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This is a follow-up to Precaud's interesting post on enhancing oatiness. And my, what a journey. I love my oats, and have lots of experience making them for granola, incorporating a portion into my bread and so forth, but at a high percentage, oats do very funny things. 

So I made three oat breads this weekend, all with the same ratios of 5:4:1 for oat: white bread flour: red whole wheat. Apart from the first bread being made with SD and the other two made with IDY, the most significant change was the hydration.

The idea was to do what I have always done for my granola, albeit at a higher hydration. I found that soaking the oats for a couple of hours before baking them really brought out their oatiness (aside: I started doing it to make them more digestible for family members, but in the meantime found out that this was a great method to also make granola clusters!!!)

For this bread, the method is as follows: The night before baking, I soak the oats in milk, some lemon juice and a sprinkle of rye flour, and leave overnight in the fridge. The next day, I mix the soaked oats with the white and wholegrain flours, water and yeast. Note: I use normal cooking oats, not quick-cooking or steel-cut.

First loaf

For the first loaf I decided to apportion some of the bread flour and all the whole wheat flour to a levain. I went with a conservative 100% hydration of the oats (so equal weight oats and milk). The next day, all the oats had soaked up the milk and were not mushy at all. I mixed up the dough, levain and added enough water to make a dough that felt like 80% hydration. BF and final proof took 8 hours.

Results: Very tasty, but sourness overpowers oatiness. Dough got drier and drier during BF, which told me that the oats could have soaked up more water overnight. Pleasant loaf, but could definitely be more moist.

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Second loaf

Decided to increase hydration of soaked oats to 130%. Mixed in instant dry yeast to dough the next day. Added water to go beyond what I'm comfortable dealing with in a loaf, anticipating dough becoming drier like previous attempt. I was not comfortable, indeed. But dough ended up being where I wanted it to be, and bread turned out extremely well. Oatiness comes through much better now. But I wondered if the rise would be even better with increased hydration?

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Third loaf

Encouraged, I decided to increased the hydration of the soaked oats to 150%. I think this version is the one I'm most happy about (the picture right at the top of the post). Here are the figures to make a 600g loaf :

Oak soaker: 150g normal cooking oats, 225g room temp or cold milk, squeeze of lemon juice, 1 tbsp of rye flour

If possible, leave this at about 22-25 degrees for 3 hours before refrigerating it overnight. If not, just dump it into the fridge. The next day, all the oats would have soaked up the milk - there should be no milk left in the container. Add to the oats: 120g bread flour, 30g wholewheat flour, 1g instant dry yeast, 4g salt, 10ml agave syrup (optional), about 65g water.

Note: We do end up with the ratio of dry:wet ingredients being 1:1. (I'm cautious about calling this 100% hydration because most of the liquid was used as a soaker.)

When first mixed, the dough is unruly and hopeless.

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But after 3 hours, it gets better.

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BF took 8 hours and final proof took 2 hours. I baked it for 25 mins at 220C and 15 mins at 205C.

Too late here now to take a crumb shot, but essentially the same as the second loaf - moist, not crumbly at all, good bite with oats texture.

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The real winner of this loaf is the crust - it is insanely delicious, like eating a granola crumb. I really have never achieved anything like this before. I will certainly be baking more of this bread in future.

Some notes:

1. It's a horribly wet dough to be confronted with. I simply used a spatula to fold the batter-dough upon itself, a couple of times over the first 4 hours of BF. Obviously there's no kneading whatsoever. I suppose it could work with a mixer but I don't have one.

2. I think my oats probably reach maximum hydration overnight in the fridge at about 120%, so it is possible to apportion more liquid content to be added to the final dough the next day, instead of soaking the oats in more liquid overnight. I do this simply to break down the oats a little more, and to be hyper sure that the oats have soaked up enough such that they don't start drying out my dough. If you prefer your oats to have a firm bite, I advise sticking with an overnight hydration of not more than 120%, then adding more water to the final dough.

