Sprouted Spelt, Barley, Rye and Wheat Sourdough with 5 Seeds and Brazil Nuts

This week Lucy came up with a combination method; part no knead, part slap and fold and part stretch and fold to go along with her recent sprouted flour fetish..  the whole grain sprouts this week were; spelt,  rye, barley and wheat and made up the 34%  whole grains in the mix.

After drying the sprouts, we milled them getting a 25% extraction of the hard bits.  This is the closest we have come to getting a 72% ‘straight flour of the remaining much whiter flour.  As usual we fed the hard bits to the now 11 week old retarded, 66% hydration, whole rye starter.

There was just enough left to hold back for next weeks baking at the 12 week mark and to refresh the starter back to its 120 g whole rye self which we did this week son that the starter when first used will be 2 weeks old in the fridge.

We love Andy’s Toasted Brazil Nut and prune bread and think that Brazil nuts, like pistachios, are vastly underutilized in bread making.  To mix things up, since we haven’t used any seeds for weeks, Lucy prescribed a 5 seeds mix of equal parts of toasted; chia, hemp (for the Queen of Seeds), flax  and poppy seeds with a tiny 5 gram amount of sesame seeds.  After grinding, she soaked them in 65 g of potato water for 24 hours since chia seeds are notorious for stealing water from the dough

The sesame seeds were light because that is all Lucy could find in her double secret, seedy store that she guards with her very life.   Ingredient guard duty is better than having to drag badgers out of holes like normal, non baking apprentice 2nd class dackels have to do I’m sure.  Still, she does go into every hole looking for them,   So, she must be genetically modified for it and can’t help herself like she can’t forego any food, of any kind that she can smell, locate and ‘Dackel Down.’ 

We retarded our built 3 stage levain for 12 hours instead of our usual 24 hours.  An hour after it came out of the fridge the next day to finish its 3rd stage doubling, we also autolysed the dough flour and soaked seeds for 1 hour.  All the liquid, except in the 6 g of seed starter, was potato water from boiling potatoes for the potato salad we made as a side for ribs.  Lucy throws nothing away.

Once the levain hit the autolyse that included the soaked seeds, we did 3 sets of slap and folds of 1 minute each, followed by 3 sets of stretch and folds from the compass points only.  All the stretching and folding we on 20 minute intervals.  The toasted Brazil nuts were incorporated on the 1st set of stretch and folds and they were well distributed by the end of the 3rd set.

This bread made for one fine smoked chicken sadwich for lunch.

We then shaped the dough into a boule, placed it into a rice floured basket, bagged it in our usual used trash can liner and left on the counter for 3 hours of fermenting.  Then into the fridge it went for a cold 20 hour retard where we hoped the dough would finish proofing and gluten development at the same time.

The next day the dough looked fairly proofed and we let it warm up on the counter as we preheated Big Old Betsy to 550 F and readied the Mega Steam.  The steam went in when the BOB hit 550 F and we waited another 15 minutes for the stone to catch up and the steam to be billowing like a thunderhead.

We un-molded the dough onto parchment on a peel, slashed it in a square and slid it onto the bottom stone for 15 minutes of steam as we gradually lowered the temperature to 475 F regular bake after the first 4 minutes.   Once the steam came out, we lowered the temperature to 425 F - convection and, in 15 more minutes, the bread was at 210 F and ready for the cooling rack.

It sprang and bloomed well enough and there were those small blisters we like very much.  The crust was mahogany and crunchy as it came out of the oven.  We will have to wait to see how the crumb came out and how it tastes until lunch time.  Lunch is over and the crust went softer as it cooled.  The crumb was fairly open, soft and moist for this kind oif bread too.   It tasted fantastic!  The seeds, Brazil nuts, sprouted whole grains and sour all worked so well together.  A tasty delight to eat for sure.  Deep and earthy flavor that is healthy, seedy and nutty all at once.  If there were figs in there somewhere, our taste buds might genetically mutate into the killer buds that tasted Chicago and the prison in Joliet.

 Smoked ribs and chicken for Cousin Jay who just bough a house in Phoenix and will be moving here in about a year- Yea!!!  We love Cousin Jay.  Then ther was the Thai green curry seafood for our daughter's last meal at home before heading back to school.

Formula

Lucy reminds us to never forget the salad but why not put the salad on a smoked rib quesadilla?