Everyday 7 Grain Sourdough

This week was the 6th week for the rye starter being undisturbed in the fridge.  O\It is also the last week we will bake from it as well since it is almost down to nothing.   It needs to be refreshed back up to 125 G and restored in the fridge for another 6 weeks of no muss, no fuss, no waste and no maintenance starter control.

Even though it spent 6 weeks in the cold, this starter performed well during the 3 stage levain build by doubling after the 2nd feeding in 4 hours and doubling again in the fridge after being refrigerated one hour after the 3rd feeding.

We fed the rye starter the entire amount of the sifted out hard bits, 70 g, that equaled 15% of the total home milled 7 grain flour which totaled 470 g.  the levain spent 24 hours in the fridge before being taken out the next day to warm up 2 hours before we needed it in the dough mix.

This week we decided to go with more whole grains in the mix upping them to an equivalent 75%.  The whole grains included: barley, buckwheat, oat, spelt, farro, rye and wheat with wheat being twice the amount of the other grains that were equally weighted.

Normally for a bread with this much wholegrain we would be near 82% hydration, or more, but cut it back to 77% to see what the crumb difference would be.;We had made some gnocchi for dinner the night before and saved the potato water for the dough liquid in this bread…. because bread made with it is delicious,

With beef Tasso (it is usually pork) going in the smoker later today thanks to Darwin’s push, we need a good bread to stand up to this spicy cured and smoked meat.  We also decided not to put any sprouts or scalds in this bread  but did put in some red and white malt and a little bit if VWG to help out the non and low gluten flours along.

We changed up our usual process this time too.  We did a 1 hour autolyse with the dough flour and potato water and the salt sprinkled on top of the dough ball to make sure the flour was well hydrated.  We did 3 sets of slap and folds of 5, 1 and 1 minute on 20 minute intervals. The dough was much stiffer than usual because of the low hydration so we skipped our usual 3 sets of the stretch and folds entirely.

We pre-shaped and then final shaped the dough into a boule a placed it into a tapioca floured basket that was immediately bagged and placed into the fridge for a 10 hour retard.   We took the dough out of the fridge the net morning and waited 45 minutes before firing up Big Old Betsy to the 550 F regular bake preheat.

When the oven got to 525 F we put it the Mega Steam of (2) of Sylvia’s Steaming Pans and one of David’s Steaming Lava Rock Pans all half full of water and kitchen towels in the Sylvia’s Steam Pans.  By the time BOB chimed she was ready it has been an hour and half of warm up time for the dough on the counter.

We un-molded the dough onto parchment on a peel, quickly slashed it in a diamond and into the oven it went on the bottom stone as we turned down the temperature down to 500 F for 15 minutes of Mega Steam.

After the steam was removed, we turned the oven down to 425 F. convection this time and continued baking for another 10 minutes when the bread read 205 F on the inside and was left on the stone with oven off and door ajar until it hit 208 f on the inside when it removed to the cooling rack.

The bread sprang, bloomed, blistered and browned beautifully in the steam and heat.  The crust came out very crispy too.  We will have to wait for the lunch and the crumb shot but we have pout fingers crossed.  The crumb turned out very open for a bread with so much whole grains,  It was light , moist, glossy and soft.  The crust also went soft as it .  cooled.  My daughter said I should have made 10 loaves of this bread since she liked it so much.  The taste was its best feature - hearty healthy and just delicious.  Now it will be difficult to get her to move on to Lucy's next concoction.

Formula