Blogs

I am helping my sister in law get started on her sourdough journey.  She has made yeasted breads over the years successfully. This is the second time (her second sourdough bake) that she has had this result - almost white top.  

She is baking in an enamelled roasting dish , but using a loaf tin.  Baking using fan (Bosch electric oven so 4D hot air setting)  at 235°C for 10 minutes after cold over night retard. Then 15-30 minutes without lid.  

I don’t know what to suggest as I have never had this problem.  I have suggested her next bake could be free form to see if it is the loaf tin causing the problem.

Any suggestions gratefully received

Leslie

PS Photo is too large to upload so sides and bottom are golden brown but top virtually white. There was some oven spring and crumb is close not particularly open.  It is approx 45% wholewheat.  

My first sour dough loaf was burned on the outside and undercooked inside. Any suggestions?

I’ve been meaning to bake this combination for some time now and glad I finally did.  Toasting the walnuts is always a great way to enhance the walnut flavour but in this loaf I also added toasted walnut oil.  

For one 900 g loaf 78% hydration 

311 g white bread flour.        

67 g whole spelt     

266 g warm water          

7.5 g salt  

77 g levain  

21 g water for mixing later 

12.5 g toasted walnut oil 3% to be added after gluten moderately-fully developed.

total flour 417 g  

62 g dried blueberries 15% pre-soaked in brandy overnight. 

51 g Lightly toasted Walnuts 12% 

A refrigerated saltolyse was used given the higher summer temperatures.  The levain was built overnight and kept in the coolest room in the house on the floor.

Bulk lasted about 5 hours.  Shaping was done around 35–40% rise at a pH of 4.16.  Further bench rest was allowed until the pH reached 4.0 and the dough then had a final cold proof at 3ºC overnight and then baked as usual in a dutch oven overnight.

The crumb is a bit tight I’m sure partially because of the weight of the inclusions and perhaps also because of the microbe inhibiting effects of the brandy?  I’ve never been able to get anything like a relatively open crumb with fruit and nut breads, I think I’d have to reduce the amount of fruit and nut that I add to the bread.  However, I love the density of inclusions in these types of bread and this was a lovely eating bread.  The blueberries are delicious and still have some tenderness to them, while the toasted walnut flavour is definitely enhanced by the addition of the oil.  I think that the crust is a bit thinner and crispier which I believe is because of the walnut oil.  I’ll need to compare to future bakes to know for sure. 

038F7EA1-B2FA-4D88-A399-AB2EC321B9D4.jpeg

15065B6F-BCDE-4B3F-B29D-A9D10DBD0970.jpeg

30A54100-D9C1-4E45-8868-9F67828FC2F1.jpeg

EBE69310-B023-4822-BEB0-7B9FF2BBFE4C.jpeg

84B3470B-1018-4DE4-B1C4-84779977CBD6.jpeg

This has to be one of the most interesting (to me) breads I've made in the last couple of months. As I was making it I kept on thinking that this was quite mad scientist and couldn't possibly work.

It all started when I read a stray comment from David (headupinclouds) about the "wet sprouted grain path"....which led me to find Wendy's interesting post here from 2018 about Reinhart's Sprouted Pulp Bread.

And from there it was a short hop skip and jump to take those first tentative steps onto the "wet sprouted grain path". At least some of these tenative steps have been self inflicted, it would have certainly been easier to read Peter Reinhart.

At the time I didn't have Reinhart's "Bread Revolution" book, so the formula that I came up with to make my own was based off some assumptions. The first thought was that maybe 150g of wheat berries to 300g of flour would be a good starting point. It was harder to guess how much water to add, so I assumed that roughly 10% of the mass of the wheat berries was water and germinated the wheat in a closed glass jar so that I could have a rough idea of the added hydration. Also, I made the assumptions that 3 days would be about right for germination of the sprouts, although my kitchen is a cold 17 deg C at this time of the year.

And, based on these assumptions, and treating the sprouted wheat as another flour I initially aimed for '70% hydration' overall, figuring that it is better to be underhydrated and have control over the dough and add in water later by bassinage if needed. It turned out to be needed too - 50g of the water listed above in the formula needed to be added in via bassinage. The wheat husk and endosperm are certainly good at doing what they do when it comes to locking in (or out) the moisture.

