leslieruf's blog

It was absolutely bucketing down and as we had been warned of the approaching storm I decided to make yesterday a bake day.  Refreshed Yeast water and levain on Saturday and made initial builds of levain and left overnight.  It is winter and so things are moving a bit slowly.

First off the rank was a repeat of Abe’s Swiss Farmhouse bread.  I followed the recipe here

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56266/swiss-farmhouse-bread-using-raspberry-yw

pretty much so won’t repeat the whole method.  The changes I made were to use a mix of pecan and brazil nuts as I didn’t have enough pecan nuts and the bazil nuts needed to be eaten.

 The other change was instead of mixing gently by hand, I actually did 150 slap and folds to incorporate everything except nuts and raisins.  Once I felt I had enough gluten development I patted the dough out and spread nuts and raisins over it and continued with gentle stretch and folds until they were mixed in thoroughly.  Only one stretch and fold after about an hour.  Baked the loaves late afternoon.  Dough was easy to work with, shaped well and I think baked up beautifully. Here is the Crumb shot

Just before lunch I mixed up the flours and water for a 2nd try of Ru’s Toasted Oat sourdough.  I wanted to see if I needed as much water as last time.  I added all of the water as I went and the dough just sucked it up.  I ended up adding another 30 gms so hydration was actually more like 100%!!    My method was the same as here

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56356/rus-toasted-oat-sourdough

I shaped the easy to manage dough, put it in the banneton seam side down (first time ever!) and gave it a bench rest of 1 hour before retarding overnight.  This morning I baked as usual.  The seam opened up and seems to have created a bit of a hole in the centre, probably poor shaping on my part.  I think I prefer the way a score opens on a batard so don’t think I will do this again.

 Crumb shot

Lastly I made Teresa Greenway’s Potato water Blister Crust sourdough BUT I found a little kamut in the fridge left over from another bake.  I substituted this small amount for 1.55% bread flour.  The dough certainly felt different – a bit more grainy, but by the time I had finished bulk ferment all the liquid was absorbed and dough was quite poofy.  I made 3 x 550 g loaves, retarded overnight and baked this morning.  I wanted to try different scoring patterns so each was scored differently.  They baked up really well and I was happy with oven spring.

The crumb is not at all what I expected.  But it is slightly yellow from the very small amount of kamut, the texture is fine and soft and although I haven’t tried it yet, a friend to whom I gave one loaf said it was delicious!

this one inspired by isand66"s lovely scoring patterns!

The crumb is not at all what I expected.  But it is slightly yellow from the very small amount of kamut, the texture is fine and soft and although I haven’t tried it yet, a friend to whom I gave one loaf said it was delicious!

So a busy day, a really good bake and we had thunder, lightening, rain (142 mm in 24 hours) but although we are expecting more rain tonight, it has been quieter! Thank heavens.  

Leslie

I was so very happy to see Ru back with us that I decided to make her Toasted Oat Sourdough.  I started of with a hiss and a roar and then decided I should check the recipe (alway dodgy to trust memory these days.)  

Wednesday evening I milled the whole wheat berries and rye berries that I would need for this recipe.  I sifted the wheat flour to get the bran. 

Levain Build (wednesday evening)

25 g refreshed starter + 105 g flour + 28 g bran + 106 g water. Mix and leave overnight on bench.

Soaker (Thursday morning)

133 g rolled oats, dry toasted then cooled. Then added 266 g boiling water, covered and left while I went off to Pilates.

Levain has risen but not looking as active as I would like so quite happy it is not ready yet.

Final Dough Thursday 12:30 pm

Levain is looking better, temperature has risen a bit so ok, ready to go.  Mix together 438 g bread flour + 20 g gluten + 229 g wholewheat + 8 g rye and 275 g water.  Not enough water for this dough!! Added another 55 g - still too stiff.  Added soaker and mixed in more or less.  Still to dry but will leave to autolyse 1 hour.

1:30 pm Add 17.8 g salt, 263 g levain and mix in.  It is still too firm for me so added another 50 g water.  Still think dough is too firm, I don't want a dense loaf.  I think I will add more water over stretch and folds.  

Stretch and fold 3 times incorporating another 30 g water (total water is now 410 g instead of 275 g!) and dough while still firm is more pliable. Leave to bulk ferment.

7:30 pm dough has increased in volume 60 - 70% so I preshape,- Lovely firm preshape leave for 45 minutes before easy final shaping.  Dough was divided into 2 * 555 g and 1 * .675 g loaves.  Overnight retard and baked Friday morning at 240 deg C, 15 minutes lid on and 20 minutes lid off.

