Sorta Altamura Style Sprouted 4 Grain with Desert Durum, Seeds and Baked Scald

Lucy has had a bit of Desert Durum berries burning a hole in her pantry.  We can’t get any more until this year’s AZ crop comes in since last year’s crop is all sold out.  She decided to use it up with some whole sprouted and milled 4 grain consisting of rye, spelt barley and wheat.

With some LaFama AP this bread came in at 64% whole grain and half of that was sprouted.  Per our recent usual, we used 6 g of 5 week retarded rye sour starter and fed it the sifted hard bits from the Desert Durum and sprouted grains for the 3 stage levain build over 10 hours and then refrigerated it for 24 hours to bring out the sour.

The sprouting started on Tuesday, with the drying, milling and levain building on Wednesday.  On Thursday we baked the scald for 2 hours and did a 2 hour autolyse with the dough flour and water and salt sprinkled on top as the levain warmed up on the counter. 

Once the levain and baked scald hit the mix we did 3 sets of slap and folds on 8.1.and 1 minutes followed by 3 sets of stretch and folds – all on 20 minute intervals.  The pumpkin, poppy, ground flax and chia seeds were incorporated into the mix during the first set of stretch and folds.

The 40 g of chia and poppy seeds were soaked in 60 g of water which was not included in the hydration calculations.   Once the gluten development was done we moved away from out usual methods and decided to let the dough ferment on the counter for 2 hours before pre-shaping and shaping Altamura style.

The dough was then placed in a bartard shaped, cloth lined basket with the folded side up (so the fold wouldn’t be squished) for final proofing in the fridge over 12 hours.  After warming up on the counter for an hour, we had to use a flipper board to get it out of the basket and flipped to folded side up on the parchment covered peel when it was time for the oven.

Because of the fold, no slashing was necessary.  The bread slid easily onto the bottom stone in a Mega Steamed oven at 500 F.  Once the oven door was closed, the oven temperature was immediately turned down to 450 F.  The bread was baked with steam for 12 minutes.  Once the steam came out, we continued to bake, at 425 F convection until the bread hit 208 F. 

The oven was then turned off but the bread was left on the stone till it hit 210 F our favorite temperature for sprouted grain breads.  The bread blistered, bloomed and sprang pretty well.  It also browned up beautifully to the mahogany color we love so much.  The crust was very crisp.

We will have to wait till after lunch to see how the crumb came out and have a taste.  The crumb came out a little more dense than we wanted but ,with so much whole grain and seeds in there, it wasn't too bad.   Soft moist and very tasty with the sprouted flour and seeds really coming. through,  A very deep , complex and earthy taste for sure.  We like it a lot and so would you. 

Real authentic Altamura bread would be made with at least 80% durum, 20% stiff levain and a hydration of around 60% using water from Altamura and baked by a baker there too!  So this isn't anywhere near a real Altamura but, it is shaped like one (not the Pope’s hat though) so it qualifies a semi sorta like Altamura in Lucy’s kitchen :-)

This bread made for fine sandwich for lunch today with the usual salad, fruits veggies, cheese, salty olives with some pickled red onion and jalapenos.

And Lucy reminds us to never ever forget that fine salad.