21 Percent Whole 7 Grain Sourdough
Here it is the middle of the week and Lucy is nowhere to be found claiming she semi-retired and only works for the Friday bakes not Tuesday bakes. I told her I was totally retired and would help her in a pinch and she wanted to know when was the last time I baked her any dog biscuits.
Well, I was left to my own devices for this bake that was requested by my daughter for a couple of friends at the hospital. Nothing fancy and more on the white side of things since we don’t know what these girls would like when it comes to sourdough bread.
To keep it on the less sour side we didn’t retard the dough or the levain but the 100% hydration bran levain was 11% pre-fermented flour that included all the bran from the 7 whole grains for the first stage and then high extraction 7 grain for the 2nd stage.
We used 15 g of NMNF starter that has been retarded since near the dawn of time though. We let the levain sit on the counter for 18 hours since it was so very cold in AZ at 68 F. I eventually got out the heating pad to speed it along and get it to double.
The Minneolas and Navels are finally ripe enough to eat.
We did a 1 hour autolyse for the dough flours and then added the salt and levain, bringing the overall hydration to 75%, before doing 60 slap and folds for the first set and then did 3 sets of 4 stretch and folds all on 45 minute intervals. We then let the dough rest for an hour.
Killer Instant Pot Squash Soup with butternut, Italian sausage, fresh corn and wild rice with tons of home make stock and sourdough croutons. My daughter's favorite.
!We then divided the dough in half and did a quick pre-shape. 10 minutes later we did the final shape and placed the dough in rice floured the baskets and then onto plastic shopping bags for the final proof of 2 hours
Instant Pot really killer chili verde, roasted poblano and Hatch chilies with home made stock, chicken thighs and 3 cheese enchiladas. My favorite and the IP makes it way better than ever! Making Sunday gravy next in the IP and I bet it will be killer too!
The dough was slashed and slid onto the bottom stone with a parchment covered peel and we tossed 2 C of water onto the 500 F lava stones to make Mega Steam before closing the oven door and turning the oven down to 450 F. After 16 minutes of steam it was removed and the oven reset for 425 F convection dry heat.
After another 20 minutes, the bread registered 208 F on the inside and it was taken out of the oven to cool on a raised rack. The bread had bloomed and sprang very nicely and it browned up well but not too dark since we didn’t know if a bold bake would be wanted. The bread really smelled nice as it cooled and crackled.
My daughter sent the girls some photos and they seemed ecstatically appreciative which put a smile on my face. Hopefully they will like how it tastes just as much.
Comments
Those look pretty and they sprung quite well! Amazing, Lucy did another great job!
used one of her earlier recipes as a crutch. Lucy is Semi Retired as she comes closer to her 24th birthday. They did bloom and spring well for sure. Wish we could taste them but alas, gifts they are and others will get to take the taste test:-)
Glad you lied the bread and happy baking,
Wow! If that is her real age! Consider yourself fortunate! Then again, it could be that stubborn German blood. She plans to hang around to make your life miserable! ?
I always learn a lot from your work and enjoy the stories in your write ups. LOL
Nice loaves!!! You got amazing oven spring out of those loaves! I am sure they will taste as good as they look.
By the way, I want to thank you for all of your posts on formulas, levain build and so on that you have put up over my time here. I was at it again today trying to maximize my Levain building and I am going to give the sifting out of the bran and doing a stage 3 Levain build like you do another shot. I spent the whole afternoon doing math and fooling around with possibilities until I looked up some of your posts. Quick question: At what temp do you do your builds?
the years and this one I forgot to tell folks what the dough flour was besides the left over high extraction 7 grain not used in the levain. It was 2/3 rds Albertson's bread flour and 1/3rd LaFama AP.
Once you start using a bran levain, you will never go back to not doing so. The bread is just better taste and crumb wise. The extra sour balances the flavor of the whole grains perfectly and rye breads that depend on acid to even have a crumb, the bran levain is the only way to go.
Now I have to get a bran levain going for this Friday's bake or I will be put of bread:) Good luck with your bran lo evain experiments and
Happy baking Danni
PS it is always hot here - relative speaking . Kitchen is in The mid to high 80's in the summer and high 60's in the winter. Just the opposite of Toronto. I do get out the heating pad in the winter like this bake if the levain build or fermenting is too slow. For yeast in SD, the best temperature for reproduction is 80 - 84 F and for LAB it is 6-8 degrees higher. where the yeast reproduction is actually restricted Since the best tasting bread is slow bread,w I like to restrict the yeast and promote the LAB and higher and very low temperatures do that. Proofing is slower with less yeast not working at their best temperature and the LAB have more time to make acid as fast as they can - making for better tasting bread in my book.
You didn't mention what the 7 grains were...
