Sprouted 4 Grain Sourdough with Baked Scald and Guinness

Lucy loves her science.  We were watching a show on the Science Channel where noted physicists were predicting their favorite way of how the earth could be destroyed – a lovely topic if there ever was one ....and sure to make one as comfy as could be.

All the ways were really kind of frightening and there wasn't much we could do about most of them it seems - another comforting thought.  A gamma ray burst from a large exploding near by star would wipe us out and fry us for an alien’s dinner too. Or, being hit by a rouge planet would easily do the trick and a rouge star could come close enough to fling us out of the solar system where we would freeze in deep space near absolute zero.

Then there was the ever present wandering black hole that could gobble us up and maybe spit some our remains into the void of space.  It also seems that the earth loses its magnetic field every 640,000 years or so as the poles switch from north to south.  During this switch, comic rays will bombard the earth frying every living thing to irradiated dust since there would be no magnetic field to divert these pesky rays away

I especially liked this one since it has been about 640,000 years since the poles last switched and it seems the magnetic field of the earth is weakening right now heading for a switch and has already lost 10% of ability to divert cosmic rays.  Then there was the large comet or asteroid hitting the earth and wiping us out like the dinosaurs.  Then there was the ever present notion of us killing ourselves by blowing ourselves up with nukes causing a nuclear winter - not that we notice a real climate change since we would all be dead.

But, by far and away, Lucy’s favorite was Strange Matter.  This strange matter is made in the massive gravity present on the inside of neutron stars.  It seems under great pressure, some building blocks of matter; quarks, can merge in an unusual way where strange quarks merge with other strange quarks to make Strangelets.  These strangelets can apparently exist outside the confines of a neutron star which means that our earth might run into one of them in space as we fly around in it all willy nilly.

It seems that when regular matter touches a strangelet the result is that the regular matter turns into strange matter which is like an amorphous sticky goo.  Right off Lucy though that for sure this might be the reason why some of our dough turns onto goo if it is over proofed and over fermented   But, when I told her that if a strangelet came into contact with the earth, the entire earth would turn to strange matter goo, she then thought maybe that is why people and their barking, baking apprentices should always be wary of strangers.  I think she might be right about that,

That’s enough of ‘Death by Stranger’s' and now it’s time to move on to this week’s bake that thankfully didn’t turn into goo.  At first glance, it might look like a similar bake to our more recent penchant of baking sprouted grain bread …..and it is with a couple of exceptions   First we cut the sprouted grains down to around 25%  and used Guinness for the dough liquid.

We also changed our method by doing: 2 hours of dough development, 2 hours of bulk ferment on the counter, 3 hours of retarded bulk ferment in the fridge.  We then warmed the dough on the counter for 1 hour warm up on the counter, pre-shaped and shaped the dough into a boule, placing it in a rice floured basket, bagging it and retarding for 12 more hours.. 

After an hour warming on the counter the next morning, we preheated the combo cooker to 500 F. slashed the loaf T-Rex style and baked the bread for 18 minutes with the lid on and 15 minutes with the lid off.  It sprang, bloomed, blistered and browned well enough but we will have to wait until lunch time to check out the crumb.  My wife is taking this loaf to work for her Friday, after work, get together for drinks and food.  Hope they like it.  This bread is delicious, sour and the Guinness came through in taste as well as color this time,.  The crumb is soft ,moist and glossy but we didn't have it for lunch since we had a fantastic sausage in a YW bun instead.  If there is some left over from the party maybe we can have a sandwich tomorrow

Lucy says not to forget the salad...... or the apple, strawberry and blueberry tart either.