I checked Ru's method when I was ready to mix the dough and realised that she had used the wholewheat flour in her levain build.  I had used the bran + bread flour and the sifted wheat flour in the main dough.  This dough was super thirsty and it ends up at about 94 % hydration and I think I could have added more water still. 

Question: would using the wholewheat flour this way be more thirsty than if I had used it in the levain?  Does the added gluten make it more thirsty? 

Crumb shot

This bread is really delicious and it will certainly be made often in future.  The 2 smaller loaves were gifts for friends.

I needed some hamburger buns so I used the Hokkaido Milk bread recipe posted by Breadbabies. 100g rolls, flattened slightly before baking, brushed with milk and topped with sesame seed.  Hamburgers are on the menu tonight so I will see how it goes.

Happy baking

Leslie

Loved this one that Danni had posted  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56209/european-peasant-loaf-take-2

So this was the third loaf that I made this week.  I scaled Danni's formula down as I only wanted to make one loaf.

Monday: refreshed starter and then built 100% levain and left to ripen.  8 pm built the final levain for dough using all bran I had sifted out plus some flour to give me enough flour and left at room temperature overnight

Tuesday: 12:20 pm mixed together flours and water and left to autolyse for 1 hour

40 g breadflour + 40 g spelt freshly milled + 40 g freshly milled rye + 40 g wholewheat freshly milled (not willing to try a second kamut loaf until I had seen the result of my first try) + 3 g gluten + 222 water + 12.6 g ground flax seed.

13:30 pm mix final dough

6 g salt + 8 g yoghurt + 219 g 100% levain.  Was thinking wow this is a lot of levain, but that is what I wrote down, must be correct!  Slap and folds, stretch and folds until all ingredients incorporated then left to rest. At 30 minute intervals did 3 sets of S & f then left to bulk ferment.

Wow, this dough is really moving - no way will I get a long BF.  At 4 pm preshape (dough had doubled!!) and at 4:35 final shape. At 5:15 I placed the dough in the refrigerator as I needed oven for dinner.  

At 6:15 pm placed dough in preheated DO and baked at 450 deg F for 15 minutes lid on, 15 minutes lid off. 

I went back and looked at the notes I had made when I copied Danni"s formula and found that whilst I had divided all her ingredients by 3, I had forgotten to do this for the levain so I had a huge proportion of levain - little wonder it took off like a rocket ship!!

I think I may have bulk fermented a bit too long but the result is ok, it just spread a bit. Danni - what do you think?   If I had had the correct proportion of levain, the dough may have been a bit firmer? 

It is sliced and frozen, will see how it is later in the week.

Leslie

Well I have never used Kamut and managed to find a 400 g packet at a local organic store - it was very pricey!

I milled the kamut and very quickly found it was different to rye spelt or wholewheat and it jammed my mill very quickly.  Panic!! hubby managed to free it up and after I removed the berry causing the issue, I carefully carried on, only to do it again.  This time I could fix it, but proceed very carefully and slowly feeding it through.   I made 2 x 350 gram boules so it is not a big bake.  I have learnt a few things for the next bake.

The recipe has a very  small amount of prefermented flour and a long slow fermentation.  I had refreshed my stiff starter during the morning and mid afternoon built a 100% hydration version.  

8 pm mixed together all ingredients and leave overnight to ferment.  Dough was soft but firm and I had the feeling maybe I should have added more water, but as I have heard kamut ferments quickly, I thought just do as recipe says this time.

Next morning there are tiny bubbles in dough but very little increase in volume so as I had microwave warmed up for the Swiss farmhouse yeast water build, I put the container in there.  By midday it had risen perhaps 50% so I preshaped and left a full hour. 

1:15 pm I did final shape and placed two boules in bowls back in microwave.  I did finger poke and thought yep, there is more volume, not huge but.. ok time to bake. Baked in DO 250 deg F for 15 mins lid on, 15 minutes lid off.  One of these I scored, the other I left to open on seam line.

Well, not much oven spring, they feel heavy and they are not as big as a SD boule the same weight.  Maybe more water would have helped and perhaps I needed a bigger % prefermented flour, and more patience.

Will cut one of these tomorrow.  I am very curious to see how the crumb is and how the flavour is.

Leslie

Abe posted this bread, it looked great, and because hubby is Swiss I just had to have a go.  I used my existing Raspberry yeast water instead of building a new raisin yest water as in the recipe.

