jkandell's blog

A while back I had made this Hamelman "Farmer's Bread" with yogurt, per his directions, and found it boring. But after a friend dropped off some home-made Quark cheese this week, I decided to give it another go since he mentioned he was recreating a quark bread from his days in germany. And it's really good!  A nice pain-au-levain type taste in only 4 hours start to finish.

Quark is a simple german farmer's cheese. My friend made it by adding a little commercial buttermilk to heated milk, letting it sit for 16 hours at 22°-30°C / 72°-86°F (cooler than for yogurt), then separating out the whey by hanging it in cheesecloth for awhile.  The process is quite similar to paneer, but with some fermentation first. The resulting soft cheese is a bit like cream cheese, a bit like yogurt, a bit like sour cream, a bit like cottage cheese. I recognized its flavor from Russian and Ashkenazi deserts like blintzes.

I adapted the recipe for Hamelman's "Farmer's Bread" from second edition. The flavor of the bread reminded me of a sourdough pain au levain--but with the moisture of dairy, a very subtle sour odor, and nice taste from the quark. But in only 4 hours start to finish. A keeper.  Next time I might double the Quark.

Quark Bread 

• Water (initial), 269g, 70%+
• Quark, 27g, 7%  
• Sugar 1t, 5g, 1.2%
• Salt, 1 1/4t, 8g, 2%
• All purpose, 338g, 88%
• Whole Rye flour, 46g, 12%
• Instant yeast, 1.28g, 1/2t, 1% 

Put first four ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add the quark to the water along with the sugar and salt, and mix it in well.  Then add in the flours and yeast and mix to incorporate the ingredients.

The dough will be quite sticky, so use wet hands to do the folds within the bowl, which will gradually add more hydration above the initial 70%.

Bulk ferment 3 hours. During that time: stretch and fold it after 20m, and then at 40m point, and then at the 1 hour, and the 2 hour points (78F room temp). It may take longer in a cooler room. Desired dough temperature 75F.

Shape as a boule on a well floured surface, place seam side up in a well floured baneton, and final ferment 1 hour at 75-78F.

Bake at 450F, under a bowl for first 15m. About 35-40m total.  You want this bread to get a full rich brown crust.  

A simple bread that turned out well.

Rye Salt-Sour

19g stiff rye starter from fridge, unrefreshed.

108g whole rye

111g water, warm enough to leave a DT of 95F.

2g salt.

Heat for 17 hours going down gradually from 90-95F at start, down to about 70F the next morning. The starter should smell fruity.

Dough

229g of starter above (after taking out about 19g for next time)

180g white flour

72g whole rye flour

134g water

90g walnuts, chopped

2g IDY

4.5g salt

Mix all. Add walnuts last. 

Ferment 78-80F X 60m. Form into a free-standing bâtard. Proof 60m 78-80F.  

Bake 450 under cover X 15 then another 10-20 at 375F.  Makes one small 700g loaf containing 360g of total flour.

I‘ve been looking for a way to try out the Monheim Salt-sour process for a while, as I've been researching ways to get complex rye flavors without the pain of a 3-fold Detmolder. It's described as having a good aroma and being "almost as good" as a full detmold. And we recently had the perfect weather for it in Tucson: 90s in the day and 70s at night  The Salzsauer process is unusual in that it adds salt to the elaboration of the rye at 2% This is similar to what classic French bakers sometimes do with pain-au-levain in warm weather; or it might be thought of as a "rye pate fermentée". Because of the salt, the souring takes longer (18-24h) with the trade off of a longer period of stability.  Also due to the salt, one requires 10% of the flour in the inoculation (i.e. 20% seed starter if its 100% hydration, instead of a more typical 5% or 10%.). 

So I decided to adapt Hamelman's 70% Rye with Rye Chop Soaker from Bread to this method. For this riff I subbed out whole rye flour for the medium, and I substituted a Monheim Salzsauer process for the one-stage Detmolder. But--with 35% whole rye flour, 30% whole wheat flour 35% rye chops--should this be called a Mischbrot? Despite the fact it's almost 50% wheat (if you count the chops as an addition rather than a flour), it really doesn't have the smooth-grey color or texture of typical Mischbrot. Not that surprising given it's 100% whole grain including chops. Moreover, it tastes and looks quite similar to volkornbrot . So I'm sticking with the  Schwarzbrot label .

 Formula:

Process:

Build the rye sour, with final elaboration 18-24h prior to baking, going from 95F down to low 70Fs over the range.  Because I bake infrequently, with a rye starter in the fridge, I first built it out at 1:2:2 an extra 12 hours earlier to get the ripe 36g inoculation needed for the final Salzsauer. Note that I took out an extra 9g for storage at the end of the first-build, rather than the usual second build, because I didn't want my storage chef to be salted. (If you have 36g active rye starter, jump right to the salzsauer, as this is in theory a one-step process.) 

