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Ingredients:

• 300 g bottled spring water.
• 7.5 g of 50/50 blend of Himalayan pink salt, and standard US iodized table salt.
• 3/8 tsp active dry yeast. This is about 1/4 the yeast (for this amount of flour) that is normally used for the BreadIn5 master recipe. Because WW ferments so much faster, and because I used 98 g of old dough. (Last bake had 3/4 tsp of ADY and no old dough.)
• No sugar this time. (Last bake was 1 tsp dark brown sugar/jaggery, and I thought it was a touch sweet.)
• 200 g Bob's Red Mill stone ground whole (red) wheat.
• 100 g Patel brand stone ground WW durum. 
• 40 g Swad brand Sharbati Gold atta, roller milled, supposedly "whole wheat." This is to up the percent WW from 75% to 85%.
• 30 g Arrowhead Mills Organic AP flour. (Was 50 g last bake.) This was just to use up what I have on hand. (I usually avoid organic products due to the extra cost, but this was discounted below regular AP flour.)
• 30 g Gold Medal bread flour. (Was 50 g last time.)
• (400 g total flour, not counting what's in the old dough.)
• 26 grams fresh milk, 2% milkfat.
• 98 g of old dough from bake #60. (Has 40 g WW flour, 13 g white flour, 81.5% hydration, if you want to do the math on total dough.)

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 Finished mix at 7:12 pm.

Working with a new whole wheat flour now, this is a local organic stone ground flour that I’m hoping will taste great. I’m also hoping that the thinner crust I achieved recently by not baking in my dutch oven wasn’t a fluke so I’m baking open in my oven with steam using the Sylvia towel and a cast iron skillet again.  

I’m also experimenting again with a very wet autolyse of just the whole wheat and using a stiff levain.  The idea I have in my mind is that if the whole grain component of the flour is autolysed with all the water, except the hold back water, the bran can hydrate more quickly.

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The levain is prepared the night before and fermented at a cool room temperature.  Not surprisingly, this lower hydration levain ferments more slowly than a 100% hydration levain and also holds its peak longer.

In the morning the whole wheat flour is mixed with the water and allowed to hydrate for 1 hour.  After 1 hour, the levain and salt and added.  Once the levain is well combined the bread flour is added and mixed until there is no dry flour.  Rest for 10-15 mins.  Reassess the dough and decide if it requires more water, at this point I added the hold back water and allowed the dough to fully absorb that water using Rubaud kneading.  After 15-20 mins of rest 400 slap and folds were done to achieve moderate gluten development.

Proofing box set to 82ºF.  Rest 15 mins and a bench letterfold was completed.  Aliquot jars were prepared, one for rise and one for pH.  The pH at this stage was 5.39.

A series of coil folds were then done the first 3 at 20 mins intervals as the dough relaxed by 20 mins and then the following one and a half coil folds at 30 mins intervals.  The the time of the final half coil fold the dough showed a 10-15% rise and had a pH of 4.99.

The dough was allowed to complete bulk fermentation at 82ºF.  Bulk ended when the dough reached a rise of 40% with a pH of 4.52.  It was shaped, no pre-shaping was done since the final coil fold acted as the pre-shape, and placed in a banneton.  It was allowed to proof at room temperature until it had a rise of 70% and a pH of 4.16.  Cold retard was then started at 3ºC.

Although I know other bakers who will target a pH of 3.9 for all doughs as the start of cold retard, it doesn’t completely make sense to me.  Doughs with more whole grain will buffer the acid produced more than dough with less whole grain.  Dough with more whole grains also tend to have less gluten.  If one were to target lower pH regardless of the type of flours used in the dough one would run the risk of over fermentation and more gluten degradation.  I believe that doughs with really strong gluten can tolerate a lower pH than ones with weaker gluten.  However, I’ll need to do much more baking to prove this to myself.