Monday afternoon, I removed the yeast water from its hibernation in the fridge, strained off the old fruit and replenished it with a a few raspberries still lingering on the plants, a bit of orange peel, a few raisins and some more water.  I sat the jar in a bowl of warm water and watched it.  Aha.. its fizzing, now I can proceed.  I scaled the recipe Abe gave me, it has 2 stage build of a YW preferrment

Build 1

Bread flour 64 g + 41 g raspberry YW. Mixed at 10 pm and left on bench overnight.

Build 2

Add to Build 1, 81 g bread flour + 38 g freshly milled wholewheat flour + 75 g water.  I mixed all together at 8:30 am and warmed up microwave to about 82 deg F and placed bowl there.  Recipe said 12 - 14 hours, but it was more than doubled and beautifully domed by 1:30 pm.  (Maybe I should have left it at room temp but I thought if I am lucky I can bake today)  

Final Dough mixed at 1:30 pm

All of build 2 = 194 g bread flour + 6 g gluten flour + 6.9 g salt + 153 g water.  I mixed this all together by hand, a few slap and folds, a few stretch and folds until well incorporated.  Then I flattened dough out and spread over 57 g raisins and 84 g chopped pecan nuts (I do not like walnuts which is what recipe called for) then folded dough and slowly incorporated them into the dough.  Left it to sit for just over half an hour then did another 2 stretch and folds and left to ferment. 

4:15 pm I thought, ok time to preshape.  So formed a reasonably tight batard and left it to rest for 45 minutes, before patting out gently into a rectangle and reforming the batard.  Preheated the oven to 450 deg F and DO

6:30 pm all was looking good so unmould dough, slashed and placed in DO and into preheated oven at 450 deg F for 15 minutes lid on, 15 minutes lid off.

Left to cool for several hours before slicing and freezing.  But of course we had to sample it and OMG - it is absolutely scrumptious - will DEFINITELY make this again, and again!! 

thanks Abe - it is very yum indeed.

Leslie

I wanted to have a go at making a porridge bread using Bob's Red Mill 6 grain + flaxseed hot cereal mix.  I added some barley flakes and some wholewheat flour, freshly milled.

Levain: 86 g @ 100% hydration built the day before, with the final build having some bran included. It was left to mature overnight.

Porridge mix:  I wasn't sure about this so I weighed out 54 g cereal mix (20%), 13 g barley flakes (5%) and added 70 g water then cooked it gently.  Straight away I realised I had insufficient water so bit by bit I added water, maybe 30 g but some was lost during cooking. At the end I had 162 cooked porridge. Allowed it to cool.

Mixed the main dough: 202 g bread flour (90%), 27 g wholewheat flour 10% - bran removed and used in levain and 84 g water.  It wasn't enough water so I added another 40 g water and left it for 30 minutes to autolyse. The dough was very firm.  Then added 4.9g salt, 10 g yoghurt and 86 g levain and hand mixed and did a few slap and folds etc until well incorporated.  30 minutes later did 1 set of stretch and folds, adding another 10 g water. Then another 2 sets of stretch and folds before leaving to bulk ferment.  After about 4 hours I preshaped, left for 45 minutes, shaped and popped it in the fridge overnight

Baked next morning 240 deg C for 15 minutes in DO lid on and 15 minutes lid off. 

and the crumb shot.  

The crumb is tender, flavour is good.  First time in a long time that I have added the yoghurt and I am happy with the outcome.  I set out to make this without a known recipe so really winged it.  I need to go back and recalculate my bakers % as they have changed with the additions.  I will make this again, maybe tweak it a bit not so far so good.

At the same time that this bread was bulk fermenting I had Teresa Greenway's Potato Water Blister Crust SD underway.  I love it and the double hydration technique works well.

The crumb is lovely - a delicious bread

I was on a roll, most of it planned. The next 2 loaves were 1:2:3 loaves with 15% freshly milled rye.  One had a firm starter @ 65% hydration and the other a liquid starter at 100% hydration.  Both loaves were mixed, 30 minute autolyse, salt and levain added - slap and fold until incorporated, then 3 sets of stretch and folds at 30 minute intervals.  Bulk ferment was 3.5 hours for the 100% hydration starter, and 4 hours for the firm starter.  Doughs were easy to manage and after shaping were retarded overnight. Baked at 240 deg C for 15 minutes lid on my DO, 15 minutes lid off.  My objective with this bake was to see if there was an obvious effect from the starter.

100% hydration loaf (850 g)

65% hydration loaf (550 g)

So I find that the 100% starter gave a slightly more open, lighter loaf - interesting.  It also bulk fermented quicker.  So although I keep my starter as a 65% STARTER in the fridge, I will continue to build a 100% hydration starter for my breads.