3. I think the wholewheat does contribute a distinct flavour and bite to the loaf. I like it, but if you want even more oatiness, that would be something to completely omit. I would incorporate spelt, emmer or einkorn instead. In fact I will try that soon.

4. There is barely any rise during BF. I shaped it when it started smelling really good and yeasty, and the surface of the dough had some tension. Again, no real idea when to bake it. The bread looks and tastes good, so the timings kind of worked. Don't know what would have happened if I waited longer, but I was hungry!!!

5. I think replacing the agave syrup with oat malt, and further coating the bread with oats will bring the oatiness to the next level. 

And finally, a shot of my granola to bring an end to this oaty post:

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I had a bread party in the office a few days ago and brought three breads:

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The 60% spelt-emmer was the unanimous winner, which struck me by surprise. It was flavourful, complex, but I had assumed a little "heavy" for people who were not so much into wholegrain. The bread was based on the 30/30 levain/autolyse method I used for the spelt bread experiment conducted a few days ago, which I will now describe.

My father-in-law recently read that our Olympic marathon winner consumes only spelt bread, that everything else gives him a bad stomach while running. He asked me to make some wholegrain spelt breads for him to try, but to keep the % around 50 so that my mother-in-law, too, could eat (too much fibre is a problem).

I made two 60% wholegrain spelt loaves. One had all 60% pre-fermented using a double-build levain. The other had 30% pre-fermented using a single-build levain, and the other 30% autolysed for 12 hours in the fridge. 

This is the one made with the double-build levain:

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And this one is the 30/30:

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As predicted the double-build levain loaf was more sour and had a significantly more complex flavour profile (my sister-in-law cut a slice thinking it was the family's everyday wholewheat bread from the bakery and commented "wow what is this bread??"). It was also harder to shape, and as you can tell, had a somewhat weaker structure due to the overall longer fermentation duration of the spelt. Both loaves were around 72% hydration and very fun to make. 

Moving forward, I might play around pairing spelt with other ancient grains and see how the flavour profile changes. I find spelt such a complementary grain, and such fun to work with.

And finally we needed a birthday cake last weekend, and I was given the prompt "chocolate" and "marzipan". Not feeling particularly inspired, I therefore made a chocolate marzipan cake. Such fun rolling out the marzipan and making the dinosaurs. The cake is a basic dark chocolate fudge cake.

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So there we have it. Final weekend of leisurely baking before the teaching semester starts next week. Might work on an oat bread.

Sourdough Bread with Spelt and T85 Flours

David M. Snyder

September, 2024

While I am very happy with the multigrain sourdough bread I have been making in recent years, I am still interested in trying new flour mixes. In this instance, I have been wanting to use some Central Milling T85 flour I ordered, prompted by Maurizio Leo’s fondness for this flour and inspired by his “Rustico” sourdough bread recipe in “The Perfect Loaf.”

Note: The whole grain wheat and spelt flours are milled in a Mockmill 100 mill set at its finest setting. The flour is milled immediately before mixing.

1. Dissolve the starter in the water. Add the flours and mix thoroughly.

2. Transfer to a clean container, cover and ferment until ripe. If you don't use it immediately, it can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Procedures

1. Mix the flours with the water to a shaggy mass.

2. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 45-120 minutes. (Autolyse)

3. Sprinkle the salt over the dough surface and add the levain in 4 to 6 portions.

4. Mix thoroughly. (I start by folding in the salt and levain with a silicon spatula. Then, I use the method Forkish specifies – squeezing the dough between my fingers alternating with stretch and folds in the bowl. I wear a food service grade glove and dip my working hand frequently in water.)

5. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled, clean bowl large enough to accommodate doubling in volume. Cover well.

6. Ferment at 80ºF for 3 – 3.5 hours with stretch and folds in the bowl at 30 and 60 minutes, then a stretch and letter fold on the board at 1:45-2:00 hours. The dough should have nearly doubled in volume and be quite puffy.