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The next morning the oven is pre-heated to 500ºF with the cast iron skillet on a rack well above the baking steel.  After 30 mins of pre-heating, the pan with the Sylvia towel is filled with boiling water and placed on the baking steel next to where the bread will bake.  When the oven is ready, another cup of water is boiled, the dough is flipped out of the banneton, excess rice flour is brushed off, the dough is scored and water is brushed onto the dough.  The dough is transferred on the baking steel and finally 250 mL of boiling water is poured into the cast iron skillet.  After a minute or two, the oven temperature is dropped to 450ºF.  20 minutes into the bake the oven is vented by removing both the pan and the skillet.  The bread continues to bake at 450ºF for ten minutes.  The bread is then removed so that a rack can be placed one position over the baking steel and the bread is then placed on this rack.  The temperature is then dropped to 420ºF and the bread is then baked for another 10 minutes rotating half way through.

Another benefit that I see at the end of the bake is that the bottom crust isn’t nearly as darkly baked as it would be when baked in a dutch oven.  I won’t know about the crust thinness until the dough is sliced, but so far the advantages of baking without the dutch oven seem to be worth the extra effort of baking using my open steaming method.

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Same recipe that I’ve used in the past but I switched out the flours to use Spelt and Durum and decided to try broken wild rice rather than the regular long grain. It was quite a bit cheaper too!

Recipe 

Makes 3 loaves

Dough:

700 g strong bakers unbleached flour

200 g fresh milled Spelt 

100 g fresh milled Durum

75 g dry broken Wild Rice 

150 g dried cranberries 

700 g water

30 g yogurt 

35 g honey

22 g salt

250 g of 3 stage 100% hydration levain (procedure below)

Wholegrain and unbleached flour to feed the levain

The night before:

1. I use homemilled flour so if you are doing the same, measure out the stated amount for each type of flour in berries or grain, and mill it on the finest setting of your home mill. If buying flour, get the freshest that you can and try to ensure that it is wholegrain. 

2. Place the required amounts of the wholegrain flours in a tub and add the unbleached flour to it. Cover and set aside.

3. Cook the wild rice in plenty of boiling water for a half hour. I was shocked at how much more quickly the broken wild rice cooked. Usually, with intact grain wild rice, it takes about an hour and a half before he rice is soft enough to use in bread. Drain, add the dried cranberries, and refrigerate overnight.

4. Take 10 g of refrigerated starter and feed it 20 g of water and 20 g of wholegrain flour. Let that rise at cool room temperature for the night. 

Dough making day:

1. In the morning, feed the levain 100 g of water, 50 g of wholegrain flour and 59 g of unbleached flour. Place in a warm spot to double (I use my oven with the lights on). This takes about 5 hours.

2. Take the wild rice and the cranberries out of the fridge to warm up. 

3. Two hours before the levain is ready, in a stand mixer, mix the water with the flour, and mix on speed 1 until all the flour has been hydrated. Let this autolyse for a couple of hours.  

4. Once the autolyse is done, add the salt, the yogurt, the wild rice and cranberries, the honey, and the levain to the bowl. Mix on speed one for a minute to integrate everything, then mix on speed 2 for 9 minutes.

5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place in a lightly oiled covered tub. Let rest 45 minutes in a warm spot (oven with lights on). 

6. Do 2 sets of coil folds at 45 minute intervals and then 2 more sets at a 30 minute interval. Then let the dough rise about 30%. It should have irregular bubbles visible through the sides of the container and  bubbles on top as well. 

7. Tip the dough out on a bare counter, sprinkle the top with flour and divide into portions of ~810 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest 15-30 minutes on the counter. 

8. Do a final shape by flouring the top of the rounds and flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice tight boule.

9. Sprinkle a  mix of rice and all purpose flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons. Let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge for 10 to 12 hours. 

Baking Day

1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully but quickly place the dough seam side up inside. 

2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 25 minutes, remove the lids, and bake for another 22 minutes at 425 F. Internal temperature should be 205 F or more.

