46th bake. 05/07/2021. 87% stone-ground WW durum.
May 6, 2021.
10:35 am. Mix (by hand/spatula) to homogeneity: (Thank you, Mariana, for that phrase.)
- 520 g Patel brand stone-ground whole wheat durum. See: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/files/u151432/3302E5FA-9B56-4866-AD46-A7C67FD84C2A.jpeg
- 60 g Arrowhead Mills organic AP. (Was on the clearance shelf at Kroger, $2 for 5 pounds.
- 12.0 g salt.
- 452 g bottled spring water. 80% (416 g) for the SGWW durum, 60% (36 g) for the AP.
10:42 am. Put it in the fridge.
3:55 pm. Take out of fridge. Mix in 40 g cold starter, last fed 3 days ago, 100% hydration.
4:00 pm. Mix/knead in (by hand) 25 grams more water. I just went by feel to determine the amount.
4:00 - 4:15 pm. Knead by hand.
4:35 - 7:42 pm. Did various stretch and folds, at least 5, maybe up to 7.
8:45 pm. Put dough in lined 8" inner-diameter banneton. Liner was just a thin "flour sack" style tea-towel, doubled over, dusted with 50/50 mix of white rice flour and AP flour.
8:50 pm. Covered, placed in plastic shopping bag, put in fridge.
May 7, 2021.
7:45 am. Remove from fridge and bag. Not any noticeable expansion. Leave at room temp until time to bake.
7:50 am. Start oven preheat to 475/450* F. With Lodge 3.2 qt combo-cooker on 3rd rack up from bottom. Bottom rack has a 14" cordierite pizza stone, 1/4" thick, to block radiant heat from the bottom heating element.
8:24 am. Desired oven temp reached. Give it about 10 more minutes for combo-cooker to achieve desired temp.
8:35 am. Sprinkle corn meal on surface of dough as it sits in banneton. Place 8.5" circle of parchment paper on top of corn meal. Invert the deep pot half of combo cooker over the banneton. Invert banneton and pot together so dough falls in. Remove banneton from pot. Cornmeal and parchment paper now insulate the bottom of the dough from the pot. Dust/scrape off excess rice-and-AP-flour from top of dough. Score a plus sign with a bare double edged razor blade. The dry "skin" on the dough is noticeable, and you can see the wetter inside. This will make for a nice oven bloom.
Previous experience showed that the crust of whole grain durum loaves, which had soaked/autolysed for multiple hours, carmelized too much when initial baking temp started at 475/450. So this time, I'll start at 450/425*.
8:39 am. Bake covered, 450/425* F. 15 minutes.
8:54 am. Bake covered, 425/400* F. 22 minutes.
9:16 am. Nice oven bloom!
9:16 am. Bake uncovered, 425/400*. 14 minutes.
9:30 am. Crust and ears look browned just right.
Internal temp: 208.8 F. Passes thump test.
* First number is oven thermostat setting, second is actual.
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Paper plate is 9" in diameter.
Comments
is whole grain durum flour used for generally?
Chapati, paratha, roti, pita. IE, tortilla-like flat-breads. See picture of the bag: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/files/u151432/3302E5FA-9B56-4866-AD46-A7C67FD84C2A.jpeg
Can also be used as a partial ingredient in pizza dough.
It's the whole-grain version of re-ground (durum) semolina, aka "semola rimacinata."
I'm seeing a big difference between this stone-ground WW durum and the roller-milled WW durum (Sher "Fiber Wala") that I recently used. Mainly, this SG WW durum doesn't get as horrendously sticky and need such a sloooow bassinage as Fiber Wala does.
Thanks! I'll read the Wikipedia articles now.
Nice looking loaf Dave. Love the golden color in the crust and crumb.
Does the whole grain durum have similar flavor to the semola rimacinata? I have a couple of options for Indo-Pak stores…
I'm going to go through all the explanatory steps for future readers, so bear with me .
Going back to the beginning.... "semola rimacinata" (re-ground semolina) is the exact same "stuff" as semolina, just ground to a smaller particle size.
(Technically, the mill does not necessarily have to use semolina/semola as the input to the semola-rimacinata process. They could make a fine grind as soon as the bran and germ are removed, without going through the coarse middlings stage. How it works in actual practice, I don't know.)
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So your question really is: Does whole durum taste similar to lower ash/bran durum ?
My answer: depends on what you mean by "similar".
It's definitely not the same, just as whole wheat flour tastes differently than T85 flour (.85% ash).
At my local Patel Brothers, there are 6 kinds of durum. I put pictures, brief descriptions, and some chapati/tortilla formulas here: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/62248/praise-durum-flour-brar-mills
Regardless of bran content, and regardless of the particle size, durum just takes a lot longer to hydrate. It is a _hard_ grain, no matter how finely ground. It takes time for the water to penetrate to the center of the flour particles. This really surprised me with the roller-milled Fiber Wala.
