dabrownman's blog

The 123 SD recipe is one of the very best ones and by far the easiest to remember. It seemed the perfect recipe for Job’s Challenge Bake where the baking process in the temporary, brick WFO would be a bit complex and way more complicated than using the electric Big Old Betsy that bakes our usual loaves.

This bread was 20% whole 5 grain that made up of equal parts of red and white wheat, rye, spelt and Kamut for the whole grains and Lafama AP for the rest of the dough flour. The NMNF levain was a 2 stage bran one with the bran being the first stage and the high extraction 5 grain the 2nd stage.

The levain totaled 10% pre-fermented flour and it was retarded for 24 hours after it doubled at the 8 hour mark on the heating pad. The dough flour was autolyzed for 1 hour with the PHSS salt sprinkled on top as the levain warmed up on the counter. We stirred the levain down when it came out of the fridge and it managed to rise 25% before it hit the autolyse.

We did 50 slap and folds to get the autolyze and salt mixed in and then did 2 more sets of 4 slap and folds and 3 sets of 4 stretch and folds – all on 30 minute intervals to develop the gluten. We then pre-shaped it and final shaped it into a boule and placed it seam side down into a rice floured basket. We bagged it and placed it in the fridge for a 36 hour retard.

When the dough came out of the fridge this morning, we fired up the temporary WFO with the Combo cooker inside for the first time. After an hour of loading in small, 1” diameter stick,s it had created a nice layer of coals that was very, very hot – over 1000 F.

The lid came off the combo cooker.

The combo cooker read 750 F. We let the oven cool down over the next hour before firing up a starter ½ tower of charcoal briquets just in case they were needed for the top cover of the oven once the top of the combo cooker came off to help brown the top.

The coals go on top to brown the bread.

Once the tower was fired up we unmolded the bread onto parchment on a peel and slashed it tic–tack-toe style. We used the parchment as a sling to get the dough into the cooker, covered it with the lid, placed the CI griddle in top to close off the oven and put the cast Iron griddle across the front to close it off. The bottom of the combo cooker read 355 F when the dough was loaded but the fire below was much hotter.

We let the oven go for 18 minutes before taking off the CI lid and front covers and the top of the combo cooker. We replaced the CI front and top lids and placed a layer of charcoal briquets on the top lid to help brown the top. The bread had really blistered, sprang and bloomed very well under the CC lid and steam.

We baked the bread for 12 more minutes without steam before uncovering the CI lid and front of the oven and removing the bread to the cooling rack. It looked beautiful. – the best looking bread we have ever baked and it read 208 F on the inside – just perfect. But, and there are always buts with most things – especially new ones. The bottom was overbaked and black – so the bread wasn’t the best looking one we have ever made after all.

It has been a while since I smelled like a campfire and 50 years since had had tried to bake outside on a WFO and the first time we have tried to bake bread this way. Lucy slept the whole time on the grass in the back yard – one of her favorite places to sleep in the winter.

I turned it upside down to finish cooling and it mooshed the top down a bit.

Next time we will use a baking stone for the bottom and let the fire cool some more before loading the bread. We might bake 1 more loaf before tearing the oven down and putting the bricks back on the rocket stove. We will have to wait in the crumb shots.

The crumb came out very open soft and moist. If you cut off the bottom 1/4 inch you are left with one of the beat breads ever baked in a temporary WFO in Lucy's back yard. . Without the bottom this is still on emof the best breads we have ever baked which is saying a lot after 500 different breads baked ever the last 4 years:-) Bread out of WFO just tste that much better and why traditonal artisan bread has to be baked in one,

Let's have a salad with that bread. The Rocket Stove all put back together. Now we can build a new oven for the next WFO bake!

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December 13, 2016 - 10:29am

dabrownman

Temporary WF Brick Oven for Open Fire / No Oven Bread Challenge

Here isJob;s Challenge Post - http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/49867/no-oven-bread-day-december-16-2016

The cover picture is the one where the top part of the oven, where the bread is baked, is closed off by a CI griddle allowing the bottom firebox to be open and another CI griddle to cover the top of the baking area. The base is an old outdoor firepit. The design lets us easily take the lid off the combo cool=ker when the steaming is done, allows us to controll the heat and holds as much heat as loose bricks can.