I saw a picture of your Debra Wink’s 800-gram loaf in a 330 mm / 13 inch Pullman pan. It looked terrific, so I ordered the pan from the USA. It arrived this week, so today I baked using the pan and was very pleased, apart from a shaping mistake (I shaped as per a batard out of habit instead of a blunt cylinder). I’m learning with each iteration of this wonderful bread. It’s such a beautiful taste that it is now has a place in our weekly breadbasket. A nice light soft crumb.

Cheers,

Gavin

Yep t65 plus 20% fresh ground rye . Dough was an absolute dream to work with. Used graniteware roaster instead of LeCreuset . The graniteware only preheats as long as it takes the oven to get to 450 degrees so approx 15 min. Will never switch them out again. Turned the banneton over onto parchment picked it up to transfer to pan and…. Dropped it! Grabbed the parchment said a couple “ words” plunked it into the roaster and slapped on the lid. When I uncovered it 15 min later could have knocked me over ! Amazing from pancake to probably my most beautiful loaf in almost 50 years of bread baking. 

Crumb shot to follow when cool. 
dough:

t65 515g 

rye 130g

heaping 1/4 tsp ADY

13 g salt 

465g water KA mixer 5 min. Fold a couple times on floured counter round and place in well oiled container ( use olive oil). Room temp 6 hrs. Fridge overnight. Shape very lightly by folding in 4 sides round and plunk in clothlined banneton. Let rise 2 hrs. Turn out onto parchment ( drop on floor) place in 450 degree preheated graniteware roaster. Covered 15 uncovered 30. 
Outstanding flavor! The rye adds so much depth. Lovely tender crumb. A little compressed at the bottom but given the huge drop to the floor I’m impressed with the dough resilience. Will definitely make again. The 5 mi. KA at “1” is a great way to get a lovely loaf. 

60th bake. 10/06/2021.  Lunch.

This bake was prompted by Mariana's link to an Artisan Bread in Five formula on a recent focaccia thread:
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/494616#comment-494616

I was going to make focaccia with it, but after the dough had risen a bit, I got the idea to make some fry-bread with a portion. That is, deep frying the dough to turn it into bread, not baking bread and frying the bread.

Ingredients:

• 300 g bottled spring water.
• 7 or 8 g of 50/50 blend Himalayan pink salt, and standard US iodized table salt.
• 3/4 tsp active dry yeast. This is about half the yeast (for this amount of flour) that is normally used for the BreadIn5 master recipe. Because WW ferments so much faster.
• 1 tsp dark brown sugar (jaggery from India).
• 200 g Bob's Red Mill stone ground whole (red) wheat.
• 100 g Patel brand stone ground WW durum. (Again, hat tip to Mariana for turning me on to the Russian magic ratio of 25% WW durum, which is small enough to avoid the rubber glue effect of whole grain durum.)
• 50 g Arrowhead Mills Organic AP flour. This was just to use up what I have on hand. (I usually avoid organic products due to the extra cost, but this was discounted below regular AP flour.)
• 50 g Gold Medal bread flour.
• (400 g total flour)
• 26 grams fresh milk, 2% milkfat.

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Added the water to the container, then the salt, stirred,  then added yeast, stirred, then brown sugar, stirred, then all the flour.  It felt like it was going to be too dry, so added 26 g milk.  Had to stir and knead a bit because of clumps.

Waited an hour, saw a little bit of a rise, and kneaded some more.

Waitied another hour and saw a good rise, did one set of weak stretch and folds, and  decided to deep fry some.

I pulled off a portion, to make a 4" diameter disc, about 3/8" thick. It was wet enough to be sticky, so I lightly dusted both sides with AP flour.

I put the container with the rest of the dough in the friidge.

I put the wok on the stove-top burner, set temp to 50%, and put in a mix of oils: refined coconut oil, regular olive oil, grapeseed oil, about a teaspoon of beef tallow for flavoring (it was on clearance at Kroger), and some butter-flavored Crisco that I need to use up.

Heated oil to 400 F, and after putting dough in, tried to maintain 375 F. It took about 1.5 to 2 minutes per side to get it golden brown. 

Forgot to take a picture.

The mish-mash of oil worked, as the flavor was good.

