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I made a half-serious resolution to bake in the outdoor oven at least once a month, and after a few weeks with subzero temperatures, and a weekend out of town, this was my last chance for February. We had a warm up all week, but it was only about 20 degrees at 8 am when I started the fire. We have a pretty good view of the oven from the house, so I was able to load it up with fuel and keep an eye on it from inside, so it's not too bad! The only problem was the warm temps created a very muddy yard, so between me and the dog coming in and out all day my house is not a pretty sight.

For this bake, I made three batches of bread: 2 ABAA recipes: the columbia sourdough, and Ponsford's ciabatta, with a levain-risen biga. I also made a couple of loaves of my favorite multigrain sandwich bread, my own recipe adapted from Reinhart's multigran extraordinaire. I mixed the columbia the night before, and as Mountaindog suggested in another thread let it rise about an hour before refrigerating it. I pulled it first thing in the morning, and let it warm up for 3 hours or so before shaping. The ciabatta biga calls for a minute amount of yeast, so I wasn't sure how much levain to substitute. The recipe's description is that the biga may not do much for hours, but will triple in volume in 24 hours, so I decided on a couple of tablespoonfuls of levain, and it perfomed just about right. I would probably use even less in summertime, or if my starter was exuberant.

All in all it was pretty uneventful, though I'm starting to realize that I need to let the fire burn down sooner, and/or allow extra time for the oven to cool off before baking. I keep finding myself with ready-to-go loaves and a 500+ oven, which is fine for some breads but a little too hot for others. Anyway my timing was such that it was consistenly 25 degrees or so hotter than I needed for each batch. I can leave the door open to speed up the cooling, but I worry about overdoing that too. I'm still learning, obviously. Here's some pics from the day:

Multigrain loaves in the oven with chcken curry--that turned out very well (made by my SO).

Some of the ciabattas got a wee bit dark. I've had a habit of taking them out a little too early, so I left them in longer--and overdid it the other way. Everything was quite dark actually, the flash makes them look just right though... :)

Ciabatta crumb: Not bad, but a little less holey than the non-levain version I made last time. The flavor is excellent though...

And finally, while finishing up with granola, it started snowing!! This wasn't expected to start until after midnight, but you know how that goes. I burned one batch of granola, and I blame blizzard conditions for my tardiness on checking on it!  We now have 8 inches of snow with more on the way--so I'm happy at home with wayyyy too much to eat.

Does anyone know where to buy bulk quantities of Instant Yeast

This weekend was a long weekend. Presidents' Day, we call it in the U.S., and presumably, it's a day on which we celebrate the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure both presidents ate sourdough bread at some point, given the scarcity and expense of baker's and brewer's yeast. So, in their honor, I baked sourdough. And apparently, the sourdough beasts were having a party as well -- perhaps it was my rigorous application of an 85 degree F final proof? In any case, the sourdough critters were mighty happy over the long weekend.



On Monday, I made a couple of loaves of Five Grain Whole-Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread. I've never had sourdough rise like this before. And, wow, is it sour. I'm not sure what got the lactobacteria so excited -- the butter? the rye chops? the oats? who knows? -- but it is delicious, if, like my wife and I, you like sour bread.

Here's how I made it:

Ingredients:

• 430g starter (at 60% hydration)
• 560 grams whole wheat flour
• 465 grams water
• 18 grams salt
• 27 grams butter (roughly 2 Tbs)
• 170 grams mixed grains (cracked wheat, ground flaxseed, rye chops, millet, steel-cut oats) soaked overnight in 250 grams hot water

After posting a forum question here on desem a few weeks back, I got some helpful hints from gt, JMonkey, pumpkinpapa, northwestsourdough, and maki (thanks all). I studied the recipes in The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book and The Bread Builders, and improvised between them and what JMonkey posted here. I converted an existing vigorous batter starter to a stiff whole wheat one to make the desem starter, then fed it for the past 2 weeks more or less according to Laurel's method, burying it in fresh whole wheat flour, storing it in my cool 59F basement in between 1:1:2 daily feedings. After 2 weeks, the desem starter seemed nice and spongy, so I decided to give making a desem loaf a try this weekend.