7. Transfer the dough to a well-floured board. 

8. Divide the dough as desired and pre-shape in rounds. Cover with a cloth and let rest for 20-30 minutes.

9. Shape as boules or bâtards and place in floured bannetons. Place these in food-grade plastic bags sealed with ties and let proof for 30-60 minutes at room temperature. Refrigerate 8 hours or up to 36 hours at 40ºF.

10. The next day, pre-heat oven. Let the loaves sit at room temperature while the oven pre-heats. You can bake on a baking stone with steam for the first part of the bake, or in Dutch ovens, as you prefer. The oven temperature and length of the bake will depend on which of these methods you choose and on the weight and shape of your loaves, as well as on how dark you prefer your crust. When done, the loaves should sound hollow when thumped on their bottoms. The internal temperature should be at least 205ºF.

11. Let the loves cool completely on a rack for 1-2 hours before slicing.

Today, the breads baked in Cast Iron Dutch ovens at 475ºF for 30 minutes covered, then 15 minutes un-covered at 460ºF.

When first tasted, the crust was crunchy. The crumb was moist and moderately chewy. The flavor had some sweetness and nuttiness but a rather pronounced lactic acid-type sourness. I like it.

I would like to try this formula for sandwich rolls. I think it would be really good.

Happy baking!

David

With all of the discussion around biga on thefreshloaf lately, I thought I'd owe it to myself to faithfully make Abel's 90% biga bread which has become one of those famous recipes here. This time I tried to make it exactly as per the recipe. In the last month I've tried Rene's idea of a 50% biga with sourdough, and I've also tried a similar idea of a long 24 hour fermented biga made with sourdough at 90% biga.

For me, the promise of the biga method is the extra smell and flavour from the biga, and maybe also that dough handling is better because you seem to be granted an extra special window of time where fermentation has advanced quite a bit, but gluten development has been minimal or at least fundamentally different enough that you can still develop a strong gluten. That is, provided you are working from 'strands' of 'just mixed enough' biga!

One of the things that has kept me away from Abel's method was the requirement for keeping the biga at 14-16°C, especially since I don't have a wine cellar or own a wine fridge. However, I seem to have figured out a good enough method here - I used my proofer switched off, which is essentially a polystyrene box, to which I added an additional bowl with 2 ice bricks and ice to keep things cool.

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I'm making three loaves for the office bread party next week, and in addition to the 40% rye and 60% spelt, I thought I will bring this...decadent loaf.

This really is not a super rich or high-caloric loaf - no, not anything like that, but it is very soft, moist, deeply nutty, and its sweet notes perfectly balanced by a very gentle tang in the aftertaste. There's nothing like a slice of this with velvety, salty butter. I suppose decadent because I struggle not to eat more on the day its baked (I have no discipline re slicing into bread when its relatively fresh out of the oven). And ofc with just 10% wholegrain it's maybe a little on the sinful side, but yes once in a while it's very nice...

This bread uses a relatively long overnight BF without cold retardation. No levain, just old starter from the fridge.

For approx 550g loaf:

40g starter; 28g wholegrain wheat; 252g bread flour; 18g raw cocao powder; salt; dash of agave syrup, 220g water

Overall hydration is 78.5% 

I left this to ferment on the counter for 10.5 hours (22C room temp), then folded my walnuts in, and then proofed for another 2.5 hours before baking at 220C for 25 mins.

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This is a follow-up bake to my 90% hydration ciabatta minis using different levain proportions. From that experiment I became more confident of using up to 50% rye levain in my dough, so I decided to apply it to this bake.

The goal is an everyday family loaf that has 1) good flavour; 2) extremely subdued sour tang; 3) is not too dense; 4) does not require much mixing; and 5) has most of the whole grains in the pre-ferment for easier digestion (husband suffers).

I made two loaves, one with 40% rye levain in the final dough, and the other with 50%. The measurements for the 50% loaf are:

Levain: 245g

Rye starter: 35g; Rye flour: 105g; Water: 105g

Final dough: 500g

Rye levain: 245g; Bread flour: 152g; Water: 100g; Salt: 3g

Total hydration of the dough, accounting for the levain, is 78%. % of rye/total flour is 40%.