Using 113F water in the final build will let things start at DT 95F snd gradually decrease. Let the final sour ferment for 18-24h until it smells good. (I left it outside in the 96F desert afternoon and it had dropped to 73F by next morning, at which point I brought it in for the remainder.) The literature says start 30-35C and drop to 20-25C.

Soak the rye chops about 6 hours prior. I used my coffee grinder to approximate chops, but it was closer to a mix of meal and chops. I used a cold soak with 2% salt. (If any water evaporates, add it in later.)

Mix the dough. It's 70% rye, no kneading needed. However, note the 78% hydration in the formula is the low end. Since it's rye you'll likely need to add lots more water to get the texture to where it's like clay that holds together but is loose enough it can expand.  In my case it took tons more water than stated, so was more of a bassinage. It's going into a loaf pan, don't worry about over-doing the hydration. I used 0.6% IDY, but I'm not sure it's needed. (I thought it interesting I had a higher percentage of salt in the levain than the final overall bread!)

Bulk ferment 30 minutes (with IDY). Proof in floured loaf pans 60m. No scoring of any kind needed. 

Bake 450F covered for 15m then drop heat to 410F or lower to finish for 40-60 minutes until it sounds evenly resonant (rather than a dull thud) when tapped on all sides and across the bottom. Take out of the pan for the last 15 minutes or so to dry out the sides. Cure for at least 24h covered in a towel before slicing. Peak flavor was about 3 days in.

Comments:

• I'm now a fan of the Salzsauer process and will try it with other ryes. As advertised, it had a rich aroma together with a nice balanced sour flavor. I liked that it didn't take much fuss, just leave it out a day ahead of time. This would be great if you wanted to set things up on Friday to bake on a Sunday. I'm skeptical on how important the 95F > 70F is. That was fine this time, and the 95F isn't hard to achieve with hot water. But cooling it might prove a problem much of the year in my climate. The 1-step Detmold supposedly benefits from this same temperature drop to balance the lactic and acetic; but plenty of people just ferment 16-18h at 77F with 5% or 10% ASG; so I'm tempted to just leave it on the counter willy-nilly for 24h and see what happens.
  And do you really need the full 2% salt? I'm curious what exactly the salt does to the yeasts and enzymes-- I was surprised the salt-sour didn't have--for want of a better word--the neutral flavor or smell of a wheat pate fermentée. It was a real sour. And on first glance the odor and flavor did seem better--but I'll need to do more experiments. 
  Because I don't keep such large quantities of active starter, I ended up needing to use 2-stages anyway, so maybe a better comparison is versus 2-stage Detmold process that I also like a lot.  That one requires more temperature control though, whereas this just gradually falls.
• The bread itself is a solid basic German rye!  Recommended, going into rotation. Aroma very nice around day 3, the flavor was sour but mellow, which surprised me given the 35% pre-fermented flour. The soaked chops were very subtle, mostly adding texture.  I couldn't taste the wheat, but I think it took the edge off of the sourness, making the bread somewhat more adaptable than a volkornbrot.
• I think DSnyder's nailed the flavor: "The crust was firm but not hard. The crumb was soft and moist but slightly crumbly and less dense than I expected. The aroma is powerful with rye, yet the flavor is relatively mild. It is rye with no distinctive whole wheat tones, yet the whole wheat must have mellowed the rye flavor. There is a sweet note to the aftertaste. This bread has lots of character."
• This formula is a good “base” recipe to explore German mixed ryes.  Using medium rye instead of whole would make a more standard graubrot / hausbrot. Taking out the wheat entirely would make a volkornbrot. Add flax or sunflower seeds at will. Add scald at will. For instance, I think Kellner’s  Sauerland Schwarzbrot is just a complicated version of the same formula? Unless I'm mistaken, that's even the monheim  sauersalz they're calling a "sponge" along with a bunch of other tricks? This one's a lot simpler though! 

 crumb very similar to volkornbrot

Hamelman's mixed grain miche from Bread 3rd ed.  It's 15% buckwheat and 15% rye (the starter). A winner!

Formula

This was baked under an Arizona heat-wave, and the builds, bulk and proof all reflect that. Rather than elaborate the rye starter like Hamelman at 70F, I used the Detmolder 2-step process at 78-83F. (See here for my reasoning.)  It worked great to leven the bread nicely without commercial yeast. But of course feel free to build the rye sour any way you're used to.

