This is a follow-up to Precaud's interesting post on enhancing oatiness. And my, what a journey. I love my oats, and have lots of experience making them for granola, incorporating a portion into my bread and so forth, but at a high percentage, oats do very funny things.
So I made three oat breads this weekend, all with the same ratios of 5:4:1 for oat: white bread flour: red whole wheat. Apart from the first bread being made with SD and the other two made with IDY, the most significant change was the hydration.
The idea was to do what I have always done for my granola, albeit at a higher hydration. I found that soaking the oats for a couple of hours before baking them really brought out their oatiness (aside: I started doing it to make them more digestible for family members, but in the meantime found out that this was a great method to also make granola clusters!!!)
For this bread, the method is as follows: The night before baking, I soak the oats in milk, some lemon juice and a sprinkle of rye flour, and leave overnight in the fridge. The next day, I mix the soaked oats with the white and wholegrain flours, water and yeast. Note: I use normal cooking oats, not quick-cooking or steel-cut.
First loaf
For the first loaf I decided to apportion some of the bread flour and all the whole wheat flour to a levain. I went with a conservative 100% hydration of the oats (so equal weight oats and milk). The next day, all the oats had soaked up the milk and were not mushy at all. I mixed up the dough, levain and added enough water to make a dough that felt like 80% hydration. BF and final proof took 8 hours.
Results: Very tasty, but sourness overpowers oatiness. Dough got drier and drier during BF, which told me that the oats could have soaked up more water overnight. Pleasant loaf, but could definitely be more moist.
Second loaf
Decided to increase hydration of soaked oats to 130%. Mixed in instant dry yeast to dough the next day. Added water to go beyond what I'm comfortable dealing with in a loaf, anticipating dough becoming drier like previous attempt. I was not comfortable, indeed. But dough ended up being where I wanted it to be, and bread turned out extremely well. Oatiness comes through much better now. But I wondered if the rise would be even better with increased hydration?
Third loaf
Encouraged, I decided to increased the hydration of the soaked oats to 150%. I think this version is the one I'm most happy about (the picture right at the top of the post). Here are the figures to make a 600g loaf :
Oak soaker: 150g normal cooking oats, 225g room temp or cold milk, squeeze of lemon juice, 1 tbsp of rye flour
If possible, leave this at about 22-25 degrees for 3 hours before refrigerating it overnight. If not, just dump it into the fridge. The next day, all the oats would have soaked up the milk - there should be no milk left in the container. Add to the oats: 120g bread flour, 30g wholewheat flour, 1g instant dry yeast, 4g salt, 10ml agave syrup (optional), about 65g water.
Note: We do end up with the ratio of dry:wet ingredients being 1:1. (I'm cautious about calling this 100% hydration because most of the liquid was used as a soaker.)
When first mixed, the dough is unruly and hopeless.
But after 3 hours, it gets better.
BF took 8 hours and final proof took 2 hours. I baked it for 25 mins at 220C and 15 mins at 205C.
Too late here now to take a crumb shot, but essentially the same as the second loaf - moist, not crumbly at all, good bite with oats texture.
The real winner of this loaf is the crust - it is insanely delicious, like eating a granola crumb. I really have never achieved anything like this before. I will certainly be baking more of this bread in future.
Some notes:
1. It's a horribly wet dough to be confronted with. I simply used a spatula to fold the batter-dough upon itself, a couple of times over the first 4 hours of BF. Obviously there's no kneading whatsoever. I suppose it could work with a mixer but I don't have one.
2. I think my oats probably reach maximum hydration overnight in the fridge at about 120%, so it is possible to apportion more liquid content to be added to the final dough the next day, instead of soaking the oats in more liquid overnight. I do this simply to break down the oats a little more, and to be hyper sure that the oats have soaked up enough such that they don't start drying out my dough. If you prefer your oats to have a firm bite, I advise sticking with an overnight hydration of not more than 120%, then adding more water to the final dough.
3. I think the wholewheat does contribute a distinct flavour and bite to the loaf. I like it, but if you want even more oatiness, that would be something to completely omit. I would incorporate spelt, emmer or einkorn instead. In fact I will try that soon.
4. There is barely any rise during BF. I shaped it when it started smelling really good and yeasty, and the surface of the dough had some tension. Again, no real idea when to bake it. The bread looks and tastes good, so the timings kind of worked. Don't know what would have happened if I waited longer, but I was hungry!!!
5. I think replacing the agave syrup with oat malt, and further coating the bread with oats will bring the oatiness to the next level.
And finally, a shot of my granola to bring an end to this oaty post:
