dabrownman's blog

Here we go with the second attempt to make baggies inspired by Ian but using Phil’s ingredients and method.  We also didn’t want to slash the dough like Pierre Nury doesn’t with his Rustic style.  But we did slash it, quite poorly, in the end.  If you don’t practice you won’t get any better right?

This bread rose nicely in the fridge and in the oven.  It baked up nice and brown and crunchy and went softer as the bread cooled on the rack.   The crumb was nice and open, and glossy.  I don’t think we will ever get Phil’s holes but we keep trying.  Not as many blisters this time since we were not baking in the mini oven where blisters are cheap and easy.

We like the taste of this bread very much, even though it is more ‘Guedo” than Brownmen usually like  better.   But, it tastes so good I just keep putting butter on it and wolfing it down.  A little variety isn’t all bad now and again.    

Method

We more closely followed Phil’s recipe and method using Desem SD starter only built over 6 hours – no yeast water this time.  We used white whole wheat flour and AP since we can’t get Lauche Wallaby unless we swim very far and we are totally out of spelt.  Still we kept the sifted whole wheat to 15% of the flour and we reduced the levain to 10% instead of using 20% like last time.  The hydration was kept at 75%.  We autolysed the flours and water, less 30 g, for nearly 6 hours.

We love doing slap and folds and enjoyed kneading the dough this way for 3 minutes.  We held back 30 g of water and diluted the salt in it before adding it into the dough before the 2nd set of French slap and folds also lasting 3 minutes.  The extra water and salt were worked into the dough by squeezing the dough through the fingers until the dough came back together.  We rested the dough for 4 hours on the counter.

The dough was still quite sticky but we resisted adding any flour.  We pre-shaped and final shaped 10 minutes later into a 16” long ‘Fat Bag’ shape as best we could manage. The shaped dough was put into a rice floured and cloth lined  ‘fat baguette’ basket to proof for another 1 1.2 hours before being retarded in the fridge in a plastic trash bag.

12 hours later we took it out of the fridge and noticed that it had risen nicely while resting at 38F.  The hour that the dough took to come to room temperature we used to fire up Old Betsy and get her up to 500 F with (2) of Sylvia’s steaming pans half full of water with kitchen towels rolled up in them.   We also put our 12” cast iron skillet in the bottom as well to throw some water in when we loaded the ‘Fat Bag’ which sounds pretty kinky.

We streamed bread for 10 minutes at 482 F (250C) and removed the steaming apparatus and baked at 392 F convection this time until the bread registered 205 F inside.  We rotated the loaves 90 degrees every 5 minutes to ensure even browning.  In 15 minutes (25 minutes total) the bread was done and we turned off the oven and left the door ajar with the bread on the stone for an additional 10 minutes to crisp the crust.

This bread originally started out to be baguettes along the line of the one Ian (isand66) baked this last week only with the addition of SD to his YW only levain.

 I was going to do a Pierre Nury take, no slash, Rustic Light Rye approach to it where you just cut a 10” square proofed dough into (2) 5”x10” rectangles,  stretch the dough to 12”and just let it plop on the parchment - no slashing required and then right into the oven it goes.  But then, my wife needs sandwich bread too?

The SD /YW combo levain was under way when Pip’s (Phil) latest fabulous bread hid TFL.   I decided to change the dough flours around to match his 15 % of fresh milled whole grains even though we used a multigrain approach, since they were already ground earlier in the day, which was different than Phil’s spelt. Both Ian and Phil used 75% hydration so we went with that.   

We cut Phil’s recipe to 1,200 g from 3,600.   We also decided to use Phil’s method of 6 hour levain build, long autolyse (5-6 hours) holding back some water, 3 minutes French fold (I used French Slap and Folds thinking they might be the same thing and we like doing them), add in the salt and the rest of water and squeezing the dough through the fingers until it come back together, another 3 minutes of French slap and folds, and a 4 hour bulk rise with no touching – no stretch and folds.

We pre-shaped and shaped going into a basket for 2 hours of proof on the counter, then into the fridge for a 12 hour retard.  It came out of the fridge in the morning nicely risen for another hour of warm up before going into the steaming mini oven oven at 500 F, steaming for 12 minutes with oven turned down to 450 F after 2 minutes.

Since my levain was already 21% of the final dough weight instead of the 10% that Phil used, I decided to cut the 4 hour bulk ferment in half to 2 hours undisturbed and the final proof from 2 hours to 1 hour before going into the fridge.  The rest of Phil’s method was not modified other than we went with a boule instead of a batard and used Ian’s signature T-Rex scoring since we skipped his baggies but we will do them soon.

Somehow Pierre Nury’s cut and stretch Rustic Method was not incorporated and he deserves better than that so we will use it next time.  It is odd how things can change based on a really good bread posted on TFL – like Phil’s.  Mine won’t come out as nice as Phil’s but, just the thought that it might, is worth the doing. 

The scoring went well as my apprentice modified, (bent), our single side razor blade into a gentle curve like a lame blade.  The boule puffed itself up very well during the 12 minute steaming using a combination of (1) of Sylvia’s steaming cups and  our latest bake’ bottom broiler pan with ½ C of water,  covered with the vented top of the broiler pan where the parchment and bread bakes.

After the steam came out, we baked the bread at 400 F, convection this time, for an additional 16 minutes (28 minutes overall) turning the boule 90 degrees every 4 minutes.  When the center hit 205 F we turned off the oven, left the door ajar and allowed the boule to cool in the oven for an additional 12 minutes.  The temperature rose to 209 F while resting in the off mini oven.

The bread sprang so much it was little close to the top elements and got a little dark on the top but, no worries, it wasn’t burnt and should add a little extra yumminess to the crust.  The mini (and steam) provided its signature blisters to the crust.  It came out crunchy crisp and shattered and cracked where it got the hottest as it cooled.  The crust softened as it cooled to become chewy.

The bottom wasn’t as brown as usual.  This has to be due to the water in the lower half of the broiler pan that was less than an1” from the bread.  Even though the spring was great with blisters we will go back to either Sylvia’s steam alone or covering the bread with a stainless steel bowl which will also keep the top from browning too much and still give us dark brown bottom crust and blisters.

This is also the largest boule we can possibly put in the mini oven.  It stuck to steaming cup and the side of the broiler pan as it was.  We think a loaf that was 200 g less in size would be more prudent.

The crumb came out fairly open but nearly as much as Phil’s did.   This because he is such a fine baker and my apprentice is not.   Plus, we used YW and cut the counter development time by about 2 hours or so to take into account we used twice as much levain.

But the crumb was glossy, moist, airy and light like our recent YW.SD bakes have been.   We will follow Phil’s methods more closely next time.   The taste is very good  Just what my wife will like for her lunch sandwich bread.   

After the last 100% Kamut and 100% spelt bakes, both at 100% hydration, we decided to get bake to more of our normal kind of bread we like so much.

This one is 57% whole grains made up of Kamut, spelt, rye and WW.  The seeds at 20% and include, hemp, chia, pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

We had made some Greek yogurt earlier in the week and wanted to use some of the whey in this bread to help bring out the sour but not so much the whey took over.  The whey made up 20% of the dough liquid but only 14% of the total liquid in this bread.

The SD levain was built over (2) 3 hr and (1) 1 hour build and then refrigerated for 48 hours. The flours were autolysed with everything except the levain and seeds for 3 hours.  The levain was allowed to come to room temperature over and hour and then hand kneaded for 5 minutes into the dough now only minus the seeds.

After resting in an oiled and plastic covered bowl for 20 minutes, 4 sets of S&F’s were performed with a 15 minute rest between them back in the covered bowl.  The seeds were incorporated in stretch and fold #3 and fully distributed in fold #4.

There was only a15 minute ferment after the last S&F and the dough was pre-shaped shaped into a boule and final shape 10 minutes later.  The boule was upended into a rice floured basket seam side up.  The basket was placed in a trash can liner end closed and placed into the fridge for a 12 hour retard.

The mini oven was cranked up475 Fto pre-heat with the bottom of the broiler pan inside.  The boule was un-molded onto parchment that was on the vented top of the broiler pan.  For once it was artfully slashed, ½ C of water was thrown into the bottom of the broiler pan, the bread was covered with stainless steel mixing bowl and the broiler top, parchment, boule and bowl were placed into the bottom of the broiler pan to steam.

After 5 minutes, the temperature was turned down to450 F.  The bread was allowed to steam under the stainless bowl for an additional 15 more minutes - 20 minutes total.  The covering bowl was then removed and the bread was baked another 16 minutes at425 F, convection this time.  The bread was rotated 90 degrees every 4 minutes.  The bread was deemed done when it registered205 F  internal temperature.

The bread was allowed to crisp in the turned off mini oven, door ajar, for 10 more minutes before being moved to cooling rack.

We just love the authentic, taste texture and chew of Stan Ginsberg’s Favorite Bagels that are authentic and just plain delicious any way you want to eat them.  We keep messing with the grains and starters to get what we want in our favorite bagels.

 All the whole grains are in the starter, a new thing we are trying out lately.  The grains were home milled rye, WW and Kamut and make up 17% of the total flours.  We also included a little less than 10% of roasted potato left over from Beer Can Chicken. 

 As usual with out take on bagels, there is some barley malt, red and white malts were included to improve the color and taste of the bagels along with adding the enzymes that break down carbohydrates and starch into sugars that the yeast and bacteria can use to do their thing gas and sour wise.

 We have been using a combo YW and SD starter to build the levains for recent bagels and we did so again this time.  We get a nice moist open crumb with a slight SD tang using a combo starter.

From left to right front - Chia seeds, Sesame, white sesame and Multi - all the prvious plus, black sesame, kosher salt, basil and  nigella seeds.

 We used exactly the same method as last time and baked the bagels off in the mini oven using Sylvia’s steam developed for it.  Our change from Stan’s method is to proof the bagels after forming for 1 hour before refrigerating and we retard them for 24 hours before boiling them.

 These are now our favorite go to bagel and have now met our taste, texture, chew and color criteria.  They are just delicious.  Now there is not reason to go to NY for bagels anymore and it sure is cheaper too.

 Method

We built the YW and SD levain together over (2) 3 hour and (1) 2 hour build and then refrigerated them for 48 hours. Home ground whole wheat berries were used for the starter and accounted for all the whole grains in the final dough.

The flours, salt, mashed potatoes and malts were autolysed for 3 hours and hand mixed into the levain. The stiff dough was kneaded for 10 minutes by hand and then allowed to rest, ferment and develop for a whopping 15 minutes covered with plastic wrap on the counter.

The dough was them divided into (10) 122g pieces, folded into balls and then into 12” tapered, from middle to end, ropes. The ropes were rested for 10 minutes and then formed into bagels by the ‘over the knuckles’ method where the ends were rolled on the counter to seal them together.

The bagels were placed onto a parchment covered and corn meal sprinkled cookie sheet, covered in plastic wrap and refrigerated for 24 hours.

Latest $2 Goodwill purchase yesterday at half price.  It's a 901 - just perfect for an oval shape bread or nice baked chicken. 

After removing the bagels from the fridge, they were immediately simmered for 30 seconds a side in 1 gallon of water with 1 T of barley malt syrup and 1 tsp of baking soda. The wet bagel bottoms were placed on a kitchen towel for 5 seconds after coming out of the water, dunked in the topping of choice and then placed on parchment paper sprinkled with semolina which was on the top cover of the mini ovens broiler.

The mini oven was preheated to 45o F with the rack on the bottom. A 1 cup Pyrex measuring cup with a rolled up dish rag, half full of water, was micro waved until the water boiled. Sylvia’s steaming method was then placed in the middle of the parchment paper between (4) bagels at the corners.

The bagels were steamed for 8 minutes with the heat being turned down to 450 F. At the 8 minute mark the steam was removed, the bagels turned upside down and the rack rotated 180 degrees. The Mini Oven was also turned down to 425 F, convection this time,  at the 8 minute mark too.  After an additional 4 minutes, the bagels were turned 18o degrees on the parchment – still upside down..

At 16 minutes total baking time the bagels were deemed done. They were nicely browned top and bottom and sounded like a drum when tapped on the bottom. They were moved to wire cooling racks until cooled.

Formula

Happy Rosh Hashanah to all  -  A New Year Knotted Roll for dinner made here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/29577/50-rye-sd-knotted-rolls-wheat-germ-caraway-and-sunflower-seeds

but eaten tonight.  It is a 50% Rye SD Knotted Rolls With Wheat Germ, Barley Scald, Caraway and Sunflower Seeds and was just as good as the day they were made.    They are all gone now but we will make some more sometime in the New Year.  The best to you and yours.

Forgot the New Year's sunset.

We have wanted to take up Michael Wilson’s ‘Spelt Challenge’ of 100% white spelt at 100% hydration ever since we saw his fine post.  In our case we milled the whole grain and sifted it to 78% extraction.

We like whole grain breads and hate to throw the sifted out portion away. Michael suggested that we could put it back in on the last set of slap and folds to try to minimize gluten strand harm.  So that is what we did and we also added 40g (dry weight) of spelt sprouted berries while we were at it since we love sprouts as much as whole grains.

Even though this isn’t an equal challenge since our whole grains would be more thirsty and thus the dough easier to work with, it was still a sloppy mess but oddly not that difficult to work with like rye would have been.

The bad part of the process is that our 15 year old Krupp’s coffee grinder that we have used to grind grain gave up the ghost.  We usually watch how hot it gets and how much grain we put in it at one time but my apprentice ignored both on the last grind for this bread.    Right as we were about to say done – it was.

The bread came out as flat boule as the last 100% hydration bakes seem to end up.  These breads really should be baked as a ciabatta or in a loaf tin rather than deflating them when transferring from the basket to the hot DO.  But we thought we would give it one more try to get it to spring in the oven.