The top of the oven is covered in another CI griddle with a hole to regulate the heat to either close off the baking chamber to cool it off or let some air flow through it. This cover comes off quickly so that hot coals can be loaded on top of the CI skillet the bread is baked in to provide heat from the top. Coals can then be put on top of the Ci cover to provide heat to the top of the loaf when the combo cooker lid comes off.

The Combo Cooker fits tightly in the baking chamber bit the lid will come off easily. There is just enough headroom from the top of the combo cooker to the covering griddle to put a layer of coals on top of the cooker.

There is an open grate from my 22" Weber charcoal grill that acts as the rack for the combo cooker to sit on making the bottom of the cooker in direct contact with the wood firebox below. Since the firebox is always open we can keep loading more wood in as needed to keep the temperature just right.

We have a Plain Jane 123 SD bread to bake in this oven tomorrow. The only bad thing is we had to tear down the top of the rocket stove to make this WFO. No worries - it will go back together very fast once this bake is done. We shall see how well this oven works soon enough.

Happy WFO baking

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December 9, 2016 - 12:55pm

dabrownman

Leftover Bread

My wife found some high extraction sprouted rye and high extraction sprouted red and white wheat hanging around somewhere. I knew it was sprouted because it said it was on the label on the lids. I’m guessing it was ground up about month ago…… so you could say it was properly aged, the term millers use to make people think they are getting their flour at the peak of freshness when it really just hiding their 30 day supply chain timeline to get it to you.

I can’t remember the last time we used home ground flour that was a month old. I knew it was high extraction flour because, when we put it though the sieve, nothing was captured in it. I suppose we used the bran to feed the NMNF starters, one rye and one wheat, when we refreshed them about a month ago.

At any rate, I knew Lucy wasn’t going to come up white a bread that had no whole grains in it and sure enough she specified 12% whole red and white wheat to be used in the 3 stage, 100% hydration levain build that had 6 g each of rye and wheat NMNF starter. The first stage feeding was the bran sifted from the whole grains and the other two stages used up the rest of the freshly milled high extraction wheat.

There was no time to retard the built levain since we started it early Thursday morning instead of Wednesday as usual, and we used it at the 8 hour mark, two hours after the 3rd feeding when it had doubled in volume. It is cold here, 64 F in the kitchen, but the levain was built on the heating pad at 80 F so it was very fast to get itself going.

We used the 23% sprouted high extraction rye and wheat flour (half each) along with the 75% Albertson’s bread flour for the 40 minute autolyze - with enough water to bring the overall hydration up to 78%, including the levain water and the 2% pink Himalayan sea salt sprinkled on top.

Once the autolyse was done, the salt and levain stirred in we did 50 slap and folds to get the levain and slat well distributed. After a 30 minute rest, we then did 5 sets of (4) stretch and folds- all on 30 minute intervals. We came up with a new way to keep the dough at 78 F over the 3 hours of gluten development.

Homemade sausage noodle turkey soup is tough to beat - and you can't buy it anywhere else!

We put the dough on an oiled very thin plastic mat that was the perfect size when placed on the heating pad. We then covered the dough with the stainless mixing bowl and a towel to keep it warm between the stretch and fold sets – worked great! The dough puffed itself up about 30% over these 3 hours as a result and was ready to hit the rice floured oval basket at the 3 1/4 hour mark after being pre-shaped and final shaped into a squat oval.

Wouldn't it be great if you could grow your own tuna?

The basket was placed in a trash can liner for a 12 hour cold retard in the fridge. Once it came out of the fridge it wasn’t fully proofed so we put it on the counter for a 3 hour warm up and final proof. We unmolded onto parchment on and peel, slashed it lengthwise and placed it into the 500 F combo cooker and then inti the oven between the two stones.

There's that salad - this one has everything in it!

