100% Whole Wheat Sourdough 91% hydration using white starter
So I’ve gradually noticed differences between my two starters, one fed only white bread flour and the other whole rye starter. The white starter I got from Alan (thank you Alan) and the whole rye is my own now what, four years old? It is possible the differences I am seeing are due to differing microbes that inhabit each of the starters, or they might be purely related to the type of flour each is fed. With the greater buffering capacity of whole rye vs white flours the LAB population will be able to replicate producing acid for a longer time before the pH falls enough to start to inhibit their growth. As you know, the LAB are actually more greatly affected by low pH than the yeast. So the rye starter may have a slightly greater population of LAB relative to the yeast compared to the starter fed only white flour. In my bakes so far using either the white or the rye starter, I have started to notice this difference in the breads made. The white starter seems to produce breads with less sour tang and that leaven the dough more rapidly while the pH falls more slowly. This was very evident in this bake.
The formula was almost unchanged from my previous bake except that the hydration was increased by 1% from a touch more scald water accidentally added to the bran. As you can imagine, it would be impossible to pour out that extra water since the bran absorbs it pretty quickly. For this bake, the levain was made using the white starter while my last bake was made using the rye starter.
Some differences noted during bulk and final proof.
The starting pH of the rye starter bake was 5.31 while the starting pH for the white starter bake was 5.5 suggesting that the TTA of the levains and dough was lower for the white starter bake. Now of course you could say that some of that TTA was from the starter itself, but considering that the starter was 1:4 ratio to the flour for the levain and the prefermented flour of each bake was only 9% I doubt that the difference in starting pH could be fully explained by TTA of the starter used to make the levain.
The pH change of the rye starter bake was 1.4 with a total rise of only 45% while the corresponding pH change for the white bake was only 1.15 with a rise of 115%. Now it is quite possible that the aliquot of dough removed for the rye starter bake wasn’t totally representative of the main dough, I have seen this happen before, but the difference in rising power of the rye vs white starter bakes is quite remarkable and I would suggest is related to relatively less LAB and more yeast in the white starter vs rye starter bakes.
Now my current bake suffered from a lack of ear. Some possible causes could be over fermentation, over hydration, too shallow a score, insufficient steam and top crust formation too early in the bake. There are other possible causes but these come to my mind. I do recognize that my scoring was too shallow I think that I subconsciously scored too shallow because I was concerned that the dough had over fermented even though the poke test passed and there was some rebound of the dough. The crumb didn’t show any signs of over fermentation and I would have expected more spreading of the dough during baking if it was over fermented. I doubt it was over hydrated as I only increased the hydration by 1%.
In the late evening, build the levain and ferment at 74°F aiming to use it after 10 hours. I used my bread flour starter for this as it seems to produce doughs with less acidity which should allow for longer fermentation and greater rise.
Sift the whole wheat flour. Scald the sifted bran with 97 g of filtered water (I suspect I can increase the scald water even higher). After it cools place it in the fridge overnight.
In the morning the levain should have peaked, mine was 3.5 x rise and the dome was just starting to flatten. Remove the refrigerated bran and allow to come to room temperature.
In the bowl of my Ankarsrum Assistent I added the water (not the hold back water yet) and then the levain. Using a silicone spatula cut the levain into smaller pieces. Add the sifted flour and then allow the Ankarsrum Assistent to mix the dough. I continued to mix at around 2-3 setting until the dough had at least moderate gluten development. Next I added the salt dissolved in all the holdback water, gradually allowing the salt water to be absorbed before adding more. Once all the water is incorporated I added bran gradually, again allowing it to incorporate well before adding more. Once all the bran is added continue to mix until very good gluten development.
Remove the dough from the bowl, perform a letterfold on the counter. Remove an aliquot of the dough for pH measurement and set up your aliquot jar. At 30 mins intervals perform a coil fold on the dough, watching the rise and pH. I performed four sets of coil folds and then allowed the dough to rest and ferment until the dough rose 50% and the pH dropped by 0.7-0.75. Shape the dough into a batard and place into a prepared banneton.
About 60 mins prior to baking pre-heat the oven to 500°F setting it up for steam baking.
Once the dough reaches 110-120% rise, the pH drops a total of 1.15 and the dough passes the poke test place the dough into the freezer until the oven is ready.
30 mins prior to baking, pour 1 L of boiling water into metal loaf pan with Sylvia towel and place on baking steel on the lowest rack of the oven.
Once oven reaches 500ºF turn dough out of banneton, brush excess rice flour off, score and then brush with water. Transfer to oven. Pour 250 mL of boiling water into the cast iron skillet on a high shelf, high enough that the dough have fully bloom. Drop temperature to 450ºF and bake with steam for 25 mins. Then vent oven and remove all steaming gear and drop temperature to 425ºF. Bake for another 25-30 mins rotating as needed.
