No Oven Challenge Bake - 123 Sourdough 5 Grain

The 123 SD recipe is one of the very best ones and by far the easiest to remember.  It seemed the perfect recipe for Job’s Challenge Bake where the baking process in the temporary, brick WFO would be a bit complex and way more complicated than using the electric Big Old Betsy that bakes our usual loaves.

This bread was 20% whole 5 grain that made up of equal parts of red and white wheat, rye, spelt and Kamut for the whole grains and Lafama AP for the rest of the dough flour.  The NMNF levain was a 2 stage bran one with the bran being the first stage and the high extraction 5 grain the 2nd stage.

The levain totaled 10% pre-fermented flour and it was retarded for 24 hours after it doubled at the 8 hour mark on the heating pad.  The dough flour was autolyzed for 1 hour with the PHSS salt sprinkled on top as the levain warmed up on the counter.  We stirred the levain down when it came out of the fridge and it managed to rise 25% before it hit the autolyse.

We did 50 slap and folds to get the autolyze and salt mixed in and then did 2 more sets of 4 slap and folds and 3 sets of 4 stretch and folds – all on 30 minute intervals to develop the gluten.  We then pre-shaped it and final shaped it into a boule and placed it seam side down into a rice floured basket.   We bagged it and placed it in the fridge for a 36 hour retard.

When the dough came out of the fridge this morning, we fired up the temporary WFO with the Combo cooker inside for the first time.  After an hour of loading in small, 1” diameter stick,s it had created a nice layer of coals that was very, very hot – over 1000 F.

The lid came off the combo cooker.

The combo cooker read 750 F.  We let the oven cool down over the next hour before firing up a starter ½ tower of charcoal briquets just in case they were needed for the top cover of the oven once the top of the combo cooker came off to help brown the top.

The coals go on top to brown the bread.

Once the tower was fired up we unmolded the bread onto parchment on a peel and slashed it tic–tack-toe style.  We used the parchment as a sling to get the dough into the cooker, covered it with the lid, placed the CI griddle in top to close off the oven and put the cast Iron griddle across the front to close it off.  The bottom of the combo cooker read 355 F when the dough was loaded but the fire below was much hotter.

We let the oven go for 18 minutes before taking off the CI lid and front covers and the top of the combo cooker.  We replaced the CI front and top lids and placed a layer of charcoal briquets on the top lid to help brown the top.  The bread had really blistered, sprang and bloomed very well under the CC lid and steam.

We baked the bread for 12 more minutes without steam before uncovering the CI lid and front of the oven and removing the bread to the cooling rack.  It looked beautiful. – the best looking bread we have ever baked and it read 208 F on the inside – just perfect.  But, and there are always buts with most things – especially new ones.  The bottom was overbaked and black – so the bread wasn’t the best looking one we have ever made after all.

It has been a while since I smelled like a campfire and 50 years since had had tried to bake outside on a WFO and the first time we have tried to bake bread this way.  Lucy slept the whole time on the grass in the back yard – one of her favorite places to sleep in the winter.

I turned it upside down to finish cooling and it mooshed the top down a bit.

Next time we will use a baking stone for the bottom and let the fire cool some more before loading the bread.   We might bake 1 more loaf before tearing the oven down and putting the bricks back on the rocket stove.  We will have to wait in the crumb shots.

The crumb came out very open soft and moist.  If you cut off the bottom 1/4 inch you are left with one of the beat breads ever baked in a temporary WFO in Lucy's back yard. . Without the bottom this is still on emof the best breads we have ever baked which is saying a lot after 500 different breads baked ever the last 4 years:-)  Bread out of WFO just tste that much better and why traditonal artisan bread has to be baked in one,

Let's have a salad with that bread.  The Rocket Stove all put back together.  Now we can build a new oven for the next WFO bake!