We turned the oven down to 450 F for 18 minutes of steam under the lid and then turned the oven down to 425 F convection for another 12 minutes of baking. 5 minutes into the dry heat baking we removed the bread from the bottom of the cooker so the bread could finish baking on the bottom stone without burning the bottom.

The bread sprang pretty well under steam with some blisters and browned well without it. We took it out of the oven when it hit 207 F on the inside. We will have to wait on the crumb shot. The crumb turned put fairly open, soft, moist and glossy too. The crust went soft as it cooled and the bread reminded me of what SFSD could really be if it tried harder:-) This is a seriously, as opposed to non seriously, great taasting white bread. Just lovely.....the grains and the sour come through as a balancing act where one side is just perfect for the other. I would talk about the possibolities as a sandwich bread but I ahvenlt has one yet.

Formula

12% Whole red and white wheat 3 stage levain - 100% hydration – (2) 3 hour stages and 2 hour 3rd stage.

23% High extraction rye and wheat

75% Albertson’s bread flour

78% overall hydration

2% Pink Himalayan sea salt.

December 2, 2016 - 2:29pm

dabrownman

22.22 Sourdough Bread

2’s are big around here, especially this week. Being a twin, the 2nd one born (a real born loser), in the 2nd month, on the 2nd day, 2 minutes before midnight in 1952 makes 2 a really big deal. It is not a lucky number having lost more money betting on 2 and 22 or even 12 or twice 22 to make one stop betting on 2’s........ if you could.

Still, this bread is 22.22% whole 9 grain – about as white a bread as one would ever want and still have a bread that tastes complex. The 9 grains are red and white wheat, buckwheat, barley, spelt, rye, Kamut, oat and quinoa. I know….none of them are sprouted so the bread isn’t as healthy as it could have been but it will kill you only a bit earlier and hardly worth worrying about.

Lucy wanted to do all kinds of crazy things with this bread but she had to take a back seat for once and hates riding in cars anyway. We have been very busy doing not much of anything else worth doing and pretty much just being lazy loafers – but not more than usual either.

I mean we are old with Lucy pushing well over 90 now. She even smells a bit like one of my 2 great Aunt Minnies - who have both been dead for many a moon. It isn’t a good smell and not something a long bath will correct without some kind of smell good being splashed all over her.

So, it is a plain bread with 13% pre-fermented flour using a NMNF wheat starter for the 3 stage, 100% hydration, bran levain – we have a wheat NMNF starter now too. We didn’t retard the levain either keeping to the lazy loafer theme.

Wife's pumpkin pie for Cousin Jay

We did a 30 minute autolyze, with the PHS salt sprinkled on top, that brought the hydration overall to 75%. It could have easily taken 3% more water if you want bigger holes that have no taste whatsoever. The dough flour was half 10% AP and half bread flour.

Apple Mango Galette

We did 50 slap and folds to get the levain and salt mixed in and then did 2 more sets of 10 slap and folds before doing 3 sets of 4 stretch and folds – all on 30 minute intervals. it had puffed itself up about 30% in those 3 hours even though the kitchen was 64 F.

Stuffed Pork Loin

The reason it was puffy was because we did the gluten development rest periods on the heating pad at 80 F! Once we did the pre-shape and then the final shaping into a boule, we placed it seam side up in a rice floured basket and then bagged it in a trash can liner for the 10 hour retard.

There's that really big chicken!

When the dough came out of the fridge it still wasn’t fully proofed, so we left it on the counter for 3 hours before un-molding, onto parchment, slashing and sliding it into the 500 F oven, between the two stones with the Mega Steam below. We tossed 2 cups of cold water onto the lava rocks as we closed the door.

A P&J sandwich for breakfast the day afer baking.

After 18 minutes of steam at 450 F we turned the oven down to 425 F convection for 12 more minutes until the bread was 209.5 F on the inside. It puffed itself up and bloomed well enough before turning a nice brown color. Have to wait for the crumb shot.

The crumb came out less open then we though it would be but perfect for sandwiches and toast - soft, moist and glossy. With the 9 grains, this one is pretty tasty too!