Hence, it will feel too wet until the water absorbs.
Very nice crumb for this high % durum bake. It is nice to see you methodically work through this. I still have about 10 lbs of durum wheat berries I had ordered for the CB staring at me from the corner of our apartment. I need to revisit this with your incremental hydration approach and perhaps 10% HWSY is advisable to start with. The flavor really was excellent even with the very dense crumb in my CB bakes.
Did you get the "wet sand" effect with home-milled durum, and did you figure out how to wait it out?
I learned it with my home-milled Kamut. It is a vitreous or "glass-like" grain, not powdery like red/white wheat,
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What I first discovered with Kamut, and am finding also true with durum, is that it is so slow to absorb water, that the water stays _between_ the particles for a long time, making the mass feel too wet, like wet sand. And only about 1.5 hours later does the water penetrate the particles, and the wet sand turns to a dough-like mass.
I never had to bassinage the Kamut like I did the roller-milled Fiber Wala. I'm still not sure what was going on with the roller milled whole grain durum. My guess is that the finer particles, maybe the finer bran particles, got to the extra water first, and just never let go of the "excess" water to the bigger particles. Because once the flour got too sticky " up front", it never lost stickiness.
Semolina, which is lower bran, still takes a while to absorb water, but it never got super sticky like WW durum.... so I suspect the bran is a factor.
Yes, I did notice the texture difference wrt standard wheat, but the overnight soaker seemed to address that at relatively low hydration. I used what I felt was excessive kneading at low hydration to develop gluten with an attempt to increase hydration after the mix, but it went from fairly cohesive and a little dry to silly putty at a very small hydration bump, and I backpedaled adding more durum to make it cohesive again. Maybe it just needed more time. It was nearly impossible to shape unless I reduced hydration significantly.
I documented my tribulations here:
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/67153/companion-blog-semolina-community-bake
I have not returned to the durum after reading your findings and feedback. In my case, I'm mockmilling durum wheat berries. Am I correct in reading that your very slow incremental hydration comments might pertain more to the roller milled stuff and less so to the stone ground (closer to my scenario)?
The flavor is really superb in the whole grain durum loaf, and as others noted it pairs incredibly well with olive oil, but it feels less versatile than my usual whole wheat bakes, so it is more challenging to go through a whole loaf of dense but flavorful durum bread slices dipped in olive oil. I have been slow to return to the challenge but watch your bakes with interest.
"Am I correct in reading that your very slow incremental hydration comments might pertain more to the roller milled stuff and less so to the stone ground (closer to my scenario)?"
Correct. But the stone ground still needs high hydration, and at least a one step bassinage.
The stone ground isn't as sticky as the roller-milled, but it is at least as slooooow to absorb water. You think it has enough water, but wait a few minutes, and fold/knead it two times, and it gets stiff again.
It's weird, fold/knead it, and it gets drier, let it sit, and it feels wetter.
Here's the thing: durum just doesn't act like red/white wheat. It's a different animal. You have to "read" it entirely differently.
(One reason that I'm fixating on this Patel stone-ground ww durum is that it's only 40 cents/pound. That's cheaper than I can buy any type of unground berries. I don't know how they do it. Maybe they are just getting rid of old stock, and the price will go back up to normal after they go through the old stuff.)
Another feature of this SG WW durum is that kneading, even just 2 folds, tightens up the dough immediately, and then it relaxes. I'm also making tortillas/chapatis with it, and it seems 67% hydration gets it going to make a "dough". But it needs about 85% - 89% to make a decent loaf bread.
When I made this loaf, #46, for the final shape after bulk ferment, I just folded it in the air a couple times, made the seam as small as possible, and dumped it in the banneton, and pinched the seam closed. I didn't "scoot and round" it on the counter like a normal wheat loaf. I used a dusted lined banneton and put in friidge. It did not expand in fridge.
But the evaporation of water in the fridge, wicked away through the liner/banneton, made a nice dry skin layer, and it must have been that dry skin that helped it retain shape. The liner was noticeably damp.
Granted, my banneton size perfectly matches my dutch oven size, so I use the sides of the DO as a "crutch" to prevent spread. But you can tell how dry the "skin" was in the photos by the sharp score lines.
Come to think, this dough did not fill the 8" I.D. banneton, and it did not spread that much in the combo cooker DO. So the skin held it tlght.
(I have 4 bannetons size-matched to my pots. A 6" I.D. one for a 1.75 qt enameled cast iron pot. An 8" I.D. one for the deep half of my Lodge 3.2 qt combo, a 9.15" I.D. one for the lid/skillet of the Lodge 3.2 combo, and an 11.25" I.D. one for my Lodge 15" cast iron skillet over which I put an inverted steel bowl. I'll update this later with OD measurements since bannetons are sold by outer diameter measure.)