Pane di Semola
Chasing the taste of a bread I remember from a bakery in Rome, I thought: why not buy 5kg (11lb) of semola rimacinata and have at it?
The rough details
75% semola di rimacinata
25% tipo 00 flour (13%)
75% hydration
The result
Before going too much further, here is the loaf:
and the crumb:
Taste was excellent and the crust was - as semola is want to be - amazing. some areas were a little dense but nothing offputting of problematic and, while there was chewiness, that was at the level that I was hoping for with this bake. Toasted, it is . . . rather good.
The nitty-gritty
I used both a biga and a poolish for no better reason that it amused me to do so. Those were made up as 30% (biga) and 20% (poolish) of the final total dough weight. Both contained equal parts semola and '00' flour, whith the final dough being made by adding only semola. I.e. - all the '00' flour was in the pre-ferments.
The biga was at 50% hydration with 0.2% yeast, measured against the weight of the flour. The poolish was at 100% hydration 0.095% yeast.
Both were fermented for 16 hours with temps adjusted roughly so the biga averaged ~18c and the poolish 22c over the duration.
The final dough was combined the two preferments, salt (1.8%), yeast to bring the TOTAL yeast (compared against final total flour) to 0.175g and water and semola flour to reach targets. It wqas developed moderated in the mixer and, after a rest, stretched and folded on the bench and then fermented at room temp for 6 hours with 3 folds.
It was cold fermented/retarded in the fridge overnight for 12 hours then shaped and placed straight in a banneton, cold, with no pre-shape - mostly because I had slept in due to a late night working! I shaped quite strongly and popped a fair few larger bubble, as I went as I wanted a slightly closer crumb and it looked quite airy.
It was placed into a banneton, seam-down and left to rise for 1.5 hours. It was turned out, seam-up and was not scored (it is a rustic bread, after all!). It was baked in a dutch oven, in an oven that had be preheated to 250c for an hour.
Baking was 25m covered at 250c, then 20m, uncovered at 240c. After that, the centre read as 96c and I left it in anothe 3-5 mins with the fan-forced setting (the oven had now dropped to 225c) for 3-5 mins just to add a little more colour.
The loaf was rested for 3 hours before slicing.
The takeways
While the loaf turned out pretty much as hoped (a semola loaf mixed with a standard 'artisan' boule form,) and had a good mix of chewiness and airiness, I am not sure it's the best way to put semola di rimacinata into my face.
If I did attempt this loaf again, I would probably make the following changes:
Poolish only. The dough was amazing with both preferments but I think the extensibility from a poolish is probably the more useful trait to impart. I think the 50% total dough weight pre-ferment is a good number, though so I would just make a larger poolish and forget the biga.
Degas more strongly early on. Especially during my inital large bench stretch. Just too much air when it came to shaping, requiring more handling than would have been ideal.
Retard after shaping - not before. I had planned to have plenty of time the next day to bring the dough back to temp, then shape and rest but it just didn't turn out that way. Shaping at night woulld have allowed me to perform a bit more degassing and be all-around more flexible and tolerant of schedule lapses.
So there we go. Semola rimacinata is not always easy to find - at least outside of Europe - and some people seem not to rate the taste or texture too highly but I love both - especially the toothsome chewiness of a decently thick slice and this loaf delivered both in spades.
The conclusion
It was nearly everything I had intended it to be but I am sure a similar and likely superior result could be achieved with simpler and fewer steps and a refined process and schedule.
According to Wiki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durum
AU produced 21.5 million metric tonnes of durum in the 2017/2018 harvest year.
Have you found local sources of AU-produced durum flour? (not just the gritty semolina)
I ask because durum _flour_ (not so much durum semolina) is popular in North America among folks from the Middle East, India, and Pakistan.
Durum flour, both refined (less bran) and more-of-the-bran styles can be found in most Indo-Pak grocery stores near me in Indianapolis. All the durum flour that I've found so far in these Indo-Pak stores is grown and milled in Canada.
Have you found durum flour in any Middle-Eastern or Indo-Pak grocery stores near you?
Interesting. I'll have to check it out if/when I'm ever out of lockdown. I have a few Indian stores near me but I am trying to adhere to the spirit of our restrictions and only go out for things I know I need!
Once I'm out of my current semola rimacinata, I'll see what the situation is.
The fine semolina I use at the moment is actually from an Indian store and, at the time I bought it, I did so in order to add it to some besan barfi I was making. (My recipe is one I kind of invented and adds fine semolina and some almond meal to give a more open texture.) I haven't seen anything labelled as durum flour or anything recognisably as fine as rimacinata.
Yes, we grow a boat load of wheat here, including durum but as for what products we have available to the consumer? Well, that's rather a different story.
I've just had a check on several online Indian grocery stores in Sydney and none sell anything other than fine or coarse semolina. In all my time browsing various stores, I have only been able to find three brands, all Italian:
I am currently using Caputo.
Just make one of your weekly lockdown shopping trips to the Indian grocery. ;-)