The food processor with the sharp metal blade was used for pulping the sprouted wheat berries, and since I didn't really want to wash multiple containers I also used it for mixing the dough. I started out with a slurry of levain and the initial amount of water (178g) and into this the sprouted wheat was added for pulping. It was necessary to run the machine for around 3 minutes until the mixture no longer showed large wheat pieces. On top of this the high protein sifted bread flour was poured, with a total mix time thereafter of around 35 (20+15) seconds to make the final dough. There was a rest between the two mixes so that the dough could fermentolyse. When it came out of the food processor the dough had strong gluten and was taut and rubbery, and it was then left in a bowl in the proofing box for about an hour before the salt and additional bassinage water was added by hand. The bassinage the excessive rubbery gluten texture.

If I was to repeat, I think it might be interesting to pulp the wheat berries first to see what the pulp looks like (and to smell it) on its own without the levain slurry, although the method of mixing used clearly turned out to be effective and there was nothing wrong with it.

From Wendy's post the raisins and nuts looked like interesting inclusions, but I didn't want to overdo the inclusions on the first attempt, so there were inclusions, but only a small amount of dry cranberries and walnuts from leftovers in the cupboard. Inclusions were laminated in, thereafter followed by a couple of coil folds about hourly, with shaping at a low volume increase of 20% and the banneton went into the fridge for a retard at a volume increase of approximately 45%. Normally I like to go a little bit bigger than that, but the levain wasn't as active as I'd have liked.

The levain is my new desem culture which I've been playing with storing semi dehydrated in the fridge, and probably it should have had an additional day growing in the warm proofer with one extra levain build step before use. It is weird to think that the desem levain was started from the same bag of wheat kernels that I used for this bread, at least there is some consistency with the yeast and bacteria species found on the seeds and what is being used in the levain culture, although the whole thing felt kind of cannibalistic!

This bread was lovely to eat. I can see why all the bakers who make pulp breads say they will do it again. The taste was more neutral than sweet, but it certainly did not have the sour taste notes that I associate with sourdough and wholewheat. It was a little denser than I like, and I suspect using emmer or kamut are worth exploring as Reinhart suggests, although even using regular wheat result in a "power" bread that is digestible and nutritious.

Today I bought an ebook version of Reinhart's book to finally see the recipe for his "sprouted emmer pulp power bread". Definitely on the path now. And, can see why his bread is less dense - the ratio of kernels to flour in his recipe has more flour, and he even added some VWG which I see could be beneficial. Plus, he also used a lot more of the good stuff, the raisins and nuts! Definitely will try his recipe too, there will certainly be a next time.

I haven’t baked plain sourdough baguettes in a while and I thought it would be a good way to test out my new flax linen couche.  You might recall that my old couche, sold to me as being flax linen was in fact 100% cotton and has given me tons of grief each time I’ve tried to bake ciabattas.  The dough would stick no matter how much flour I used.  So I broke down and got a new couche.  I seasoned it by sprinkling then rubbing in white flour.  It did work well and my baguette dough didn’t stick, thank goodness.  The big test will be trying ciabatta again.

I’ve updated my formula for these baguettes and used Scott McGee’s MeGee’s shaping.  I’m very happy with his technique.  In fact, when shaping the baguettes you never press down at all on the dough to elongate.  You press along the edge where the dough meets the table which builds tension and elongates the dough.  This time I’ve increased the hydration to 72% and increased the dough so each baguette is 330 g.  I was easily able to shape the baguettes to the maximum length of my cookie tray that fits in my fridge which is 15 inches.  The shaped baguettes sit in the couche on the cookie tray which makes it easy to give the dough a final chill to ease scoring once they are fully proofed to 30% rise by aliquot jar.  By the way, the pH of the dough at the time of baking is a relatively high 4.34.  For hearth loaves I’ve been aiming for a pH of 3.8 - 4.0 at the time of bake.

With the longer baguettes I’ve now also done five scores per baguette which I think works well for this length.  I’ve need a bit more practice to avoid overlapping them too much which I did particularly in the one baguette where the ears broke from the oven spring.

