The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Oatmeal Graham Flour Sourdough Pullman Bread

tpassin's picture
tpassin

Oatmeal Graham Flour Sourdough Pullman Bread

I received a sack of graham flour for Christmas.  It is from Burkett's mill.  If you read up on graham flour you usually read that is whole wheat ground more coarsely than the usual WW.  If you find the right site, it will tell you that the endosperm is ground finely and the bran and germ are ground coarsely, I think the flour I have must be the latter.  It's color is lighter than the water wheel-stone ground flour I have, with larger flecks and dark bits.

For this loaf I cooked some rolled (porridge) oats in the microwave, and added them to the dough. The flour content is 70% bread flour, 30% graham flour, and the uncooked oats weighed 20% of the total flour.

A picture of the crumb, then ingredients -

Ingredients
=========
70% bread flour (KA)
30% graham flour (Birkett's Mill)
20% oatmeal (rolled oats uncooked weight)
50% water (for cooking oatmeal)
60% other water
36% starter (100% hydration)
2.2% salt

---------------------
370g flour (exclusive of starter)
990g Total dough weight

It is always hard to know how much of the water in cooked grains, scalds, etc. will contribute to the effective hydration.  In this case, I had trouble wetting all the flour so I added some water.  Apparently I added too much because I ended up with a thick, pasty batter.  A few sets of coil folds over the next 2 1/2 hours added some strength, but I still had to scrape the dough into the Pullman pan.

The loaf rose well in the end and has a surprisingly open crumb.  The crumb is a little delicate; the flavor is richer than the usual WW, and a little sweet, which I think is partly down to the graham flour and partly to the oatmeal.

I baked the loaf for 50 minutes at 350 deg F/177C without the lid.  The internal temperature had reached 208 F/97.7C but the loaf was pale and I knew it had a lot of moisture still to give off.  So I baked it at 400 F/204C for another 10 minutes.

Overall, a very nice loaf.

Comments

Benito's picture
Benito

Tom that bread looks just perfect, a wonderful porridge loaf if I’ve ever seen one.

Happy New Year all the best in happiness and health 

Benny

tpassin's picture
tpassin

Thanks, Benny!  The loaf also turned out to have a nearly perfect crust, not just on top but on the sides too.  I'm not quite sure why the sides have the crust since it was entirely baked in the pan.  It's thin but crunchy, easy to bite through, perfect for toast and sandwiches.  And the bread didn't stale or dry out over the days of its life.

Happy New Year to you too!  And let's not forget Floyd!

TomP

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

Works out to 108% hydration. Tough to work with doughs that slack.

tpassin's picture
tpassin

It couldn't have been free-standing, that's for sure.  Otherwise it wasn't that bad to work with.