I can taste the difference, with my eyes. We enterupt this program with a updated announcement.
Due to a change in my busy schedule (eye roll) EIB style country bread is 24 hrs ahead of schedule.
My personal impressions of Ken Forkish's formula. While some of the procedures seem unnecessary, and some seem strange, I am impressed by the care given to the. Temperatures, timings, and tracking of progress. So far so good. The levien is following the prescribed timings. Final dough autolysis/mix will comence directly.
Hello, good morning, que paso?
We are about two hours away from the final dough mix.
I want to address the high cost of Hyden Mills flour. There is no denying you pay a premium for these products in the small retail size bags. The einkorn Wheat was the most costly at $35.00. this is because einkorn is an ancient grain, one of the first cultivated by man. The yeid is much lower than modern grains. Therefore, no matter where you source einkorn you will pay a premium. Since I do this as a hobby, exclusively for my families consumption, I can justify the cost once in a while. Take a look at the rich color of this leivin. This is 12.1 % protein bread flour not whole wheat. I can taste the difference with my eyes. Smile...
I'll be back tomorrow with the finished product.
This week's formula comes from Ken Forkish's book Evolutions in Bread. Country sourdough EIB style.
Yes, and einkorn is much harder to thesh and process, too.
My local stone-grinding mill sells all their flours for $10/4 lb or $20/10 lb. I'm not going to translate that to Euro units since it's local here in the US. I don't know about shipping since I just drive there. Milling season just started again so I won't need to order.
They have most of the stone-ground flours one might want: WW, durum, einkorn, emmer, spelt, kamut, rye, barley and malted barley, and a few more. All organically grown and as many as possible locally grown. Guess I'm lucky.
https://www.lockesmillgrains.com
When I am ready I will have to give them a call. Since there is no option to check the shipping amount without inputting the payment information first. That being said, I didn't check prices at all. It would seem Hyden Mills is more geared to bulk sales. Which is a shame. They would do well to offer the retail size packages at a more fair price. While I would love to be able to support local farmers, I just can't justify the price gouging. Thanks for pointing this out Tom.
Meanwhile.
Three hours into the bulk fermentation, all is progressing as expected.
All that can be done is done. I will write up the blog post after the end game.
Day 1
build a viable lievan.
Day 2
Gage the readiness of the sourdough lievan. Build the main dough. Manually build the gluten network and monitor degree of fermentation. Shap, and set to proof.
Day 3 - 4: AM
Preheat
Set steaming apparatus
Slash
Bake off
All systems go. T Minus 45 minutes until bake-off.
Overslept, that put us one hour behind schedule. Still within a comfortable window o perfect fermentation.
Lookin' good...
It looks like a normal, well baked loaf, quite fine. In view of the more elaborate EIB process, the key feature will be how it eats. We're waiting for the cooldown to pass!
There is always a lesson to be learned. While, the basic hand made loaf steps I have been following are pretty much the same. The extra care in preparation of the levian was well worth the extra few minutes. It paid off in spades. I never really achieved that sourdough tang. Until now. Kudos to Mr. Forkish.
Thanks for following along.
Kind regards,
Will Falzon
Now that's really interesting, Will. Would you summarize the steps that you think made a difference?
While it is true, this bread has a much more interesting grain profile than most of my other recent successes.
That being said, there is no mistaking the sublet pleasing Sourdough undertones.
Mr. Forkish lays out an easy yet methodical three step build of the levian. Specifically measured and timed to produce an exact flavor profile. Now with his guidance anyone can achieve these lofty heights!
I have the book but many do not so they can't go read the chapter. For them, would you summarize the three build steps?
The Forkish three step levian.
Assuming a 70°F room temperature.
Day #1 morning
100 g Water at 75-80°F
100 g Bread flour
60 g Mother straight from the refrigerator (at 100% hydration)
Day #1 plus 12 Hr.
All of the levian from the morning
100 g Water at 70°F
100 g Bread flour
Day #2 Morning about 12 hrs.time elapsed.
At this point I up scaled the levian for two loaves.instructions below for one loaf.
Discard all but 60 g of day one levian.
100 g Water at 95°F
100 g Bread flour
About 6 - 7 hrs later the levian should be mature and actively ready to bake.
Use 200g levian ( 20%) in the final dough mix.
Thx, Will!
👍👍✅✅😎