The bread baked up a nice shade of brown but not the dark color we usually prefer - higher oven temps and less time covered might give us a better crust.  It did blister a little though.  The crumb was much more open than we thought it would be as was the pervious kamut flat boule and it was soft and very moist.   This bread is even more delicious than the kamut was and is its best quality.  It is a fine bread for sandwiches or even  dirtlocks.   We like this bread a lot even though it too took the flat boule route as the kamut did before it. 

Method

If you make this bread you want to start the sprouts 2 days before you need them because unlike rye which sprouts in 24 hours these take 48.   Just soak them in water for 3 hours, drain them and spread them our between damp paper towels and cover with plastic wrap so they don’t dry out.  Finally cover them in a kitchen towel so no light gets to them.  Re-dampen the top paper towels at the 24 hour mark and 24 hours later you will have perfect spelt sprouts.

The spelt levain was developed over two, (3) hour builds from our kamut starter and then refrigerated for 24 hours.  It was then removed from the fridge and allowed to further develop on the counter for 2 hours.

The 78% extraction flour and the extraction were autolysed separately for 2 hours. The salt, VWG and malts were autolysed with the 78% extraction.  We wanted the VWG to make sure we had some gluten in the final mix and was very glad it was there.

The water was a combination of Shiitake mushroom re-hydration water, spelt soaker water and RO water.  Since the water equals the flour weights it was split up between the two autolyses based on weight of the flour and the bran.

The dough flour autolyse and the levain were combined in the KA mixing bowl and mixed on KA 2 with the paddle for 4 minutes.  The dough hook was then used and the dough was kneaded for 10 more minutes.  The dough was then placed in an oiled, plastic covered bowl for 10 minutes.

2 sets of stretch and folds were done 10 minutes apart with each set being 25 stretches.  Then 3 sets of French slap and folds were done for 10 minutes duration each and 10 minutes apart with the dough being rested in the plastic covered bowl between sets. At the beginning of the last set of slap and folds, the bran autolyse was incorporate.  Half way through the last set, the sprouts were incorporated.  The final 5 minutes of slap and folds fully incorporated the bran and sprouts.

We were really surprised that the slap and folds were so easy.  A light oiling of the granite countertop was all that was needed to keep it from sticking.  After 20 minutes of slap and folds the dough was very extensible and the dough would hold a ball shape for the shortest period of time but you could tell the gluten was starting to come together.

a Lunch grilled chicken sandwich and fixin's with tofu, re-fried beans, red pepper, carrots, celery sticks, salad with tomato, half a peach, red grapes with corn tortilla chips, Brownman's Red Salsa and Pico de Gillo.  Red breakfast with apple butter and caramelized minneola marmalade, strawberry, watermelon and red grapes.

Once the sprouts and bran were worked in, the dough behaved better but still would not hold a ball shape for more than a few seconds.  The slap and folds really weren’t difficult or the exhausting chore we thought they would be in the end.  It was really kind of fun to do them once you got in the rhythm. 

Last night's sunset was something to behold. 

A cloth lined basket was heavily floured with rice flour and used to house the nearly un-shapeable dough as a semi, sort of ball.  It was immediately housed in a trash can liner and placed into the fridge for a 12 hour retard and proof.

We think that this dough should be proofed in a loaf pan but since we planned on baking it in a hot DO we needed a transfer agent and the cloth lined basket was the needed transfer vehicle.  We hoped that the cold would help give the dough some additional structure to make the transfer a success.  We won’t try to slash this dough since it is so wet and figure it will spread in the DO.

The Big Oven was fired up to 500 F with the DO inside.  The dough transfer went as well as expected but it did stick to the cloth liner somewhat – no worries – and it did spread faster than peanut butter sitting in a DO on a hot fire in the hot AZ sun.

We turned the oven down to 450 F after 10 minutes and baked it for 22 minutes with the lid on.  We then turned the oven down to 415 F (convection this time) and baked it for 10 more minutes, turning it 180 degrees after 5, with the lid off before taking the bread out of the DO and testing for temperature. 

The middle was 209 F so we turned off the oven and left the bread on the stone to crisp the skin for 10 minutes with the door ajar.  The bread was then moved to the cooling rack and then onto.  Total baking time was 32 minutes not including the rest on the stone at the end.   The formula brings up the rear as usual.

There is no question my apprentice likes to retard her pizza dough overnight but, sometimes you just don’t have that much time when the pizza urge hits you.  No worries!  We managed a very nice pizza in 8 hours starting at 10 AM yesterday.

