50 Percent Sprouted 9 Grain Bran Levain SD with a Poolish Kicker and Yeast Hamburger Thins

Lucy had come up with a 50% sprouted 9 gran SD for this week’s bake but, at the last minute, we saw Lazy Loafers 50% whole wheat bread that has a yeast kicker in it.  Normally we don’t put yeast in a SD bread because it just makes things go faster and reduces the flavor of the bread.

But we have been basing our thoughts on this based on things we have read and other Loafers posts.  Commercial bakers do it all the time to control time and promote consistent outcomes regardless of how it might taste. So, we thought we would add a polish to this bake and see how it worked out.

We were short of time and with the no baking rule when the wife is home in place, we really needed to speed things up, especially after the bran levain was so slow to come around – it took 16 hours to double on the heating pad, showing that the more 20 odd week retarded rye and wheat NMNF starters need to be refreshed sooner rather than later.

We took the 56 g of bran from the 9 sprouted grains for the first stage and mixed it with a like amount of water and 10 g each for rye and wheat NMNF starter.  It fermented for 8 hours before adding in 14 g each of high extraction sprouted 9 grain and water for stage 2 and it finally doubled 8 hours later.  It ended up being 16% pre-fermented flour.

2 hours before the levain was done we started the 30 g each LaFama AP / water with 1 g of Instant yeast to get a 7% pre-fermented flour poolish making for a total of 23% between the 2 preferments.  We also autolyzed the dough flour with the dough water.  The dough flour was the remaining HE 9 Sprouted grain and Lafama AP making the overall flour a 50/50 split between the two. 

We also added 10 g of, or 2.3% red rye malt to the autolyze to boost the flavor and color of the loaf and give it a subtle hint of sweetness and sprinkled 2% Pink Himalayan sea salt on top.  Since RRM is a sprouted whole grain, this technically put us over 50% whole sprouted grains for this bread but we aren’t counting.

Once the preferments hit the mix, we did 50 slap and folds to mix everything together and get the 80% overall hydrated mass fermenting.  The dough was put on a flexible plastic mat with a light EVOO coating and that was placed on the heating pad and covered with a stainless steel mixing bowl and kitchen towels to keep it warm between sets of stretch and folds.  This set up was necessary because it was only 64 F in the kitchen.

We did 4 more sets of stretch and folds, all on 30 minute intervals before preshaping and shaping into a batard and placing the dough in a rice floured, cloth lined basket for final proof on the heating pad.  Because of the cozy 80-82 F heating pad and the commercial yeast polish, it only took 2 hours to proof.   It was unmolded on parchment on a peel and slashed in diamonds

So 5 hours from mixing to the heat is pretty fast for us but not fast enough as the wife got home just in time to see the door of the oven close as the bread went in – OH OH!  The oven was at 500 F with Mega Steam in the bottom and we steamed the bread for 18 minutes before removing the steam and turning the oven down to 425 F – no fan this time.

!2 minutes later the bread was 206 F and we called it done and moved it to the cooling rack.  It had sprung and bloomed well enough and browned up too once the steam was gone.  When we sliced it the bread was moderately open for a bread at 50% whole sprouted grain.  The crust had softened wrapped in plastic overnight and the crust was soft and moist.

It didn’t smell like our normal straight SD and didn’t taste nearly as sour either.  The bread wasn’t as moist or open or sweet as it would have been with our YW kicker that we do use now and again with SD to open up high percent whole grain breads and cut their bitterness.  The crumb on this one wasn’t as open as the intensively mixed Lazy Loaf version of non-sprouted 50% whole wheat bread posted yesterday.

It could be the sprouted low or no gluten; oat, buckwheat, spelt, barley and rye that held back the open crumb or it could be poor baking.  The girls will like this bread a lot because it isn’t very sour but for me it isn’t as tasty as a straight SD bread.

It has been about forever since we had hamburgers, even when we try not to have them more than once a month.  At the last minute, they hit the dinner menu so we had to get a bun made fast.  These buns, shaped as thins at 107 g each, were made from 100% LaFama AP flour, 70% hydration, 2% sugar, 8% butter and 2% salt and 2 grams of instant yeast.

Nothing fancy.  After 3 sets of slap and folds on 30 minute intervals we skipped the stretch and folds and further bulk ferment and went right to shaping and final proof.  All work was done on a heating pad that was at 80-82 F all the time.  We only had a little bit over 3 hours to get them completely done from mixing to cooling. 

We egg washed them twice, 15 minutes apart, before placing them into a 375 F oven on the bottom stone for 10 minutes and then another 10 minutes at 350 F.  The crumb was soft moist and open and the crust was a lovely brown and sturdy enough for hamburger use – no crumbing.