Here is my little ball of desem just brought up from the basement ready to be expanded. It no longer needs to be buried in flour at this point, so as per Laurel, I keep it wrapped in 2 layers of clean linen inside an airtight container.

The inside of the ripe desem looks nice and spongy...

For this recipe, I used Allan Scott's weight ratios in The Bread Builders, just dividing his recipe by 6 for two smallish loaves rather than 12. I took about 230 g (8 oz) of my ripe desem, tripled it by adding 150 g water and 300 g flour, to give me 680 g (1.5 lbs) of expanded desem starter. I took 230 g (8 oz) of that and wrapped it up for storage as the starter, while the remaining 460 g (1 lb) was left at room temp. to ripen for 14 hours for making the final dough.

The just-fed desem starter ready to go back into the cellar:

Here is the final dough recipe I used (makes two smallish loaves):

453 g ( 16 oz) ripe desem starter

726 g (26 oz) organic whole wheat flour

631 g (22 oz) cool water

14.2 g (0.5 oz) sea salt

Dissolve the ripe desem starter (refreshed or expanded 14-16 hours before) into the water and mix well. In large mixing bowl, combine salt and flour, then add water/starter mix and knead with dough hook on stand mixer until blended. Continue to knead at speed 2 for 12 minutes. Dough will be softer than starter dough, but smooth and slightly tacky/sticky at the end of kneading. Place dough in covered bowl or container and let rise for 4 hours at 65-70F. Dough should have risen slightly, turn it out onto counter after 4 hours and divide in half, give each half a stretch and fold, and form into two tight boules. Place each boule in a floured banneton and cover with plastic to proof for 2.5 hours at 80-90F.

(Here is where I had a slight dilemma - I had to unexpectedly leave for the rest of the afternoon/evening just as I shaped my loaves to proof, so I put them in the frig overnight, took them out at 5:30AM the next morning, and let them warm up for a few hours until they rose enough and looked ready to bake - I did not want to over-ferment them since the recipe's final proofing time is rather short).

I preheated my oven to 500F and placed a lightly oiled 5 qt. Lodge cast-iron dutch oven inside to preheat as well. When the oven was ready, I flipped the firm dough out of the banneton and into the hot dutch oven, slashed the top, and covered it with the lid - no misting/steaming necessary. I baked it at 500F for 20 min. covered (it smelled great while baking...), then turned it down to 450F and baked it for another 20 minutes uncovered, after which it was nicely browned and the internal temp. measured 204F. So far things look pretty good:

I could hardly wait to cut into it to see if I had a brick or something worthwhile. It felt lighter than I expected when I placed it on the cooling rack. After 1.5 hours, I sliced in, and was very pleased with the result. Although I didn't get big holes, the crumb was not at all dense or heavy, instead it was very light. The crust was exceptional - very crispy on the outside, while the crumb was light, moist, and slightly chewy, with a nice flavor and no whole wheat bitterness.

A few more slices...it was delicious...

...crumb shot...

I am hooked - this bread was great, despite having my process interrupted and having to retard it overnight. I look forward to making it again, and hope that it will be even better as the desem starter matures over time. Maybe I'll even get bigger holes someday, but if not, this is still a delicious, light bread for a lean 100% whole wheat one. I am especially pleased with the results the Lodge dutch oven gave - the crispy crust and the high domed shape of the loaf - and no metallic taste, probably due to proper seasoning. I picked it up thinking I'd try a no-knead bread at some point, but have not got around to it yet - nice to know it is useful in this way as sort of a la cloche as well.

This is the flour I used for the desem - maybe someday I'll grind my own wheat berries to make fresh whole wheat flour like Allan Scott and Laurel Robertson do, but for now, I am pretty happy with King Arthur.