This is a really sticky dough, and hard to handle. I'm used to sticky wet wheat doughs--but this one is simply unpleasant. It took a heck of a lot of stretch and folds to build low degrees of strength, and, even with bassinage, it stuck to my fingers like cement. I didn't dare take it out of the container.  Maybe I'll use the bread machine to mix next time. Or leave out the buckwheat till the wheat develops. 

I substituted 50% white all purpose mixed with 50% Golden Buffalo for the T80 high extraction flour called for in Hamelman's recipe. Technically the Golden Buffalo is "high extraction" but it looks and tastes more like an ordinary whole wheat to me. If you want to follow the book literally, use all 578g of high extraction flour, or split it 50/50 white and whole wheat as Hamelman suggests.  

The bread itself is delicious! But not for everyone--you have to like buckwheat. The buckwheat shines through with a sweet, earthy taste that dominates. Unexpectedly, considering it's mostly whole grain, the texture is very soft and chewy and springy, almost like a wonder bread. The rye and wheat are subtle in the background.  Wouldn't want this every week, but a nice change of pace. (My son was less enamored with the buckwheat flavor.)

The 1500g miche is toward the flattish side, but not a pancake. I think it works great in the high-hydration "miche" form-- I didn't really want a higher loaf like I usually make. I think a loaf pan would work as well, since it has the texture of a sandwich loaf. I do recommend sticking to Hamelman's suggestion to go at least 80% hydration, since this bread benefits from the lightness even if it doesn't behave like a white tartine and even if it's not pleasant to mix.

The new recipe for Salzburg Wheat Germ Rye by Markus Farbinger in Hamelman's Bread 3rd ed intrigued me, It's so different from the German detmolder ryes so close to Hamelman's heart. The bread involves a rye starter focusing on lactic prominence, a hefty dose of wheat germ, a cold pre-soak of just the wheat portion, and a mixture of aromatic spices (toasted coriander, fennel, caraway), along with toasted rye malt,.

Upon first glance this new bread seems close to the Russian tradition. I can't help but wonder if this kind of spiced malted bread from Farbinger's youth was either an inspiration for the famous Borodinsky, or itself inspired by it. Looking at the ingredients, in broad terms, you can see the two breads are in the same universe: 

In comparing the two, both have a strong coriander flavor. What's missing in the Salzburg is any sweet note: no sugar, no syrup, and no "sweetening" of the malt. The Salzburg Weizenkeimbrot uses a cold soaker, whereas with the Russian breads, the spices and malt are scalded with boiling water with some of the rye, then mixed with sourdough for a scalded sponge ("zavarka"). Here things are more straightforward: the coriander and other spices are given a cold soak with the entire wheat component (white flour, whole wheat and the wheat germ) several hours before baking.

Another distinguishing feature of Salzburg Weizenkeimbrot is its focus on lactic acid. Since my location in Arizona is currently 115F outside and in the 80s inside, I was attracted to the fact that the levain builds at 83-85F and ferments at around 82F--the temperature in my laundry room! Alas a silver lining to record heat, is I can experiment with lactic fermentation. 

Formula:

Sourdough: Last build: 1:10:10 at 100%, 82-85F for about 4 hours. "The high hydration, warm environment and short duration all favor lactic as opposite to acidic flavors to develop."  [I used whole rye, and raised hydration to 115%. At 85F it took 6.5h to get light and fluffy. It was only slightly sour, with no sharp tang.

Toast, Blend and Soak. Several hours before mixing, lightly toast the spices and grind fine. Lightly toast the wheat germ. Lightly toast the rye malt and grind fine. [I used C90.]  Combine with all the wheat flours, and add an equal amount of water, and cold soak till ready to mix. I added a pinch of the total salt since my house is so warm.

Mix. Mix everything: the final water and sourdough, and soaked wheat, germ, and spices. Add in the last bit of rye flour and salt, and mix well.  [I used 40g less water in the final dough because I had increased the sourdough hydration 40g to loosen it up. And, again, I used whole rye instead of medium.]. No stretch and folds needed with rye.

Bulk Ferment. 40 minutes.

Pan and Proof:: Press into 8.5X10 loaf pan, with untoasted whole coriander seeds on top and bottom. Proof 45-60 minutes till it reaches the sides. 

Bake: Dock with holes down the center. 450F covered, then another 45minutes at 400 uncovered, then 5 minutes at 350. I let sit for 12 hours to cure wrapped a dishtowel before cutting to equalize the moisture. 

I used a loaf pan rather than free form, and I did not coat with the roasted starch glaze in the book.