The first salad of the year from the back yard that has those Black Russsian, yellow and red cherry tomatoes

November 17, 2016 - 10:46am

dabrownman

Homemade Bread Day 2016 – Sprouted 8 Grain Bagels

Lucy wanted to make fruit cake so bad she could taste it and then Danni ruined her party. Poor thing! She feels so sorry for herself. What did she do to deserve this pain and misery? After crying for a whole day and not being able to face the world, she finally came out of her pantry to say that it would be bagels instead.

It has been a while since we made bagels so she had to think long and a-hard about what kind to make. Sourdough and sprouts – yes. Bran levain and a low hydration dough. Bread flour – no high gluten flour. No barley malt syrup either, since we worry about diabetes, but she did add in some red rye malt to spike the color and the taste. No NMNF starter either, but Lucy did use a new, 1 week retarded wheat one instead.

The 8 sprouted grains were red and white wheat, barley, spelt, rye, oat, Kamut and buckwheat. These sprouted grains made up 34% of the flour. The bran was sifted off the sprouted grain, home milled flour and used for the 1st of the 2 stage, 100% hydration, levain build and the 2nd stage was some fo the the high extraction sprouted flour that remained.

Deflation nation.

This levain was very active. The first stage was 3 hours and the 2nd one 4 where it easily doubled. The levain utilized 12% prefermented flour. There was no autolyse of the dough flour for the first time in about forever. We just mixed the 2% salt, 3% red rye malt, levain, dough flour and dough water to bring the whole mix up to 60% hydration- Higher hydration than usual for bagels but not bad for a 34% whole grain bagel that need a bit more water.

We kneaded the old way by hand for about 6 minutes until the dough was mixed and fairly smooth. We let the dough rest for 30 minutes and then did about 15 seconds more kneading followed by 2 hours of rest. The dough had nearly risen 50% when we knocked it back divided it into (6) 115 g balls. These were then made into ropes and left to rest 10 minutes.

We then made the roped a bit bigger so that they were long enough to form bagels over the knuckles. Once they were formed they were placed on parchment paper on a baking tray, bagged in a trach can liner and placed into the fridge for a 10 hour retard. We usually retard our SD bagels for 18 hours but the levain was so active we cut it short.

I's nio all bagels - how about a lunch of herb SFSD, dipping sauce cheeses and a smoked rib?

To compensate for less retard time, we let the bagels warm up in the counter for 30 minutes before starting the preheat of the oven to 500 F. Once the oven was at temperature we started he boiling process where the water had Barley Mat syrup and baking soda in it. We boiled for 30 seconds a side, then a quick dry on a kitchen towel and then into the mix of sesame and white poppy seeds which are beige and darker in color than the sesame seeds.

The first salad of the winter using home grown arugula, red / green lettuce and spinach. Cherry tomatoes aren't ready yet but we will have them by Thanksgiving

I'm always amazed at how deflating the boiling process is and how well they recover in the heat of the oven. We placed the seeded bagels back onto the parchment on the baking sheet and then slid the whole shebang onto the bottom of the two stones. Before closing the oven door, we tossed 2 cups of water into the large, preheated lava rock pan for 8 minutes of steam as we turned the oven down to 450 F.

After 8 minutes, we took the steam out, the bagels had recovered their height by that time and we turned the oven down to 425 Convection to finish baking. Once deemed done, they were removed to the cooling rack. They looked fairly brown but no blisters like normal for some reason.

Safeway has pork ribs in sale till next Wednesday - buy 1 and get 3 free - which works ou to $1.99 a pound. Time to stock up!

We will have to wait for the crumb shot but I would guess they are our usual open but still a bit dense bagel crumb we shoot for. Yes, the crumb is soft, moist and open for a bagel. Have to wait on the taste till tomorrow. Happy Homemade Bread Baking Day.

Formula

12% pre-fermented flour, 100% hydration bran levain using 27 g of wheat SD starter. First stage is 8 grain sprouted bran and 2nd stage is high extraction sprouted 8 grain – 7 hours total for the levain build.

