May 27, 2024 - 12:19pm
Hamelman's Workday 100% Whole Wheat Again
Here's the formula from "Bread" 3rd edition: "Workday" 100% Whole Wheat
Hamelman's name for this formula comes from the fact that he designed it so that all the work can be done early in the morning or in the evening before or after real work.
- Friday morning I refreshed my 100% rye 100% hydration starter (from "The Rye Baker) and let it sit in the proofer at 70 F all day
- Friday evening I mixed the levain
- Saturday morning I mixed the dough, adding an additional 5% water (for a total of 85%) during the last minute of mixing. The base formula at 80% hydration says no additional folds are necessary; my experience is that at 85% hydration the dough needs some additional development to hold shape. So at 30 minutes I did some stretch-and-folds, at 1 hr, coil folds, and at 1 1/2 hrs I did a lamination fold and worked in the 15% walnuts that my wife loves. After mixing and each of the extra folds, the dough seemed to be more developed than it had been on previous bakes; damned if I know why. I used about 1/3 King Arthur whole wheat flour and the rest from Bob's Red Mill, which I think claims slightly higher protein than KA. Maybe that was the difference, or maybe my luck was just in. After the last fold, I went out for the day Unrelated Photos (but how often do you see a sealion giving someone the finger).
- Saturday evening, I re-read for the nth time Hamelman on shaping oval loaves, and pre-shaped and shaped one double oval loaf, floured up the banetton, and put it in the fridge in a big ziplock bag to proof overnight.
- Sunday morning, I warmed the banetton up in the proofer for 10 minutes, put boiling water in the steam pan, spritzed the loaf and scored it, and loaded it into the oven. Another spritz at 5 minutes in; at 15 minutes the steam pan came out and the temp came down per the formula. 15 minutes later (10 minutes short of the minimum baking time in the formula), the bread was done Workday 100% Whole Wheat, with slices and sandwich toppings
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Hi Louis, you piqued my interest with this recipe. I looked it up in Hamelman’s book and is now on my “bake soon” list. I note some subtle changes you made that have produced a very nice result. I like the addition of the walnuts. I intend to mill the whole wheat the day before and use it at 100% extraction. I noticed that you went with a liquid levain rather than a stiff one. My stiff starter is rye, so I assume there will be some rye residue in the final levain build. Hopefully, it will come out as good as yours.
PS: I loved your sailing photos. :)
Cheers,
Gavin
Thanks for your kind comments. My starter is 100% whole rye @100% hydration, which I think counts as a stiff starter because of the absorption of the rye; it certainly isn't liquid.
When I mix the levain per the formula it's a pretty stiff lump of dough, and at room temp (70 F) for 12 hrs it doesn't expand much. The final dough does get some more volume during 12 hrs at 70 F, but it doesn't double. It does expand a surprising amount amount in the fridge for 12 hrs. It's always a surprise for me because my San Diego, CA rye starter seems to go dormant in the fridge pretty quickly, but it loves temps ~85 F. I guess it takes a while to cool down the culture once it's in a good sized loaf (I usually make one double size loaf rather than two smaller ones).
My notes on the formula are:
My sense is if you push the hydration to 90%, it should open up the crumb a bit more but it won't support any additions.
Thanks for your formula notes, particularly about the sugar as I try an avoid sugar also.
Cheers,
Gavin
I love molasses, and like honey a lot, but I have to avoid them as much as possible for health reasons. Both are about 20% water, so that's what I substitute. I just skip any sugar in bread formulas. In practice that means that I just don't bake sweet breads (except for challah, for friends on special occasions, and I try not to eat much of it).
Here are my notes on this and that related to bread baking, and a bunch of formulas, mostly high in whole grains and mostly from "Bread" or "The Rye Baker"; there's a section on recipes with sourdough discard as well Bread Formulas
That's a great resource! Thanks for posting it.
TomP
Thankyou so much for your notes. Very well collated and rich with useful information.