Assessment. The bread tasted good. It had a moist firm but soft texture, the crust was dark but still somewhat soft after curing. The flavor wasn't as far from Russian breads as I'd imagined, definitely with a family resemblance. The lack of scald was noticeable, but not wanting. FWIW I didn't taste the toasted wheat germ at all--which surprised me. (Note to self: toast it a little more next time?)  The spices were equally strong as in Russian breads; If I had to summarize  it, I'd say it's overall profile as a muted, mellow Borodinsky, Moscow, or Litovsky rye. 

Aside from the background "lactic" rye odor and taste, the the spices were the main noticeable feature. I'm used to coriander, but I found the additions of toasted caraway and anise added a subtle sophistication to the whole loaf that complimented the sour notes. (These spices are common in German and Austrian breads but new to me.)  The relatively muted lactic acid mellow sourness again provided a more subtle background than I'm used to with the “in your face” more sweet-and-more-sour Russian and East European and German breads. In short. if Borodinsky and its ilk are breads of extremes, Salzburg Rye is a mellow, balanced, adult loaf. If I had to pick one word to summarize Salzburger Weizenkeimbrot it is "sophisticated".  

Take Aways for baking other breads:  

• I need to play around more with personalizing my own rye spice blend. The one here is quite balanced (at 60% toasted ground coriander, 20% toasted ground caraway, 20% toasted ground fennel), and a nice change of pace from the straight raw coriander I'm used to. Most German spice blends have much less coriander relative to the caraway and fennel. Some add fenugreek or even cardamom. Which spices go with which breads? Will it work with wheat and spelt breads? Toasted versus raw?
• Pre-soaking the wheat portion in an 80 or 90% rye is something I'm going to start doing. This allowed the wheat to form some gluten on its own, which was easier than trying to form the gluten later after it's mixed with a bunch of rye flour and water at the last stage. That small wheat portion needs all the help it can get! 
• Using only the lactic stage of Detmolder is intriguing way to make the rye less sharp without sacrificing digestibility, and is worth exploring with other breads. (Reminds me a bit of the Italian method of "washing the madre".) Given my house gets into the mid 80s in summer I need to find breads that favor extreme heat like this one to adapt to the times. 
• I also wonder how this bread would change with a more traditional two-stage Detmolder elaboration; Since Hamelman uses a long 14 hour at 70F at 83% refresh for his starter, the main difference would be elaborating the second (final) elaboration 1:3:3 instead of 1:10:10.  In other words, the "acidic" part would be a third of the final starter rather than a tenth.  My guess is it would be on a small distinction in flavor, and I'm even wondering if the two-stage Detmolder process is what Farbinger had in mind all along. Or maybe even a Berlin Short Sour?

.

Love these ciabatta with stiff biga, used as sandwich rolls. Each roll is its own mini-ciabatta! Hamelman formula but with bassinage coil folds by hand. Great with ham or cheese.

Ciabattini: 6 X 90-100g. 

• Biga of 20% of the flour at 60% hydration for 15h. (I used 0.083% IDY.)
• 73% total hydration (to start + lots more during kneading, 80-85% total by end). 
• 2% salt
• 0.58% total idy yeast (0.5% idy in main dough + 0.083% in biga).
• 300g total flour (Natural Grocer's all-purpose, with 5% swapped out for lightly toasted wheat germ).

Method:

1. Make the biga 15h before. With only 60g of flour, I use 50 mg of IDY, which is only a pinch.
2. Mix everything with chopstick at 73% total hydration. Let sit 30m to absorb.
3. 3h bulk.  Fold every 20-30m as long as it takes using "bassinage coil" method: that is, use very wet hands with intention of raising dough hydration to 80-85% by end.  Each fold you are adding a little more water. Coil fold is: with wet hands lift dough straight up in bowl from center, and then allow one of the two drapes to fold back over itself as you put the dough back down. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat x4. It's basically a vertical stretch and fold using gravity. 
4. Very gently using scraper or hands, place delicate dough onto well floured parchment paper.  Divide into 6 rectangle pieces of 90-100g each floured heavily on each side.
5. About 1 1/4 hour proof at 79F.
6. Bake on stone under cover of upside down roasting pan for steam at 450F for 20-30m till dark brown crust.     

This experiment turned out so well I thought I'd share the formula. The levain uses only yeasts from fermented fig water. There is just a hint of fennel and caraway, with a gentle sweetness from honey. Typical of fruit yeast, there is a noticeable lack of acidity.  Nice moist crumb. Keeps well. Delicious!  

I used fruit yeast rather than sourdough or commercial yeast because with a bread this "pure", I didn't want any sourness or extraneous flavors to take away from the subtle flavors.

