Alsatian Beer Bread

Had an unexpected day off a few weeks back and took advantage of it by baking a little bread.  This is a slightly modified version of the Alsatian Beer Bread that I learned from Pierre Zimmerman when I was attending The French Pastry School. 

Final Dough:

366 Grams AP Flour

616 Grams Bread Flour

108 Grams Spelt Flour

108 Grams Oat Flour

500 Grams Liquid Levain

881 Grams Water

31.9 Grams Salt

10.15 Grams Yeast

72.5 Grams Potato Flakes

Beer Crunch:

?? Spelt Flour

?? Oat Flour

250 Grams Beer (I used a nice pale ale by Three Floyd's Brewing)

6 Grams Salt

3 Grams Yeast

I mixed in a 20 quart Hobart for approximately 4 minutes on first speed and 5 minutes on second speed.  The dough was quite soft but had a fair amount of development.  Bulk fermented for just over 2 hours with a fold after the first hour.  I then divided the dough into 3 pieces of about 850 grams each and preshaped them as a boule.  While this was resting I mixed up the beer crunch paste.  I don't know precisely the amount of spelt/oat flour I used to attain the consistency I was looking for but I mixed it at a 3:1 ratio of spelt to oat flour.  You want the paste to be thin enough that it can be easily spread with a short offset pastry knife but not so thin that it is going to be runny and free flowing.  Also if it is too wet it could have a tendency to absorb the flour you are dusting with.  After I had this to the right consistency I allowed it to sit while the boules finished resting.  I then shaped the loaves into triangles and applied the beer crunch paste and dusted them with spelt flour using a mesh screen.

While the loaves were in their final rised I began to preheat the oven to 480 with my cloche/combo cooker set up.  After loading the loaves I dropped the temperature to 430.  The loaves baked for approximately 18 minutes with the lid on and another 18-22 with the lid removed.

Happy baking!