We started the combo YW and Desem WW levain build and cut the 3 stage build from 3 to 2.  Two hours for the first stage and 3 hours for the second.  It had doubled in 5 hours.  For the last 3 hours of the levain build we autolysed the flour, dried rosemary, olive oil, Moho de Ajo, (2) malts, sun dried tomato oil, salt and the dough water.

We always try to have around 30% whole grains in our formulas if possible and this time it was a mix of whole wheat and soft white wheat that we ground at home.  So Desem WW starter was in order and we wanted the boost that YW gives to speed things along some due to the shot amount of time we had to get this dough ready.

5 hours in; 3 PM, we mixed the autolyse and the levains in the KA for 6 min on KA 2 and 2 minutes on KA 3.  Then we let it rest for 10 minutes.  We then did 3 sets of S & F’s, 10 minutes apart on a lightly oiled counter, starting with 20 stretches and ¼ turns and reducing the stretches by 5 each set – a total of 45 stretches.

The dough was ready to go after 2 hours and 15 minutes of resting and fermenting in a plastic covered oiled bowl.  At 5:15 PM we fired Old Betsy; Big GE oven too 500 F no steam.  These 2 pizzas were fully peel size and there was no way these were going to fit in the mini oven without some serious magic or ‘Honey I shrunk the pizza’ going on.

We also had the baking stone in there too since we never take it out of the oven except to move it to the grill for pizza there - like last time. Thankfully, after yesterday’s torrential rain it never got over 92 F so a little more heat in the house was not a big deal if you are used to 115 F for the last who knows how long.

After dividing the dough in half, we hand stretched it out to peel size, brushed a layer of some more Mojo de Ajo on, docked it  and put it in the oven to par bake for 3 minutes.  Then we removed it and then piled on the toppings of our choice, kalamata olives, hatch green chilies, red peppers, caramelized onions, re-hydrated dried shitake mushrooms, home made Italian sausage, pepperoni; parmesan, Colby and mozzarella cheeses  and some fresh basil for a garnish after it came out of the oven.

Then back into the oven for another 7 minutes or so to get nice and brown  - since, as Anne Burrell says “brown food tastes good’ and Brownmen agree with her.

Friday night grilled shrimp kabobs with Mexican Green Dirty Rice.  We are thinking beer can chicken for tonight.

The crust came out picture perfect thin and crisp, nicely browned on the bottom and tasted good.  After cutting, the slices were flat out rigid when held up, even with all the toppings and didn’t go limp, like NY Pizza, until the left over slices were being wrapped for freezing.

Sorry the photos are so bad this time but at night with indoor lighting it is the best my apprentice could manage.  They are still better then the ones my phone takes!  Formula follows at the end.

Another fine lunch for a lazy Sunday.  This time  Cotto Salami with veg and Colby, banana, red and green diced Hatch Chili on top of feta, carrot, celery sticks with sliced red pepper on the salad, cantaloupe, left over grilled onions and peppers, Dill, B&B and jalapeno pickles with brie on the watermelon, black grapes, raspberries and the best half of a nectarine sliced we have ever tasted.  Eaten by the pool with a nice limoncello made with diet squirt. 

Ever since we first saw Andy’s commercial fresh yeast version of this bread here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/29164/june-baking-restricted

Andy's Brazil Nut and Prune Bread made for a delicious toasted breakfast with kjknits English Muffins and butter, a yellow plum and cantaloupe. 

We have been wanting to give it a go with natural yeast like he does at home.  Andy mentioned when he bakes at home it is invariably a sourdough.   I have seen him note that he uses a white levain for this bread at home but have not seen a recipe using it.  We only use natural non commercial YW and SD levains and finally decided to try to this bread using SD levin.

Since this bread has 35% whole wheat in it we decided to go with a WW Desem starter too instead of the white – which we don’t keep refrigerated anyway.  We wanted to try to keep to Andy’s overall formula, 25% whole wheat grain and the rest breads flour, 20% levain, 12.5% each toasted Brazil nuts and prunes and 68% hydration but ended up straying pretty far away in the end because of error in our formula spreadsheet that made the dough flour add up to 100g of more flour than what was really there so… 

                                                                                                               Not a huge rise when proofed, probabkly could have been longer?

We inadvertently upped the whole grains to 35% all whole wheat and upped the hydration to 85% ciabatta range which might open the crumb some.  We hoped it would not flop when it came out of basket or stick to it.  We upped the prunes and nuts to 20% each too.  Andy’s salt for this bread is less than 2% at 1.67% but our salt spiked to 2.33% and our Brazil nuts are roasted and salted so this might inhibit yeast growth and make one want to have beer or two with this bread.

 Going in the oven                                                                        This shot is in the oven after the DO bottom cloche was remved.