8304E4CE-F48B-4C98-9A79-9F2B4A01216E.jpeg

B26330C2-226E-4EA1-9E4C-DB3D354EFEA8.jpeg

84D6F3E8-0365-4CB6-A19A-8BDD675216F6.jpeg

B5B061BE-59C7-47AD-9EA7-31B240FD8E61.jpeg

2E10463D-FA44-426C-A605-737622E23BFE.jpeg

7342913A-1987-48C8-9EAD-4BD557BB317A.jpeg

B2187D13-08A1-482D-A23A-2F122FB8B595.jpeg

Hey, bakers!

I know that UFO Bread Lames from Wire Monkey Shop have been talked about for a while, specifically in the online sourdough bread community. Since I've had a UFO lame for seven months and I've been using it actively, I thought I would make a full review of this type of lame. Hope it's helpful for anyone who is considering purchasing one of these, or any other type of lame. Enjoy!

Grant

Because my wife and I just cannot seem to get enough of this fantastic flavor! Shoutout, as usual, to everyones friend Benito for the initial inspiration. This is my 4th time baking this knockout sourdough, and I've tried different formulations each go round. I substituted dark rye for the whole wheat, and used Giusto's La Parisienne for the bread flour along with 50 g KA all purpose for good measure. Also added 15 grams of Giusto's All-Natural Barley Malt, which has been giving me outstanding results. As for the purple sweet potato, I added 150 g at the beginning of bulk ferment instead of Benny's lamination technique. As you can see, it's really well incorporated!

PSP_1.jpg

PSP_Leaf.jpg

PSP_Crumb.jpg

This is the second time I've made these buns and they really are very tasty. I was so pleased with the first batch that I used exactly the same recipe second time around.

The recipe is courtesy of chef Rick Stein. I watched him make the buns in an episode of his recent Cornwall series. I more or less followed his recipe, but, as always, did a few tweaks:

• I upped the saffron to 0.7g (no expense spared!), to get more flavour and colour in. Also when using saffron I like to grind up the strands in a pestle and mortar with a tspn of sugar and a little of the milk
  
  
• soak the dried fruit (I used 40g currants and 30g raisins) in the milk for an hour before using
  
  
• I used a flour mix at 11% protein - if the flour is too strong the buns could be chewy
  
  
• mixed in the Kenwood, 5 mins slowest and 5 mins faster - check for a good windowpane, then add fruit on slowest
  
  
• buns scaled at 92g x 12 pieces
  
  
• egg yolk wash and baking regime as in my hot cross bun recipe - I don't like sugar syrup glaze
  
  
• if you like saffron, be prepared for a heavenly smell in the kitchen when you make these!

Lance

For Ferment - Day 1

50g - Strong White Flour

25g - Rye Flour

40g - Dark Ale

Day 2

125g - Strong White Flour

25g - Rye Flour

50g - Dark Ale

50g - Warm Water

Day 3

100g - Strong White Flour

100g - Warm Water

5-10g - starter

Recipe:

225g Ferment/Starter(keep left over for next bake)

250g Strong White Flour

175g Whole Wheat Flour

5g Malt Flour

25g Rye Flour

250g Water/Dark Ale

9g Salt

Soaker - I don’t have wheat flakes so I’ve used something different that doesn’t need soaking for hours(recipe calls for wheat flakes)

100g Wheat Flakes (Weet-Bix)

175g Water

I mixed everything by hand, very sticky/messy to knead but all goes well at the end, Bulk Fermented until almost doubled. Was very cold that time, left it on the counter overnight @ 14c deg room temperature about 11pm to 8am and probably temperature drop a bit more over night. Shaped it in the morning and let it proof in the banneton for another 3 hours @ 15c to 16c deg room temperature, 20 hours cold retard @ 4c to 5c deg.

Baking Temp

210c deg - DO - 15 minutes 

210c deg - 25 minutes

210c deg - 5 minutes slightly open door

Overall this loaf is amazing in flavour, a strong taste of wheat almost like a 100% whole wheat. 