And I don't know much about Toronto.... It is over 18 hours away from me by car, although we do visit on a fairly regular basis since my daughter's rheumy is there. The winter temperatures there tend to be a lot milder than in here in Thunder Bay, but the humidity there is just gross in the summer! Here my kitchen is pretty well the same temp year round, maybe a tad warmer in the summer when we have our 3 day heatwave of 86 F or so. ? We just got air conditioning installed so yay, we will be able to escape it! (Yeah, yeah, I know. Balmy for you!)
Foods and got some Kamut and Spelt berries and Oat groats. The bins were totally out of barley and buckwheat. SO much for Amazon getting Whole Foods doing anything better - in 5 years they have never been out of any grain ever , not once - till now! This bread was rye, red and white wheat, oat, Kamut, spelt and einkorn. I think I had some barley too but it was in an unmarked plastic bag. Lucy could smell it and know immediately but she wasn't helping one iota. I'm fairly sure it is barley and real sure it wasn't buckwheat and the wrong color for Emmer:-) I'm going to use it up for Friday's bake and be done with it.
What is an instant pot? It makes killer dishes, I need to have one. :) Love this "Initiation" style whole grain breads. Does using a bran levain or whole grains alone make a more sour tasting bread? My sourdoughs are neither mild (in an almost non-perceptible sense) nor strong (at least for me) in terms of tang. Nice bake from the semi-retired adorable four-legged "stubborn" apprentice.
Happy baking!
is a fancy name for a pressure cooker. I guess companies are trying to revive them by giving them a fancy new name. ?
We already have one but still unused up to now. :) I think we just like to always cook over a wood fire for those kinds of dishes.
We already have one but still unused up to now. :) I think we just like to always cook over a wood fire for those kinds of dishes.
has made pressure cooking safe, painless and really really wonderful. I makes long bakes, and stove top sessions a thing of the past plus the outcomes are much better and they cost way less. Instant pots are way better than CI combo cookers by about 1,000 to 1:-)
For a guy who swears he can't score well, the big bloom is blooming' marvelous. So, let us all in - was it Lucy or you with the blade on that one?
BTW, my wife once me caught red-handed going after some Minneola's Navels, and boy was she zested. She just about pit blood oranges. Almost peeled and quartered me. Man, was she juiced! She doesn't let me near the citrus section in the market now without a short leash...
Orange you glad she didn’t! I would have been bitter too! You keep your hands of all citrus from now on!
orange juice ever is half Minneola and half navel oranges. Nothing even close. I have 25 years of blind taste tests with hundreds if poor guests who agree with me 100 to 1. If I had a blood orange tree I would put some in the mix for sure.
Now I thought about taking all sharp instruments away from Lucy when she was 8 years old after that pit bull went after her on our walk around the lake and she wanted to cut him up .......and all he wanted to do was to eat her - a fair fight. I personally can score like a pro after all of these years but I am pretty lazy now and just don't like making the effort.......unlike Lucy who will slice anything anytime for any reason. I would rather open another bottle of wine, turn on the instant pot and watch the sun set but they do look pretty nice in the right light!
Happy baking Dan Baggs
(they look smaller than what you normally bake...) I'm sure the girls will love them.
Tell us more about what the instant pot can do as you make more dishes... I wanted one but not sure if I need one more thing in the kitchen. Have you ever candied your orange peel? Home grown, 100% organic and wax free. Can't beat that!
Happy baking and IP cooking!
Yippee
came in at 911 g with 2% salt, 515 g of flour at 75% hydration. I pretty much use the same baskets too. When you don't put them away after using them, they are real handy on the next bake, Ill be baking another squat oval one in about an hour that is 25% whole 8 grains, bran levain, 78% hydration with bread flour and no LaFama AP this time.
I made red Texas chili last night with with beef chunks in the IP last night and am making chicken stock right now. I'm converting all my recipes to IP ones since it makes such great food - except for bread and a few other things. I will be making some cheesecake this weekend if I can find a pan that will fit in it. All my spring forms are too big. I did see a lady make some white loaf pan bread in an IP the other day that looked like it came out great. The steaming would be perfect bu t then you would have to take it out and bake it to get it dry enough to brown up. I do want to make some bao in it.
Yes I do make make my own peel if I don't make arancello out of the peels:-) Fresh peel is a requirement arond here for so many dishes.....that I haven't make in a while waiting for the citrus to turn orange!.
Happy baking Yippee
Impressive bake without your faithful companion. I'm sure it tastes great. All of those IP recipes look amazing. We have yet to use ours but would love if yiu could send me over a few when yiu get a chance :). I have to go on another quick business trip so no Baking until the weekend.
Give Lucy a nice scratch from her Cold east coast buddies!