34% sprouted 8 grain

66% Albertson's bread flour

3% red rye malt

60% overall hydration

The prfect chaser for any election - a prickly pear margarita!

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November 11, 2016 - 3:15pm

dabrownman

Lucy’s New Jewish Deli Rye

Lucy being German at heart, has been in the dumps since the election on Tuesday. First she got blindsided by Brexit earlier this year and now by Trump so...... she wanted to throw off the hurt feelings and make one of her favorite breads in a new way - taking it to the next level – just to move on….. into the world the way it is now. Be calm and carry on!

I reminded her that one of the very best character attributes to have and hold dear, is to be able to keep your emotional head in check when everyone else was losing theirs and acting in bizarre and destructive ways. This is what normal people of all stripes look for and admire in their most trusted advisers, spouses, significant others, business associates, employees, employers and peers.

This bake is the culmination of her JDR experiments. We are getting closer all the time. This one is 60 % whole 8 grains - half of them are sprouted. The 8 grains are buckwheat, oat, barley, emmer, red and white wheat, rye and spelt. The 100% hydration levain was built on 10 g of NMNF newly refreshed stiff rye starter, was 8% pre-fermented flour and all of which was bran.

We put 8% of 3 different caraway seeds, 1 black and 2 brown, into the 3 stage levain build for the 1st stage. I wanted to get some rehydrated minced onion in there too but she said I had to wait for pumpernickel for that. This bread would have been better with the rehydrated minced onion in there somewhere.

The entire dough liquid was Boulder Beer’s Shake Chocolate Porter – 1 bottle exactly, which brought the overall hydration to 80%. Yes, Lucy crafted her formula to make sure that I didn’t get a chance to even take a swig of this fine beer on the side. Lucy was also upset that recreational marijuana failed in Arizona too and wanted to take it out on me I’m thinking.

We autolysed the dough flour and beer with the pink Himalayan sea salt for 1.5 hours. We then did 40 slatpand folds to get everything mixed and 2 more sets of 4 slap and folds all on 1 hour intervals. After pre-shaping and shaping into a boule we place the dough seam side down into a rice floured basket and bagged it in a used trash can line for a half hour of counter proof.

We then chucked it in the fridge for a 9 hour retard when we noticed it didn’t do a thing in the cold. After it came out of the fridge, we let it proof for 4 more hours. We then chucked it into a hot combo cooker seam side up for 20 minutes of steam at 500 F.

Once the lid came off we saw some fairly nice bloom, spring and cracking. We took the bread out of the cooker, turned the oven down to 425 F with the convection fan on. 15 minutes later the bread was at 203 F and removed to the cooling rack.

It browned up nicely in the dry heat and took on a very pleasant look the outside. We will have to wait till tomorrow to see the crumb. We give a big shout out to all the Vets who have served our country through thick and thin and sacrificed so much for us to bake our bread in peace and vote for whoever we want, for any reason we want – well done indeed!

Here is why you make this bread - for smoked ribs! The traditional Wonder Bread served in KCMO is not as good!

The crumb is as open, soft and moist as anyone could want but the taste is outstanding . The whole and sprouted grains, caraway flavors and the dark color of the beer and red rye malt really came through. This is a serious JDR that will make some fine sandwiches and it did make great toast woth cream cheese this morning for breakfast.

The classic smoked brisket sandwich, swiss cheese, relish and Dijon with sides of pickles, oven steak fries and a salad - yummy!

Formula

8% prefermented all bran, 3 stage, 100% hydration levain using 2% NMNF rye starter with 8% caraway seeds.

60% whole 8 grain - half sprouted

2.5% Red Rye Malt

80% Boulder Beer Shaker Chocolate Porter.

2% salt

We made some beer can chicken this week and had a fine salad with it.

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November 4, 2016 - 5:00pm

dabrownman

Wow! 2 Breads for a Friday Bake

My daughter is going to party with a bunch of her Chi Oh Friends from college tomorrow and they are making Bruschetta. Guess who gets to supply the bread by request – Lucy! Ever since she made her way to the Pumpkin Cover, she has been in big demand – at least in her head.