Andy’s recipe came in at 3,003 g and ours was less than a third of that including the scald that wasn’t in Andy’s formula.  The scald was 40 g of WW berries because we like scalds or sprouts or both in our breads but didn’t have time for the 2 days it takes for sprouts to do their thing.

If you want to bake a loaf of Andy’s bread nearly exactly like I wanted to do all you have to do is add 100g of bread flour to the recipe below and you will have it close enough.  Wish I would have done so.

We also used our 3 stage levain build of (2) 4 hour and (1) 2 hour build.  The levain had nicely doubled in 10 hours and was ready for use. We did not retard the finished levain in the fridge for 12 hours as we would normally. We held back 35 g of water and used the rest of the dough water to hydrate the flours and salt for a 10 hour autolyse while the levain was being built.  We are starting to like long hydrations for dough flour.

The 35 g of water that was held back from the autolyse was added to the levain to loosen it up and make it easier to mix into the autolyse.  The mixing was done in the KA on speed 2 using the paddle for 4 minutes.  We then switched to the dough hook and mixed for another 4 minutes on KA speed 2.  We then moved it up to speed 3 for 4 minutes.

The dough was moved to a plastic covered oiled bowl for 10 minutes of rest.   5 sets of S&F’s (starting with 25 stretches with quarter turns going down 5 each time) were done on 10 minute intervals.  The wheat berries, chopped medium toasted Brazil nuts and chopped prunes were added at the beginning of the 4^th set and nicely incorporated by the 5^th set.

When the S& F’s were done the still slack and wet dough was fermented for 1 hour.  When fermentation was complete, we took a portion of the dough to make a knotted roll which was placed in the center of the rice floured basket to make the center of the Chacon.  The remainder of the dough was formed into a boule that was hand formed into a huge bialy shape (wish I had a picture of it) and placed pocket side down over the knotted roll to complete the Chacon.

The Chacon and basket were placed into a trash can liner and retarded overnight for 12 hours without any proofing at room temperature.  We hoped the 4-6 hour short retard times we have had lately were due to the YW and since we didn’t have any YW this time, we thought we would make it 12 hours OK.  But, the bread hardly rose in the fridge after 14 hours of retardation.   We should have let it proof at room temperature for an hour before refrigerating.  No worries.

We took it out to warm up and see what it would do if it was not so chilly.  In 2 hours we saw some activity with large bubbles on the top so then we put it back in the fridge.  The biblical monsoon  rain came and the back yard looked like a lake so some trenching with a hoe was required to get the water to drain away from coming in the back door.

A nice brie and Colby grilled cheese using this great bread with; raspberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, nectarine, pickles, banana, black grapes, salad with feta, pickles jalapeno and leftover veggies from last night's shimp kabobs.

Retard complete and the dough nearly fully risen as it would be allowed to get, we fired up the mini oven to 500 F.  The basket was upended onto parchment using the bottom of the mini’s broiler pan.  No slashing is required for the Chacon.  The bottom of the aluminum DO was placed over the Chacon and the whole shebang was put in the mini oven.  The temperature was turned down to 450 F immediately and the bread baked covered for 20 minutes. 

The cover was removed and the oven was turned down to 425 F baking with convection this time.  It was baked until the internal temperature reached 208 F– about 15 minutes more while rotating the Chacon 90 degrees every 5 minutes to ensure even baking.

The oven was turned off the bread was left inside with the door open for 10 more minutes to crisp the skin before removing the bread to a cooling rack.

This is a fine bread that we like a lot.  The mix of SD, WW, prunes and Brazil nuts is awesome and the taste plain delicious.  Andy is really on to something here.  It did bake baked up handsome.  The crust coming out crusty and going to chewy as it cooled .  It was fairly open, moist and slightly glossy (sorry no sun today for outdoor pix's)  for all the add ins and whole grains.  It was fantastic toasted with butter.  The desem SD tang is there and we hope it gets stronger as it ages.  We think it would be improved with a more open crumb with less hydration, 100g more bread flour and some YW.   A 75% hydration variation might be really nice too.  All in all, it is a fine bread and confirms why Andy bakes it often and sells it out regularly!

Thank's Andy for a fine formula the results in a wonderful bread - just the kind we like.

Remember ,if you want to bake Andy's bread as he makes it and as I intended , add 100 g of bread flour to the fomula above.  We love this bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It is a top 5'er for sure.

It is really odd and slightly annoying that the spell checker wants to replace kamut with kaput.  Is this a pre-judgment before the start?   But, after seeing the results that Michael Wilson achieved with his similar White Spelt Bread here

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/29146/100-white-spelt-100-hydration

We decided that spell checkers are way more stupid than my apprentice who is one sharp cookie for a ‘Dumb Doxie’ with a large nose for fine baking .......and a tummy to prove it.

