Half Whole and Sprouted 7 Grain SD with Quinoa and Buckwheat Porridge

After last week’s mooshed Altamura shaped loaf we decided not to try to moosh this one.  Lucy wanted to give it another go to try and make amends but she has been acting oddly of late and frankly just can’t be trusted - especially on Earth Day.

As we all know and 100% of scientists have confirmed, the Sun is burning hotter and hotter, a bit more every day, as it ages.  This is what stars do.  They can’t do anything else.  When Lucy found out it was Earth Day and that in 500,000 years the temperature on earth would be 100 F hotter than today due to the Sun burning hotter, she just had to do something to save us poor humans.

She told me her solution might sound a bit weird at first but to give her idea a chance and just hear her out for once.   As usual I just couldn’t do it since her idea was really off the wall and totally out of a really big box.  Her idea was to genetically modify human beings so that they would be totally covered by a thick coat of hair.

That way people could feel 100 F hotter today. Like she does in her fine coat of fur and get used to it like she has already done – no worries.  As time goes on and the Earth heats up, humans could just go to a groomer like she does and get a bit of hair trimmed off to adjust their temperature appropriately just like we do for her in the summer. 

I thought about telling her I was going to sell her to the Gypsies like my mother used to tell me when I was little and was acting up but I guess you can’t say that today.  I heard these kinds of threats are considered insensitive toward and a mini macro or major mini aggression against Gypsies.   Oddly, it is still fine to take her to the pound where they will euthanize her for much less. 

At least I can till bake bread on Earth Day and contemplate the day when later generations won’t need ovens to bake it.  They can just make pizza dough and while they are tossing it upwards to form the pie, it will just bake itself in the hot air to make flat bread.  Just think, no ovens required, a very green idea for Earth Day indeed and Lucy thinks this alone might save us all from the future heat of the sun – but she has to do more calculations with her climate super computer to know for sure – so we will have to wait a bit before we can celebrate.

Well, on to more important things that still require an oven today.  This week’s bake followed out usual MO of late where we start the sprouts on Monday, dry and mill them on Tuesday.  On Tuesday, we also mill the other non-sprouted whole grains in the mix and then sift it all to separate out the Low extraction bran to build this week’s 3 stage levain so that it can be retarded on Tuesday night before we go to bed.

After 36 hours of cold retard in the fridge, we get the levain out to warm up and stir it down.  While the levain is rising 25%, we autolyze the dough flours - in this case the high extraction and sprouted high extraction rye, spelt, wheat, barley and Kamut along with the King Arthur bread flour…. with the salt sprinkled on top.  We also had time to make and cool  the 20 minute, simmered porridge – in this case quinoa and buckwheat groats. 

When the levain hits the mx. we do 1 set of 60 slap and folds and 2 sets of 30 slap and folds and 3 sets of 4 stretch and folds all on 20 minute intervals with the porridge being added in on the first set of stretch and folds.  After a 30 minute rest we did a quick pre-shape into an oval and then 10 minutes later we final shaped it and placed it onto rice floured oval basket seam side up.  We bagged it and placed it into the fridge for a 16 hour retard.

When the dough came out of the fridge we starter the 500 F preheat for the oven.  When it beeped we loaded in the two trays of lave rock, half full of water (Mega Steam) on the bottom rack and set the timer for 15 minutes.  Once the steam was billowing the top and bottom stones were at temperature, the dough was unmolded onto on a peel, slashed and loaded on the bottom stone.

4 minutes later the temperature was turned down to 450 F and we continued steaming for another 14 minutes.  After the steam came out we turned the oven down to 425 F convection and continued to bake another 20 minutes until the bread was 208 F on the inside.

The bread browned well but spread mire than it sprang or bloomed.  It proofed to 100% proofed while we slept instead of the 85% we would want but instead of re-shaping and proofing again we baked it off hoping the crumb would still be  OK  but we will have to wait on that.

The crumb came out open, moist, and soft like a porridge bread should be..  It is wonderful and delicious,   The porridge was a fine addition  that brought the mix of whole grains up to 7.  It made a fine lunch with grilled chicken, cheddar, tomato and lettuce sandwich with the usual veggie fixings. - Yum!

And Lucy wants to see another salad somewhere.