I told her the Punkin’ Thing is like being on a milk carton but she wasn’t buying it largely because she said she hasn’t gone missing – and I said yet! One of the breads has to be some kind of light whole multigrain SFSD.

My daughter thought one ought to be a similar bread grain wise but with some EVOO, sun dried tomato, garlic and rosemary bread like our pizza dough. Lucy thought that one should be a yeast water and SD bread…. just to make it taste even more different and give us a chance to use the long neglected YW hiding in the back of the fridge for months on end.

Then we could refresh it and let it sit for a few more months as we made one SD bread after another again. Lucy says that YW is too stupid to know it is being neglected, abused and taken advantage of but she looked a bit shocked when I told her that was exactly what the YW says said about her too.

Both of these breads were made with the same 5. whole grains Kamut, spelt, rye, red and white wheat. The YW bread levain had 24% pre-fermented flour using Lafama AP flour. After 8 hours, the 100% hydration YW levain was stirred down and 4 g of NMNF rye SD starter was added. The levain was then fermented for another 8 hours.

The whole grains for the YW dough flour totaled 19 % and the remaining dough flour was 50% Lafama AP and bread flour. The 1T rosemary, 2T sun dried tomato and 1 clove of garlic were to taste. It was a great dough to work with because it was 71% hydration overall. We used 2% pink Himalayan sea salt.

The SD bread levain was a, 12 hour, 3 stage. 100% hydration bran levain for the first stage, using 17% pre-fermented flour. The next two stages were high extraction portion of the whole grains. The rest of the dough flour was Albertson’s bread flour.

Both of the breads had the same gluten development of 40 slap and folds, followed by 3 sets of stretch and folds all on 1 hour intervals. The YW bread was then shaped into an oval

This week's galette is our very favorite one Apple, Snockered Dried Fruits and Fresh Ginger

The SD bread was not retarded and placed into a rice floured basket for a counter proof. Both of the breads wee baked at the same time. The YW bread was baked in a DO and the SD bread was baked on a stone with Mega Lava Rock Steam so the oven had both baking methods going on at the same time – a first even for Lucy!

The white bread is more lofty but the herbed one is more open and has more irregular holes. Who knew?

We did 5 minutes of steam at 500F then 13 minutes at 450 F. We then took the lid of one and removed the steam pan for the other, turned the oven down to 425 F for 14 more minutes of dry baking when the bread browned up. Both breads read 208 F when they were removed to the cooling rack.

The herb YW bread smelled better and blistered up nicely like a cool retarded white bread should but the SD bread rose taller, bloomed a bit more and got a shade darker than the YW bread. Both were perfectly acceptable but I would guess the crumb on the SD will be a bit better too.

We will have to wait on the crumb shots tomorrow since my daughter only get half of each bread for her soiree with the girls. Both of these breads are tasty and oddly the not as tall, herb bread is the more open one.

My wife and I might have to have the same dinner as the girls. The SD bread toasted with butter, red raspberry jam, goat brie cheese and egg, sausage and thick apple wood smoked bacon made a fine breakfast sandwich.

Lucy says - Don't forget that salad or maybe two of them

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November 1, 2016 - 12:36pm

dabrownman

Halloween Pizza and Lucy on a Pumpkin

This was a special Halloween. It has been years since our daughter was home for one. The last time she was here we carved a Chi Oh Owl Pumpkin. This time we put Lucy on Pumpkin. It scared the heck out of her too!

We have a tradition of having homemade pizza for All Hallows Eve too. This time I managed to sneak in 2 g of NMNF rye starter in with a pinch of instant yeast to make the dough. The rest of the recipe was a bit different. No preferment, a bit of honey and olive oil, 48 hours in the fridge after 2 hours of gluten development with a bit of garlic, sun dried tomato and rosemary in the dough - as per our usual.

We made our usual spicy pizza sauce. The toppings were hot Italian sausage, pepperoni, caramelized onion and caramelized crimini mushrooms to go with some Manchego, mozzarella. ricotta and Parmesan cheeses and some fresh basil for garnish. So, it was a simple pizza for once.