And there's something about using figs to leaven a fig bread.

(One may substitute raisin yeast water, I suppose, but the fig flavor infuses the dough.)

Formula

For one 1000g loaf.  Times are for summer baking in a hot house in Tucson AZ about 86F, so adjust accordingly.

• To make the fig yeast water: Coarsely chop a dried, asiatic fig (the variety with tan skin with white powder on skin) and soak for about five days on counter in about 160g (?) of water. (You want to end up with 142g or so of fermented water after evaporation for the levain.) Once a day shake the bowl to aerate. The yeast water is ready when it has some bubbles, tastes a little vinegary, and maybe has a little white mold. Strain and throw away fig remains. 
• Levain: Build over two elaborations at the indicated times and amounts, using white flour and the fig yeast water as the liquid. Do not add any other sourdough or yeast. After the fermentations It will look like a regular poolish. If you have a little left over use in main dough as part of the water.
• Dough: Mix levain, fennel (or anise) seeds, and final ingredients except salt and figs. Add salt after 20m autolyse, and knead by a couple minutes of french folds. Add enough extra water (beyond the 56% hydration) to fully hydrate dough, as high as you like but not so much dough doesn't hold it's shape free-form. Stretch and folds at 1h, 1:30 and 2 hrs. Add 172g coarsely chopped dried figs (not counting the fig used for the yeast water) with stems removed (mission or asiatic variety) at the first fold on the first hour. This dough will be firm and solid but sticky because of rye, and shiny and slippery because of fermented water. 
• Bulk ferment 3-4h. Proof 1.5-2.5h free form (if hydration less than 70%, other wise in banneton). 
• Bake: 425F for 10m with steam, then another 30-50m at 350-375 until crust is dark brown. Or like your usual levain. The crust will be darker than usual, but do be careful not to actually burn.  (Bake at about 25F less than usual due to the figs and honey.)

If one despises whole grain, white bread flour could substitute for the 25% whole wheat to make a lighter loaf; but do leave the whole rye portion.

Of course you could easily add 15% nuts like hazelnuts, walnuts or pecans if you wanted another texture/flavor.

Please do let me know how it turns out!  Jonathan

A great bread from Hamelman lost in the shuffle, because it's not sourdough and doesn't have huge holes.

But a bread worth highlighting!  

I won't post the formula since it's in the book, but it's a straight-forward 80% hydration, 20% pre-fermented flour, 20% rye chops, 20% toasted sunflower seeds, 1.5% malt syrup.

The toasted sunflower seeds' odor and flavor permeate the loaf. It's chock full of them inside and out. You definitely want to toast the seeds on this one. The hot-soaked rye is a great texture-flavor contrast, The small amount of malt gives a subtle sweetness in the background. (This "trio" is a great combination I'm going to remember.)  Hamelman has a sourdough version of this bread too--but to be honest because of the dominance of the seeds and rye, you don't really need extra sour flavors here. The more mellow pâte fermentée is a better partner.

(The only change in my loaf: from the book I ground the rye in coffee grinder, with a hot soaker, so it's a mix of everything from chops down to pumpernickel texture.)

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After so much praise from breadsong and with my love of nordic ryes, I had to try this!  I stuck to Martin's original formula, which included barley and more seeds than breadsong's.  And more syrup! The web said you could substitute dark corn syrup for Swedish "bread syrup"; but to hedge my bets I split it 50% light corn syrup and the other 50% molasses and honey.

Here is the formula I used (which might be useful for anyone attempting to make Martin's original, which is in Swedish.)

The baking did not go well!  My bread immediately started burning on top, even with foil on. So I lowered the temperature to 350 after about 20 minutes and let it go more than an hour.  I think because of the high amount of sugar in the 100g of "syrup", I think this should never have seen 475F!  If I make this again I'll bake it more like a vollkornbrot or limpa.  Even after 1:15 the dough was still undercooked a bit in the middle as you can see from the photos.

Verdict? Tastes a lot like german vollkornbrot, i.e. a non-sour pumpernickel.  This has a lot of seeds, even by nordic standards.  Too many!  The flavors aren't quite balanced, but maybe it's because I underbaked it (you can see that from the photos.)  The 22% syrup is way too sweet.  I think I'll stick with other scandinavian rogbrod recipes. 

With cracked rye soaker (ground in coffee grinder) instead of cracked wheat. This recipe is very similar to Glezer's, but with addition of some IDY and a shorter fermentation time. I think I prefer her's since the all-levain dough has a deeper flavor, which helps such a subtle loaf. A hint to anyone trying this recipe: do the folds with wet hands rather than dipping in flour. This is sticky dough and you don't want to make it dry.