Mixed the ingredients together in the morning and just left it to do its thing. Bulk fermentation to 50% took 4.5 hours at room temp 22C. After shaping, it rested for an hour before it was baked at 220C for 35 mins.

Verdict

Good. Both are keepers. The 40% levain actually did not taste sour at all and had a really fragrant profile. The 50% had a more pronounced character and was only very mildly sour.

Lovely aroma; husband says: "This bread smells like beer." Did not expect the children to eat it, but our 2 year old polished off one slice (extracted the walnuts, though).

I don't know if I will pursue an even higher rye levain loaf. This works for what I wanted. I might incorporate a soaker to to enhance the flavour profile.

I'm experimenting with the same recipe for my red wholegrain spelt. Yesterday was a flop; the dough did not behave. I shall try again.

Picture on left (top): 50% crumb. Picture on right (bottom): 40% crumb.

During the Infinity Bread Community Bake, I created an Infinity Soda Bread. See it at 

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/529736#comment-529736

Today's bake is nearly the same recipe except I leavened it with sourdough starter instead of baking soda.

This CB called for 1/3 of the flour to be white, 1/3 some version of whole wheat, and the remaining 1/3 to be any combination of grains and flours you want. Today's bread used graham flour for the WW, and a combination of spelt and rye for the remaining 1/3. The formula also included some oats.  The liquid remained a thick, rich cultured buttermilk, the same as I used for the soda bread version.

Pictures then details: 

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The bread is a little delicate but good eating. The loaf has a thin pleasant crust, a soft fairly open crumb, and a good balanced flavor with no sourness.  The nigella seeds come through as a faint perfume that can barely be tasted, which brings in a hint of mystery.  The slices are more delicate than a sourdough loaf would usually be so they should be cut thick.

Steve, the baker of our local bakery, liked it very much.

I purposely made the dough to be wet and it turned out between a batter and a normal dough.  It was very sticky and gloppy. I baked it in a 4 X 4 X 9 inch Pullman pan without the lid. I buttered the insides of the pan with soft butter. 

Recipe
-------
Flour Weight: 420g

Dough
----------
        Baker’s Percent          Actual Weight g
-----------------------------------------------------------
Total Flours  100.0                          420.0
------------------------------------------------------------
AP                 33.3                           140.0
Graham         33.3                           140.0
rye                 20.0                             84.0 (stone-ground)
spelt              13.3                             56.0 (stone-ground)

Liquids
------------
buttermilk       86.9                            365.0

Starter/Levain 16.6                             69.7

Salt                  2.0                                8.4 Sugar

Other
-------
rolled oats        7.0                               29.4
caraway seeds 1.2                                 5.0
nigella seeds    1.8                                 7.6

Process (times are very approximate)
-------------------------------------------------
- 6:45 PM - Finish mixing all except for oats & seeds
- 7:30 - knead (thick sticky paste)
- 8:15 - stretch on countertop
- 9:00 - s&f (in-bowl folds)
- 11:00 - Form log with some stretching, put into Pullman (still sticky but had some cohesiveness)
- 6 AM - Risen to top of pan. Preheat oven 450°F
- 6:20 - Bake 415°F no lid 20 min, 20 min 390°F. Remove from pan, bake 5 min 350°F.

 TomP

I made a batch of rieska (Finnish flatbread) this week using the recipe on KAB's website. I made it once before using the optional barley flour instead of rye flour; it was delicious. Most recipes from Finnish websites seem to use barley instead of rye.

I had purchased barley, rye, and buckwheat from a Serbian grocer. The bags do have English on them but the large type is in Serbian. I made this recent batch at breakfast and I don't think the morning caffeine had taken effect. I thought the bag of flour was barley but I discovered a day later that I had grabbed the bag of buckwheat flour instead of barley. I don't have any pictures of the batch because it was mostly consumed before I thought of posting here. I like buckwheat anyway and the buckwheat version may even be better than the barley one. I'm going to try the barley one again for comparison.

