Ciabatta Multicereali

Another Italian style bake using my DIY multi-cereal flour blend, as developed for my recent Pagnotta Multicereali bake.

It comprises 85% Dallagiovanna Manitoba flour with the balance being an equal parts mix of wheat, rye, barley, oats and rice grain all freshly milled together.

I've never had much luck with naturally leavened ciabatta - mine tend to be tough as old boots and with small alveoli, so I used fresh yeast in a 45% hydration biga. 100% of the flour is in the biga.

I made the biga in my Kenwood Chef with the K beater. I highly recommend this method as it is so easy. You just put the flour in the mixer, run at low speed and slowly trickle in the yeasted water and mix until all the flour is just hydrated.

It's important that all the flour is hydrated and I don't think some other methods of mixing do this.

The biga temp should be about 22c after mixing. It is then stored at 18-19C for 18-20 hours.

The rest of the bake was standard ciabatta method. Note that without a spiral mixer it is difficult to hydrate a 45% hydration biga and it might be better to make it at a somewhat higher hydration.

Here is my bake log:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FzIimDFs-A3mwSydhgP-w8xGJnLGHufG/view?usp=sharing

Biga ready to put in mixer:

I'm happy with this bake - good crispy crust and open crumb.

Lance