Now for the last bake of the day.  I looked at my container of left over milled flour in the fridge and thought I should use it up.  So I mixed up a 100% levain first thing in the morning using what was left over from the night before.  I popped it in the microwave at 80 deg F and it was ready when i wanted to mix things up.

Flour mix - 187 g of milled, stored spelt, rye and wholewheat and I have no idea of ratios.  I added enough white flour to make the loaf using 250 g so it was 25% white flour.  Just a straight 1:2:3 again.  I was treated as the others and it was the last to proof.  It had a good 12 - 13 hours in the fridge.  I shaped it as a boule and this is what came out.

and here is a crumb shot.  

I am happy with it, it was a total unknown.  Have frozen it so will try it out some time during the week but although it is a little flat, the crumb is ok I think for a 75% whole grain loaf.

It was a marathon day, but as I mixed things one after the other, provided it wrote times down, it worked well and mixes were about 15 minutes apart and stretch and folds 30 minutes so it all coincided most of the time.  The bulk ferments just happened one at a time and there was no drama. I kept my hydrations around 70 - 72% and the dough was good to handle.  Some lessons learnt!

A good day.

Leslie

PS sorry about the photos, don't know how to re orientate them as they were taken with my Samsung phone rather than my ipad. 

DanAyo"s recent post prompted a response by Trevor Wilson.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56018/acedic-vs-lactic-flavor

So time to give this a shot, see if I could do a long warm fermentation such as Trevor suggested without the dough degrading and see what effect it has on flavour.

Sunday morning:  Refresh my mother starter (basically a 1:2:3)  which lives in the fridge. 

Sunday evening: Refresh again keeping to this ratio, making a bit more than I required.

Trevor's suggestion was  to make a lower hydration dough eg 65% hydration with the stiff levain being only 10% of the total dough weight.

330 g flour

214 g water

6 g salt

So Monday morning 7 am I weighed out 55 g stiff levain and added 214 g water.  Then added some of the flour to make a thick slurry before adding the salt and the rest of the flour.  I hand kneaded until I was close to window pane.

As I don't have a proofer, I used the microwave to heat a cup of water, then placed the dough container in the microwave with the light on and the door cracked open.  It held the temperature quite happily at about 80 deg F.

1 pm As per instruction, once the dough had doubled at the 6 hour mark, I removed dough and degassed with firm stretch and folds then returned it to the microwave.

3 pm  repeated the degassing and stretch and folds, did a fairly firm preshape, and returned the dough to the microwave for 60 minutes. 

4 pm The dough had puffed up again so degassed again, shaped firmly into a boule and left to proof.  Pre heated oven and DO.

5:30 pm I think dough is ready to bake, but as dough is warm, instead of scoring I snipped a square shape the baked in DO lid on, fan on at 230 deg C for 15 minutes, 15 minutes lid off.

Crumb shot

The flavour was definitely mild, crumb is soft and close but it is not dense.  

I was happy the dough did not degrade and I think I could probably have left the first bulk ferment a bit longer, it had doubled but was no where near tripling.  The second rise was quicker and it did more than double.  Shaping was not difficult and the dough although warm was not sticky.  It was fun to try something different and  I will try again I think.

While all this was going on, I repeated last week's bake of 25% wholewheat loaves comparing the 2 grains.  This bake was better than last week I think.  When I mixed the levain on Sunday evening I added the bran to the mix to help soften it.  

South Island wheat (780 g loaf)

Crumb

North Island wheat (900 g loaf)

Crumb

Not much between them I reckon.  I think too, adding bran to one of the levain builds is really upping the activity. 

This is a rewrite - tried last night but the gremlins got me, and I lost the whole post.....  :( 

Leslie

The holiday is over.  It was an awesome 3 week trip to our South Island incorporating a 7 day adventure of 4WD in back country, catching up with relations and exploring parts of the country I had never seen before. 

So it is great to eat home made bread again.  Today's bake was a simple loaf of 72% bread flour, 22% rye (freshly milled) and 6% whole wheat (freshly milled) at 77% hydration.  Refreshed starter which had been languishing in the fridge since Mid March, built the levain on Saturday evening, mixed the dough early afternoon Sunday.  I did a hour long autolyse followed by hand incorporating of levain, and salt.  I did 2 sets of 10 slap and folds and 1 stretch and fold.  The dough was left to almost double.  It was nice to handle and far away from the stickiness and problems I had had with Country Style Champlain bakes.  Preshaped just before dinner, then shaped and popped dough in banneton dusted with bran into fridge overnight.  It was baked for 15 minutes at 250 deg C in DO with lid on, and fan on to keep temperature up followed by 15 minutes at 425 deg C.  