We also looked at Shaio-Ping’s 100% Spelt and txfarmer’s more recent one too to see what we could glean from them here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13934/100-spelt-levain-bread               and here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/28388/100-spelt-sourdough-trying-spelt-first-time

We were going to take up Michael’s challenge but white spelt is no where to be found.  When we tried to get a half pound of kamut berries out of the Whole Foods bin, we dropped 3 pounds in the bag in a flash by mistake.  Since there is no way to put it back, we immediately decided to do a 100% kamut with 100% hydration bread instead but those weren’t the only changes we had in store since then we had no idea what they might end up being  after my apprentice got her paws in the mix.

We didn’t read Mini Oven’s many kamut experiments from 2008 – 2009 that explain anything one would need to make a 100% kamut bread or one with soakers, scalds, sprouts …etc !  We would have made a different bread had we known what we learned from her and others old posts on kamut.

Our bake isn’t like Michael’s in many important ways that I personally find attractive and worth talking about even though my apprentice says I am just lazy to do it right like Michael does.   First off, we used home ground whole Kamut and it is way more thirsty than white spelt so the 100% hydration problems are thankfully reduced a great deal.  We used a YW and kamut SD starter instead of commercial yeast since we don’t have any and built this combo levain over (2) 4 hour and (1) 2 hour builds.

We also are never going to hand knead anything for 40 minutes unless it is large gold bars that are too heavy to pick up but safely stored in my bank vault – and only if they might need some light dusting and quick shine. 

'Oh Mon Dieu Pain Rustique' is the new name for this bread :-)

We also added a little VWG, white and red diastatic and non-diastatic malts and a little honey - not much of any of them though.  We also added our take of some of txfarmer’s 36 hour method; starting with a 10 hour retard after the kamut levain build was completed.

We incorporated the water flour, malts and honey with the dough flour and autolysed it for 10 hours in the fridge too.  Both were taken out of the fridge and allowed to come to room temperature the next day for 2 hours making a total of 12 hours total before mixing them together in the KA.

Rather than hand kneading we mixed the dough in the KA on speed 2 for 8 minutes and on speed 3 for 2 minutes before resting it in a plastic covered oiled bowl for 20 minutes.  It passed the window pane test but we were not done with it.

We then performed 4 sets of S&F’s at 10 minutes each – about 25 stretches with ¼ turns of the dough the first time going down 5 stretches each set there after.  The last turn was 10 stretches with quarter turns making a total of 70 for all 4 sets.

After all of that it had some structure we thought might work out.  It formed a very smooth and elastic dough, if still a little wet that was about as pleasing a dough ball can get without pinching it hard and seeing if it squeals.

The dough was then allowed to ferment undisturbed for 60 minutes before going into a well rice floured oval basket, placed inside a tall kitchen trash bag and put in the fridge for its 12 hour proofing retard - but it was ready to go in 5 hours.  Kamut can be tricky going from under proofed to collapse in short order if not watched.  We originally wanted to bake this in the mini under the bottom of the DO used as a cloche but decided that the dough needed some structure so we opted for Big Betsy GE and baking inside a hot DO.

After the oven was pre heated to 500 F and the stone brought up to temperature on the bottom rack (about 40 minutes total) and the aluminum w/glass lid DO preheated with them, the dough was retrieved from the fridge.  The dough was overturned from the basket into a now parchment lined hot DO.

This dough is very fragile and the least little thing will damage it.  In this case it wasn’t a little thing - it stuck to the basket.  After un-sticking and mangling it terribly, it was slashed, covered and placed into the oven on the 2^nd rack level where it baked at 450 F with the lid on for 20 minutes.

Then the lid was removed and the bread was baked for another 5 minutes at 425 F convection this time before being removed from the DO and placed directly on the stone (removing the 2^nd level rack) to finish baking.  The bread was rotated 90 degrees every 5 minutes until the internal temperature reached 205 F - another 15 minutes.   We didn’t catch ours in time and it read 210 F so another 10 minutes and 30 minutes total would be better.

A very nice lunch with 2 kinds of pickes, Creole grilled chicken sandwich, fetta and brie cheese, carrot coins, celery and red pepper sticks, small salad with tomato, cantaloupe cubes and a half each peach and mango.  Look at the beautiful yellow color, like semolina, of the kamut compared to the 25% multi grain SD bread next to it for comparison.

The flat bread was allowed to rest on the stone, oven off and door ajar for 10 minutes before being removes to a cooling rack.

