Multigrain Sourdough Sprouter

For this week’s Friday bake, Lucy came up with another variation on our sprouted grains experiment.  We are trying to increase the whole sprouted grain amount and still get a 12 hour cold retard without the dough over proofing in the fridge or turning to goo.

We upped the sprouted whole grains to 30% and the 4 grains used were emmer, rye, wheat and spelt.  We really like this combination of grains flavor wise when not sprouted and we hoped the taste would even be better when sprouted.

We followed our usual schedule of sprouting on Tuesday, drying and milling the grain on Wednesday along with sifting the milled flour to remove the hard bits to feed to the levain.  This time the hard bits ended up being a 20% extraction.

The levain was built Wednesday afternoon using our normal 3 stage way - with 3 hours for the first 2 stages and 4 for the last one.  We used a heating pad to keep the temp around 84 F since it is now winter the kitchen isn’t 84 F like the summer

In 10 hours, the levain had finished its final doubling and we refrigerated the levain for 24 hours to help bring out more sour since the SD seed was newly refreshed and stored for only 2 weeks in the fridge for this bake.

Home made 100% buckweat soba noodles with tofu in a miso / dashi / turkey stock. and below 80% buckwheat ones

The dough flour was autolysed with the dough liquid with the salt sprinkled on top for 1 hour as the levain warmed up on the heating pad.  Once the warm levain hit the mix we did 3 sets of slap and folds for 8, 1 and 1 minute and 3 sets of strtech and folds – all on 20 minute intervals.

Lemon Curd Bars and Thanksgiving Turkey with lemon slices and herb compound butter under the skin

After a 15 minute rest we pre shaped the dough into a boule and then 10 minutes later did the final shape and placed the dough in a rice floured basket for a 30 minute rest on the heating pad after bagging it.  Then in the fridge it went for a 12 hour retard.

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Don't forget that salad.

By the next morning, it had risen nicely but wasn’t quite at the 90% level we like for white bread. So we let the dough warm up on the counter for 2 hours before un-molding it onto parchment, on a peel, slashing it and sliding it on the bottom 500 F stone and covering it with a heavy aluminum pot we found a Goodwill for a dollar.

After 2 minutes we turned the oven down to 465 F and continued to stem the bread for a total of 10 minutes.  Once uncovered we turned the oven down to 425 F convection and continued to make for another 25 minutes until the temperature hit 210 F on the inside – our standard temperature for sprouted grain bread.

It blistered and browned well but it also spread out 2” in diameter too.  The hydration of 78.6% for a 30% whole grain bread is high but not out of bounds.  I think the reason this spread more than normal is that the half of the white flour was AP instead of bread flour and that sprouted grain bread just spread more by nature.

Still, the spreading dough puffed itself up, sprang and bloomed well enough.  The crumb was open, super soft, moist and a bit glossy.  The contrasting bold bake of the crust that was still a little crunchy after cooling along with the soft crumb was a joy but the taste was really superb.  It is one of those fine tasting breads you would want to eat all the time, - if you could only have one bread to eat.

My 2 babies.

The crumb shots are a little less snazzy then usual but I was at the dentist this morning as the loaf cooled on the rack.  I took the loaf back up to their office and cut the bread into quarters, one for each of them and a slice that I cut up for us to taste. It is always nice to turn folks onto some good bread they normally wouldn’t eat and see their faces light up when they taste it.  It made my day.