It is a great everyday bread that I haven't made for a while. 

Crumb shot, sitting on the sunny bench.

On my travels we visited an organic farm near Christchurch to buy wheat, rye and spelt berries and also some barley flakes.  So in addition to the above bake, I made 2 small loaves comparing the 2 lots of wheat berries that I now have - one from North Island (2)and one from South Island (3).  I used 25% freshly milled wheat and followed the same time lines as above.  Hydration was about 70% so I wasn't pushing it.

There seems to be a bit more volume in bread (2) on left, which was North Island grain. This surprised me as I expected it to be the other way.

Crumb shots

Nothing dramatic, just every day loaves - a good bake.

Leslie

Yesterday was the last day to top up bread for the next week plus leave some in  the freezer for when we return.

So Sunday overnight refreshed the starter, then Monday made 2 builds, converting it to 100% hydration and using bran for the 2nd build.  2nd & 3rd builds combined as we were going to be out until evening.  Before going to bed built the levains required for my bake.

Hamelman"s 5 grain Levain (pictured)

Soaker

Flaxseed 62 g

cracked rye 62 g

sunflower seed 52 g

Rolled oats 52 g

salt 5 g

Boiling water 276 g

Levain

Bread flour 169 g

Water 211 g (yes 125% hydration)

Mature starter seed 34 g

Final Dough

Hi gluten flour 338 g (I used bread flour + 11 g gluten to approximate 13.5% protein)

Wholewheat flour 169 g

Water 175 g

Salt 12.2 g

All the soaker

All the levain

Monday afternoon weighted out the seeds, gave the flaxseeds a quick grind in the coffee grinder so it was a mix of fine and coarse. I use jumbo rolled oats so gave them a quick chop the toasted all the grains and left to cool.  Amazing smell.  I haven't used toasted seed in this amount before.

Monday night before bed mixed the levain and left on bench.  Mixed the soaker allowed to cool then covered it.  It soaked up all the liquid very quickly.

Tuesday morning room temperature is 21 deg C.  Added water and soaker to the levain, mixed well then added to flour and salt mix. Mixed with stretch and folds until all incorporated.  It was pretty sticky and much firmer than I remember from the other occasions I have made  this. Left to rest for 10 minutes then did some for stretch and folds.  I added 2 tspn water (about 6 g) at this point as I felt it was a bit too firm. Left to rest. I did 3 more stretch and folds over next 3 hours then left to finish bulk ferment. 

This is after 2nd lot of stretch and folds. 

2 hours later I divided the dough and preshaped, it had increased maybe 40%. 

I left it for 45 minutes but it didn't relax hugely, but was easy to shape into 2 batards. Turned the oven on to preheat DOs. This time I bench proofed and about an hour or so later it was looking poofy so popped them into the oven 15 mins lid on at 250 deg and then 20 minutes lid off.  I kept the convection on during this bake to keep oven temperature up and it seemed to help. 

Here is the 2nd batard.  After my recent experiences with Tartine style Country Champlain the shaping, scoring etc was a breeze.

and of course, the crumb shot. 

Very happy camper!

At the same time I made 3 small (300 g) 1:2:3 sourdough boules.   I found this was a very firm dough as well, much more so than normal.  I have opened a new bag of gluten flour (from a different source) and I really wonder  if that is influencing things so much.  I am adjusting my 11% protein flour to 12.5% but previous bakes have been much wetter. 

These had 4 x 10 stretch and folds, 2 hour BF followed by 20 mins preshape  with about a 2 -3  hour proof. 

No crumb shot, these were frozen as is.

The final part of the bake was Trevor Wilson's Champlain.  I will post details on  "Anyone interested in a Champlain SD bake?" shortly.

The day went well, it was busy and I was on a schedule to get it all baked before I went out to a 7 pm meeting.  lol, hubby had to take the final 1:2:3 loaf which was the final one, out for me.   I am happy with the crumb from the 5 grain levain as this has such a lot of grain, but I think it is the best I have baked this bread!

Leslie

After recent bakes I have been a bit disheartened. Earlier this week I got the Red Star Yeast newsletter and they featured “Unbelievable Sweet Orange rolls” - a variation on cinamon rolls.  I followed the recipe exactly (I made a slightly bigger dough and had to bake some rolls seperately) and whilst mine wasn’t as pretty as theirs, it went down a treat with friends tonight. it feels good to have a sucess and the taste was really nice - a combination of orange and cinamon.  yum!

Happy baker tonight

Leslie