It baked up beautifully brown and crunchy on the outside as DO’s are wont to do, going chewy as it cooled.  But the loaf was badly mangled and it spread rather than sprang as a result.  The inside crumb structure was partially destroyed having deflated 50% without recovery but it was still surprisingly open for 100% whole grain bread. This is the hallmark YW makes on whole grain bread crumb structure.

The crumb was a beautiful yellow like semolina, soft, moist even though slightly over baked and had a slight SD tang that was muted.   The YW combo starter making up half the levain cuts the SD tang a like amount.

This bread doesn’t taste like rye, or whole wheat or even spelt for that matter – which would probably be the closest in taste.  It has an earthy base and a grassy note.  We love this bread toasted with just butter to cover. 

Kamut is a new and welcome addition to the grain standard bearers we have used in the past.   A tasty loaf of bread for sure even when it sticks to the basket like this one did to disfigure itself beyond recognition.

We are guessing that this high hydration bread needs to be baked in a loaf pan to get the most out of the open crumb that is possible or baked as a flat bread or ciabatta – as Mini Oven found out 3 years ago. The formula brings up the rear as usual.

Typo after typo,  My left fnger doesn't know what my right finger is doing.  This is way worse than dyslexia, which I had but sold to Lebanese rug trader and a lot more painful too.

With plenty of rye, WW and semolina bread in the freezer we baked off another as close to white bread as we ever make for the bread winners daily lunches.   My wife prefers Oroweat whole wheat bread but we are slowly winning her over to SD bread in the 25%-35 % whole grain range.

This one was 25% home ground whole grain bread with spelt, rye and WW ground from berries.   The remainder of the flours used for the bread were grocery bought bread flour and AP milled by KAF.

The bread baked up nicely browned with small to medium blisters.  The crust came out crisp but went soft and chewy as it cooled.  The bloom and spring were OK but nothing special.   The crumb was moderately open, soft, chewy and slightly glossy.  This bread had a bolder SD tang right after being cooled and we assume it will get better tomorrow. 

If you like David Snyder’s Pugliesi Capriosso and San Joaquin or Pierre Nury’s Rustic Light Rye you will like this bread.  For a nearly white bread it sure is tasty.  Just delicious.

The formula follows the pictures.

Method

The levain starter was equal amounts of rye sour, desem and spelt (a new one that we will soon convert to Kamut) and built up over (2) 3 hour and (1) 2 hour build.

The levain was refrigerated overnight after nit had doubled along with the autolysed flours which included the entire formula less the levain.  There were no sprouts, scald, soaker or add ins with the exception of the red and white home made malts, some ground flax seed and a tiny bit of honey.

The next day the autolyse and the levain were removed from the fridge and sat on the counter for 1 hour to warm.  The two were combined in the KA mixing bowl and kneaded with the dough hook for 8 minutes on KA2.  The dough pulled away from the sides at the 7 minute mark.  It came together easily for the 75% hydration dough.

It was rested in an oiled plastic tub, sized for a 836 g loaf, for 20 minutes before (4) sets of S& F’s were performed all in the tub.  The first set was 25 stretches with a ¼ turn each time.  The next set was 5 stretches less all the way down to the last one of 10 for a total of 70 stretches.

After the last S&F the dough was rested for 60 minutes before being pre-shaped and then shaped into a boule and placed into a rice floured basket seam side up.  The basket was sized to allow the dough to double when it reached the top.

Sandwixh on the left made with last bakes Semolina Bread - good but not great like this bake.

The boule was them placed into a plastic trash can liner, the end closed with a rubber band.  The tented and basketed boule was placed in the refrigerator for a 12 hour retard.

Makes a great grilled hot dog bun! cantaloupe, cherries, black grapes, chips and pico de gillo. 1/2 ea plum and peach, 3 kinds of pickles and some Mexican beans - a typical but still a nice lunch to feature this  fine bread.

After 12 hours the mini oven was preheated to 500 F and (2) of Sylvia’s steaming cups with dish rage rolled up were micro waved until boiling.  The dough was covered with parchment and then the bottom of the mini’s supplied broiler pan.  The whole stack was overturned and the basket removed.

It was quickly slashed ¼” deep with a single sided razor blade, the steaming cups placed in the corner and the whole apparatus loaded into the mini oven’s bottom rack for 15 minutes of steam as the oven was turned down to 450 F.   When the steaming cups were removed at the 15 minute mark the oven was turned down to 400 F convection this time.

The boule was rotated every 5 minutes for the next 20 minutes when the boule was tested for temperature.   It was at 208 F and deemed done.   The mini oven was turned off and the bread allowed to sit in it with the door ajar for another 10 minutes to further crisp the skin.  It was then removed to a cooking rack.