Recipe by Richard Bertinet from his book "Crumb"

Not sure why my paragraph breaks aren't working today.... Might be something related to creating this post on my laptop instead of my phone? Apologies in advance....  This bake was inspired by idaveindy. I had read in one of his past threads about Steve Gamelin's no knead bread approach. I had never heard of him and on a whim decided to look into it. In part, because my 92 y.o. mother in law loves fresh bread, but can't handle all the kneading, etc. I ended up watching a bunch of what he has on you tube. By far, Mr. Gamelin has the easiest approach ever. He bakes with IDY, and shows how you can get all sorts of bread baked in whatever container you have available. His approach is about as minimalist as you can get, and it's worth watching the video just to see him work. Besides, what's not to love about watching a white haired man wearing a Carhart t-shirt baking, lol. Dave gave me a few tips on how things might go if I wanted to do a whole wheat version using fresh milled flour. AZ monsoon has cooled things off enough to make baking more do-able, so I decided to go for it. I mostly followed Steve Gamelin's recipe, but adjusted hydration slightly (my whole wheat flour was way too dry otherwise). He does use 16 oz. of water in some recipes, so I went with that.  Also, Steve measures by volume and not weight. Dave suggested something between 3.5-4 cups of flour, so I split the difference there. And the general principle was to only mess with the dough if I was going to be in the kitchen for another reason anyway. Ingredients:3.75 cups whole wheat flour (a mix of 75% hard white spring and 25% hard red winter wheat, but I suspect anything would work).16 oz room temperature water1.5 tsp of salt0.25 tsp instant yeast (Edit - while measuring flour for another bake, I weighed 3.5 cups of my fresh milled. It came in at 450 gm of flour.) Day 1.  07:40 a.m. During breakfast cleanup, I mixed the flour, water and salt, covered the bowl and stuck it in the fridge. (I love his mixing technique, he uses the handle - it works remarkably well!).  5 p.m. Starting to prep dinner, pulled dough out of fridge. Mixed yeast in by hand. Performed 4 S&F over the course of the next 2.5 hours, whenever I thought of it.  (I couldn't help myself, and wanted to be sure the yeast was well incorporated.) 7:30 p.m. Covered dough back into the fridge. No signs of yeast activity at all, not surprised. Day 2.  5:30 a.m. Dough out of fridge while hubby is pouring coffee (yes, I am spoiled). The dough looks like it did right before going into the fridge - no bubbles, no change in size or texture when gently poked, nada. I stuck it into the microwave with the surface light on to warm things up a tad. After 2 hours, turned the light off as I headed to the pool to do laps, and ignored the dough. Dough fresh out of the fridge this morning:  12:30 p.m. Checked the dough at lunch and voila - lots of bubbles, and about a 70% volume increase. I followed Steve's video example, using the spoon handle to degas and stretch the dough, then basically poured the dough into a 9X5 in loaf pan. I could see some reasonably good gluten development while I was stirring, which was nice to see. I'm not much on binder clips, the ones we have are way to hard for me to squeeze.... So I used some of these stainless steel clothes pins we have instead. They worked fine, though I did have to make sure the top pan was squared up correctly.  1:00 p.m. Preheated the oven to 400F. In his videos, he used to proof for longer, but now he recommends a 30-60 min proof. I split the difference. 1:25 p.m. After a 50 min proof, the bread was baked at 400F for 40 min as recommended. Cooling - I would normally have baked this just a tad darker, but wanted to do things as close to the recipe as possible. In hindsight, I think he bakes to a lighter color than I might for a lot of his breads. And next time I will use my 8 x 4 in pan. I used the 9x5 he recommends, but I prefer taller rather than wider bread.)   Thanks, Dave, for giving me the nudge. It was nice to learn something I incredibly easy I can do pretty much anywhere, and I'm pretty sure my MIL will tackle this once cooler temps make it to her area. Edit to add crumb shot, and refine ingredient details.  A bit more dense looking than some of the recent sandwich bread I have made lately, but you wouldn't know it from the chew. It came out tender and moist, and you can taste the flavor of the wheat more than my SD bakes. Hubby liked it a LOT, with more compliments than he normally does with SD. I could see where this would be handy for any sort of travel that includes a place with a kitchen.... Put the flour, salt, and IDY in a Ziploc, add water when ready to mix, proof at your leisure whilst vacationing, and bake in whatever container they happen to have available. I had better be careful, this is going to wake the travel bug within.... 😁🚙