Benny, I hear ya! I’m in a condo as well and my kitchen is pretty tiny. And ya, the KA mill is pretty hard on the machine. For my heavy rye mixes I now use an Ankarsum that I picked up on Kijiji a while back. The machine is a Beast. I spoke with the Geneq folks in Woodbridge today. My meter should be arriving in about two weeks. May need to pick your brain... ;-)
Tortoise
Tortoise you’ll enjoy using the Hanna pH meter. Did you order calibration and storage fluids as well? I ended up ordering from Amazon because I initially forgot to order them with the meter.
Benny