In honor of my 16 Year old  Mookie! This one was made with high extraction freshly milled whole wheat, spelt and rye with a little bread flour mixed in.

The crumb was nice and open and it tastes amazing.

I like using the whole potato skin and all and just chop them up in my mini food processor. It makes for a soft crumb and the bread will stay fresher longer.

I’ve been lowering the % of starter with my fresh milled flour bakes and it’s helping control the fermentation much better.

I used one of my favorite whole wheat berries from Barton Springs Mill called Rouge de Bordeaux as well as some fresh milled spelt, Danko rye and some KAF bread flour. The whole wheat and rye were milled and sifted twice and the spelt was milled twice and sifted once.

The dough was left to bulk at a lower temperature than I usually use at 75 F with a target bulk rise of 50% which took 5 hours and 45 minutes in my proofer.

The end result was a nice open and moist crumb and one tasty bread. This was great grilled with some EVO and melted cheese.

Formula

Levain Directions 

Mix all the levain ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.

Let it sit at room temperature for around 6-7 hours or until the starter has almost doubled. I used my proofer set at 76 degrees so it took around 5 hours for me. Either use in the main dough immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day before using.

 Main Dough Procedure

Note: I use an Ankarsrum Mixer so my order of mixing is slightly different than if using a Kitchenaid or other mixer. Add all your liquid to your mixing bowl except 50-80 grams. Add the levain in pieces and mix for a few seconds to break it up. Next, add all your flour to the bowl and mix on low for a minute until it forms a shaggy mass. Cover the mixing bowl and let it rest for 20 – 30 minutes.   Next add the salt, mashed roasted potatoes and sour cream, and remaining water as needed and mix on medium low (about speed 3) for 12- 24 minutes. 

Remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl and do several stretch and folds.  Make sure the dough is as flat as possible in your bowl/container and measure the dough in millimeters and take the temperature of the dough as well. Based on the chart from http://www.thesourdoughjourney.com, determine what % rise you need and make a note. If you have a proofer decide what temperature you want to set it at and what rise you are aiming for. If the dough is fully developed you don’t need to do any stretch and folds, but if it’s not, do several sets 15-20 minutes apart.

Once the dough reaches the desired bulk rise, pre-shape and let rest for 15-20 minutes. Finish shaping place in your banneton, bowl or on your sheet pan and cover it so it is pretty airtight. You will then place it in your refrigerator so you don’t want the dough to get a crust on it. Since there is such a high percentage of whole grains in the dough I didn’t want to leave it in the refrigerator for more than 12 hours. Depending on how cold your refrigerator is you could leave it longer and have to experiment to make sure it doesn’t over ferment.

When you are ready to bake, an hour beforehand pre-heat your oven to 540 F and prepare for steam. I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone above the pan and one on the top shelf.  I pour 1 cup of boiling water into the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.  Remove your dough from the refrigerator and score immediately.

After 1 minute lower the temperature to 450 degrees.  Bake for around 35 minutes or until the breads are nice and brown and have an internal temperature of around 200-210 F. 

Take the bread(s) out of the oven when done and let them cool on a baker’s rack for as long as you can resist. 

These little things are very good. I first had them in a fancy restaurant in Antwerp after multiple courses of little plates. Didn't care much for the plates, the bread was lacklustre, the dessert nothing to write home about, but the canele that came with the coffee, damn that was good.

Since then I've been trying to make them that good. Crunchy and caramelized on the outside, soft and custardy on the inside. It's a really spectacular sweet thing.

Good results today.

For 15 of them:

1 egg, 1 egg yolk, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 240ml milk, 80g sugar, 50g low-protein flour.

Mix and rest in the fridge overnight. Next day pour batter through a sieve into oiled molds (I used clarified butter) without excessive stirring (you don't want air in the batter). Bake in a 250C oven for 13 mins then 180C for 40 mins.

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