The dough really puffed itself up in the fridge and it easy enough to spread out into a pizza shape since the flour was half AP and half bread flour at 70% hydration. The oven was preheated to 550 F, the pizzas baked on the bottom stone and the top stone was lowered down to get as much heat on the top as possible.

The dough browned up nicely top and bottom and the pizzas came out crispy as could be – no soggy, fold over pizza is ever allowed In Lucy’s Pizzeria. It was yummy to boo. The girls couldn’t decide if they liked this crust better than the one last time but as soon as I told them that this on had sourdough in it they both side last time was better!

I thought both were pretty good. Everyone enjoyed Lucy on a Pumpkin too! We had a great Halloween…… which is judged by how much candy is left over – we have plenty of our favorites including a new one – dark chocolate Kit Cats and pumpkin shaped Reese’s.

Lucy reminds us to make sure to have a salad with that pizza!

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October 29, 2016 - 9:44am

dabrownman

100 % Sprouted 7 Grain Sourdough at 100 % Hydration

Sadly, all the pictured I took of this bake were taken at the wrong steting resulting in files that were too large to upload - so we make do with a few crumb shots

After 3 weeks of white SD combinations to formulate a modern SFSD, Lucy has gone back to her darker side that she calls ‘Sweetness in Life’ we went back to exploring a 100% sprouted multi-grain bread. 100% sprouted breads are difficult to make and have then come out looking half decent…. without over fermenting and or over proofing.

Since all the enzymes have been unleashed in the sprouting process they tend to make thing happen very fast in the resulting bread so, generally speaking, the sprouted whole grains don’t need a lot of autolysing to get the starch breaking down into sugars or get the protease breaking the protein gluten strands.

She picked 20% each white & red wheat, spelt and rye with 10% Kamut and then 5% each barley and oat for the sprouted grains. Lucy thought long and hard about what the rest of recipe would look like and decided on 100% hydration sprouted bran levain using 20% sprouted bran.

She also used 100% hydration overall, 2% salt and 1% red rye malt but then got bogged down on what the seed, fruit and nut add ins should be. She is a sucker for a packed crumb if it is a tinned bread so she went that way and could pick a bunch of stuff for the crumb.

She finally decided on Mission Figs for the fruits, sesame, poppy, sunflower and pepitas seeds. She was torn on the nuts but said I could choose either walnuts or pecans so I chose Brazil nuts because we hadn’t used them in a while and they are great n breads like this one. Fruits were 20%, as were the nuts the seeds – just to make the recipe easy.

Dipping sauce lunch with last weeks bake.

Once the 3 stage sprouted bran levain was finished, we added it to the 1 hour autolyse of high extraction sprouted flour instead of retarding it. We did 40 slap and folds to get everything mixed and then did 2 sets of 10 slap and folds on 30 minute intervals before completing 3 set of 4 stretch and folds on 20 minute intervals.

Stuffed grilled chicken.

We pre-shaped and shaped the loaf into an oval log and plopped it into the Oriental style Pullman pan for final 12 hour proofing in the fridge wrapped in a trash can liner. In the morning, it looked about right to get the oven fired up and the lid on the Pullman. Once the oven hit 500 F we loaded the dough in the oven between the two stones.

5 Minutes later we turned the oven down to 450 F and 15 minutes after that we slid the lid off and turned the oven down to 425 F – convection this time. 15 Minutes later we removed the bread from the pan and loaded it onto the oven rack for the last 40 minutes of baking. It read 202 F when we took it out of the oven.

The crust browned up very dark due to long baking time but we will have to wait on the crumb shot. The crumb came out OK for a loaf like this one. Since it didn't have any aromatic bread spices this one didn't smell as nice as a rye bread would if made like this one...... but the taste was very good - we especially like the dark crust. - yum! Even though the bread baked a very long time the crumb was still moist. I just put some butter on it and had it for breakfast untoasted,. It didn't need anything else.

Due to file size problems we missed out on the pumpkin pie, pear tart, smoked country stlye ribs

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