Bran Soaker Water Sprouted Multigrain Super Sour White Sourdough

Lucy’s recent methods for spouted sourdough breads of 30-100% whole and sprouted flour have used the bran to feed a small amount of long retarded rye starter to make a 3 stage levain that is then retarded for 24 hours.

It always amazes me how much the acid in the levain bleaches out the flour color.

One of the things we have notices is that the bran is much softer when it is wet the longest and subject to the acid of the levain.  The crumb was a bit more open and softer as a result. The other thing we noticed was that the bread seemed bit more sour tome but this was harder to tell.  Since all of our beads are a bit more sour than the average sourdough.

Another Fresh Lofian; Doc. Dough; who is also a bit of mad scientist like me except he actually knows something about science, has access to the equipment needed to test the pH and TTA of starters, levains dough and baked bread.  He has been running experiments and tests to determine what the real effect of bran has on acid production of starters, levain and dough.

From what I can gather, he first set up a baseline for his favorite white sourdough bread using his white starter, levain, dough and finished bread.  What he then did, and I’m sure he will one day explain it more completely and in depth himself to TFL community, was to take wheat bran and soak it in warm / hot water for several hours and then sift out the bran and then use that water to build his white levain to see if there is anything water soluble in bran that would contribute to more acid production, lower pH and higher TTA in the levain,  dough and resulting baked bread.

When he told me about his plans I was amazed at how insightful he was to get into this issue with the tools necessary to quantify the effects from a scientific base of his own white sourdough bread.  There are some really smart people in TFL community.  When I saw his preliminary and limited results I was even more blown away.

It seems there is a direct, linear relationship and link between what ever is water soluble in bran and an increased acid production in the levain and dough and the resulting bread TTA is also much higher meaning a more sour bread results.  I find this amazing.  I always thought there was something in bran that stimulated more acid production and better tasting bread and this work by Doc.Dough seems to point to the fact that this might really be correct.

Basically what we are talking about are enzymes, minerals and vitamins that are released into a water solution from bran.  We know some are water soluble but others need a weak acid to be released.  We also know that warm temperatures really get the enzymes active, cold temperatures slow then down and but high temperatures will denature them completely – sounds just like LAB and yeast to me. Here is a link that explains much of the science.

  http://www.classofoods.com/page1_7.HTML

So for this week’s bake Lucy came up with a white sourdough bread experiment that was based on Doc.Doughs work to see if we could taste the difference this process might lend to white SD bread.  This is totally subjective and non scientific but she picked a recipe that we have made enough to know what it usually tastes like if we remember correctly.

e used 40% whole and sprouted 5 grain flour 50/50 by weight consisting of rye, pelt Kamut, barley and wheat.  The 20% extraction hard bits were soaked for 6 hours in 105 F water.  The quatity of water used for the soaking was 75% hydration for the entire dough plus the weight of the bran which was 50 g.

So, the 50 g of bran was soaked in 430 g of water.  This would give us enough soaker water for the 3 stage levain build at 100% hydration plus give us the required dough liquid.  Before the soaker was used it was stirred and then run through the same sifter used to do the initial flour extraction to get just the water and small soluble bits.  Any bran caught in the sieve was returned to the soaker water.

We did every thing we normally do as far as levain, dough and bake goes but, since the bran was being sifted out to get the liquid, no bran was in the bread like it normally would be – just the water soluble portion if the bran was used.

We did our usual 3 stage levain build over 12 hours and then retarded it for 24 hours.  We autolysed the 80% extraction sprouted and whole flour with the LaFama AP for 1 1/2 hours with the pink Himalayan sea salt sprinkled on top.

I'm liking that miso curry soup. 

Once the warmed up levain hit the mix we did out usual 3 sets of slap and folds of 30. 8 and 8 slaps on 30 minute intervals with 2 sets of 4 stretch and folds on 45 minute intervals before being placed into the fridge for a 21 hour cold retard.

It seems we have grilled sockeye salmon once a week.  It is for sure my wife's favorite.

We did a quick pre-shape as soon as the dough came out of the fridge and then did a final shape into a boule 1 hour later.  It was placed seam side up in a rice floured basket for a final proof to 50%.  The dough was un-molded onto parchment, on a peel, slashed tic – tac-toe style before hitting the 425 F heat of the oven in a preheated combo cooker.

After 20 minutes of steam the boule had bloomed and blistered beautifully and then 20 minutes of  425 F convection heat with the lid off browned it nicely.  We will have to see how the crumb came out later.  The crumb came out glossy,open and moist.  It was more sour than our usual 80% extraction bread and points to the promise of Doc.Dough's data that clearly shows bran soaked in hot water and then removed and the soaker water used in the levain and dough make for a measured lower greater TTA in the finished bread.  So if your white bread is not sour enough and you don't like bran and a smaller crumb,  This technique is for you.   The 80% extraction sprouted and non sprouted grains still give this bread some bran and the flavor of a whole grain 40% portioned bread is still there.  We like this one a lot.  Thanks to Doc.Dough for all of his fine work with these soakers and a new  bread technique to bring out the flavor and the sour in sourdough.