Some foods are great made with a variety of breads - different but all good. Some foods really call for a specific type of bread. Cracked Dungeness crab just is wrong IMO without San Francisco Sourdough. You probably have your own biases. Well, another of mine is that Cabbage Borscht is "right" only with a dark rye bread.

David

My wife made pumpkin bars this weekend, and she told me to use up the rest of the puree.  So...  New bread experiment time!

I used the recipe from wassisname as a starting point: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/35177/pumpkin-sourdough

I didn't have any pumpkin seeds handy, so I went with raisins instead and added a little cinnamon and nutmeg.  Recipe below is for two loaves.

My raisin YW using date syrup as part of the refresh has been working very well and didn't disappoint this time either.  I have been combining YW and SD in the levain prep quite a bit this summer with good results.  The YW and mother culture are straight from the refrigerator.  I am seeing a lot of carbon dioxide evolution when I mix the acidic starter with the YW.  The drop in pH causes the dissolved gas to come out of solution.  You can see the layer of carbon dioxide foam just after mixing.  The levain was allowed to ferment at 73-74 deg F for 11 hours.  It over doubled in volume.

Raisins were put in the puree and refrigerated overnight to re-hydrate.  Cinnamon and nutmeg added to that as well.  Combined puree with final mix water in the morning and then combined that with the levain before adding in flour.  Dough came together nicely and was not sticky.  5 sets of bowl kneading after autolyse to develop gluten (roughly 60 mins to complete from end of autolyse) and then into the proofing box at 76 deg F.

Dough increased roughly 75% in bulk and then divide and pre-shape.  Shaped in a boule after bench rest and then back into proofing box at 76 deg F.  Moved to Cold Retard after 75 mins because I had to make lunch.  In cold retard for approximately 3 hours.  Pre-heat oven to 450 deg F for 1 hour.  Misted both doughs with water and scored delicately to try and get that "pumpkin" look after oven spring (this is part of where I went wrong but more on that in a minute).  Doughs into my Granite Ware roaster and a few more squirts of water to help with moisture.  450 deg with lid on and 425 deg with if off.  Final internal temp at 205 deg and nothing sticking to probe when removed. 

Not frisbees but didn't really have any spring/bloom, which surprised me based on how well bulk and final proof went.

When I removed the doughs from cold retard, I noticed both had large openings in the seam at the center of the dough.  Neither were there when I put them in the banneton.  I checked because I've had a few boules do that too me lately when I tried to proof them seam side down for a natural bloom.  I wasn't too worried about it because both of these would be seam side down for the bake.  However, when I sliced the loaf, I think I see why that decision, combined with the light scoring, killed any oven spring.  It looks like all my gases went down instead of trying to go up through the scoring.  Lesson learned!  I do need to figure out what I'm doing wrong with my boule shaping though...  Didn't get pictures of the second loaf as I gave it to a friend, but it had the same hole in the center after final proof and the same profile and lack of spring after baking.

Flavor and texture on the bread were very nice.  Loaf was quite heavy, and it probably could have baked another 5-10 minutes.  Toasted it with some butter and raspberry jam.  Good stuff!

I was prompted to make a time lapse of my sourdough during the oven spring. This is the start of the bake condensed into 37 seconds. Sorry about the background reflection, but you’ll get the gist. They are 750-gram oval loaves, Vermont sourdough with 10% whole wheat.

You can view the video on my YouTube https://youtu.be/c90Yqi3gLBE

Cheers,

Gavin

I've been handing this recipe around in various places and I thought I'd share here too, where I originally got the idea. Special thanks to Mariana who helped me find the original post about this (linked at the bottom of the post).

The traditional way to create a starter can take a few weeks to a month to have a usable culture. Some science-minded bakers have figured out a way to accelerate the process to have a viable and very beautiful tasting culture in just 3-7 days. Using heat and hydration it’s possible to speed up the fermentation to get through the “bad bacteria” phase in just 48 hours, leaving you a usable culture on the third day with some luck. I created my starter on a Tuesday and I baked with it on that Friday with great results.