I will add that I am totally convinced that doing an open bake leads to a thinner crust the more I have done open steam baking now. I have consistently found that the crusts baked this way are thinner than the crusts I used to get when doing dutch oven baking.
Comments
I can’t say that I am mad at the crumb. I don’t see broken gluten strands so I don’t believe that the dough over fermented at all. I do think the lack of ear is from too shallow a score in large part. I forgot to address the possibility of insufficient steaming in this bake. I lost track of time and loaded the Sylvia towel too early in the pre-heating of the oven. As a result I do think that there was possibly a component of insufficient steam in this bake along with the poor quality of scoring leading to the lack of ear. I think I would shorten the final proof and try to bake closer to 100% rise next time to get a better bloom and oven spring to get an ear next time.
I do love the crumb on this bake, it is remarkably open for 100% whole wheat and kind of lacy as well. I did use my Ankarsrum Assistent for mixing, bassinage and incorporating the scalded bran and the more I use it the more I appreciate that it can mimic hand mixing when using the roller.
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Benny - that is a nice open crumb for 100% WW.
How was the taste of the crumb and crust?
Tony
Hi Tony, thanks I agree it was the most open crumb I’ve yet achieved for a 100% WW SD bread. I really like the dialed down sour tang compared with my previous bake. I love the thin crust with open steam baking. The crust has nice toasted wheat notes. You know I am not good at describing flavours of things but the texture of the crumb was very nice and a bit custardy which I love.
Benny
Benny, I'm a bit confused about the relative rise of the two bakes. You say the rye lev bake had a total rise of 45% and the wheat lev bake rise was 115%, but later on you say it was 50% rise?
I'm probably just not reading it quite right...
I also run two starters; one is a wheat starter at 130% and the other is wheat at 50% and salted. The 130% is definitely more acidic than the 50% one. As I mentioned previously, I struggle to get a pH drop of 1 unit.
Now I am starting to dabble with two levains in one bake - the low hydration for rise and the high hydration for some lactic flavour.
Lance
The reference to the 50% rise was for this current bake and referred to the rise at the time of shaping. The rise of this bake at the time of baking was 115%. Interestingly with my two bakes the one with the lower total rise was much more sour and had a lower pH than the one with the much greater rise.
Benny
The usual food for thought, great post and bread.
I think I prefer this bread, from the photos. But I couldn't eat it as Canada is a wee trip from these parts. So which one would you rather eat?!
I did have the thought that I feed much more aggressively for my overnight levain feed, often doing say 1:10:10 and keeping it in the proofer overnight. But I also default to 100% hydration on the levain. Edit: Hmmm.... was there a point in time when you worked with a wetter starter, and there was something that made you prefer stiff starters which seems to be something I see a lot of in your bakes lately?
And I do know that some, like say Kristen Dennis or Chad Robertson fixate on the idea of a "young starter". What has your experience been like if you give the overnight a small feed in the morning and then use it an hour or two later? Is that something you've tried? A bit like the three stage pain au levain?
I've always kind of assumed a starter was just a starter, but getting into the nuts and bolts of it is interesting and actually seems to have a much bigger impact than most of us assume on the final bread that comes out the oven.
Jon
Thank you for you time in making these comments Jon.
I don’t do anything to ensure that my starter is freshly fed prior to building a levain. As long as the starter has been fed within the past 7d I am happy to use it. To tell you the truth, the times I have tried using the starter within a day of feeding haven’t been better than those in which I fed the starter 7d prior to using it so I haven’t bothered with the young starter idea.
You’re right, I have been using a lot of stiff levains of late. It all started when I began playing around with stiff sweet levains for making Hokkaido milk breads and since then it has become habit. Also, I used to do only liquid levains thinking it was hard to incorporate a stiff levain into an autolysed dough. The other advantage I have found with stiff levains is that I like to do overnight levains and the lower hydration helps to slow things down so that even in the summer when it is much warmer, I can build a levain overnight and not have it past peak in the morning.
I think you’re right Jon, I know I didn’t give it much thought before about what I’ve been feeding my starter. I know I had problems in the past when my starter was fed whole red fife and it became less vigorous over time. Since then I switched to rye and it has been fine. However, using Alan’s white starter has opened my eyes to the differences that different feeds might have on the levains and thus the doughs that are made with starters fed differently. So far, very consistently, I am finding a greater degree of rise for the pH change when using the white starter compared with the rye starter. I can only assume that the difference is from the higher LAB population to yeast population in the rye starter and thus lower LAB to yeast in the white flour fed starter.
I have always feared that the white flour fed starter might be less hardy, but so far it hasn’t proven to be any less hardy, but time will tell.
Benny