Another Semola Loaf

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Taking inspration from some very nice looking Semola/Durum loaves recently posted on the forum, I thought it was time to try my hand.

I haven't baked with semola rimacinata for a while; I think the last time was based on Maurizio's excellent Pane Siciliano recipe.

This time it was to be an homage to pane di Altamura with 100% semola rimacinata including the levain. I already had a bag of this flour:

 

so that's what I used. It turned out to be a good choice, as it is the finest, strongest and thirstiest semola flour I have come across.

I followed the Altamura dop recipe pretty closely, picking up a few tips from my favourite Italian breadmaking site, La Confraternita della Pizza

I started by converting my stiff starter to a durum one, then refreshed several times at 60% hydration (1 starter/3 flour/1.8 water) at 25c. The starter seemed to get a bit sluggish so I did a feed with 5% rye, which perked things up.

Prior to making the dough, I did the recommended 3 refreshes:

6pm 1/1/0.7 28c

11pm 1/6/4.2 25.5c

8am 1/1/0.7 29c

The dough had a 75min autolyse and then the levain was added at 20%

Initially I was going to mix on speed 1 only, but instead I followed Michael Wilson's advice, who said that the durum flour likes a lot of energy input, so I did 12 minutes on speed 1 and 4 minutes on speed 2. Interestingly, the dough was prone to overheating very quickly during mixing; this must be a feature of durum flour as I don't get see it with my usual flours.

I had originally planned for 70% hydration, but I was able to bassinage up to 77% - I could probably have gone up to 80%.

Bulk lasted 4 hours and volume increase was 38%

Final proof was 1hr 20m. I skipped the priest's hat and u skuanete shaping - maybe next time.......

I was quite please with the end result:

 

Lance

I bought 20# of the finest semolina Golden Temple in the yellow bag a few weeks ago. I compared it to my Caputo and it appears the same and so far has baked the same. I have used both YW and levain so far . I too find the levain is way more active with either my Arrowhead Bread Flour or my rye. I’m going to break my trend and stick the dough into the KA and let it go like you did. Love the loft and holes! Thank you for posting. c

You are  lucky if your Golden Temple bakes the same as Caputo sem. rim. - I'm sure it must be a lot cheaper!

Sometimes I buy semolina from the local Asian shops and remill it in the Mockmill. It bakes OK, but I don't think it's as good as the 5 Stagioni.

Let us know how your high energy input mixing goes!

Lance

Very impressive bake Lance.  It is challenging to get such an open crumb with semolina and you've done an incredible job.  Love the crust's colour as well.

Happy Holidays.

Benny

Yes, every grain can be a learning curve! We've just eaten the "baby" tin loaf shown in the picture - it actually tasted better than the big bloomer style one.

Lance

What would you say is it sour ? I tried to ameliorate the sour by using the YW. I am going to do that again for sure. Do you feel the long working of the dough and the way it heated it affected the flavor. I definitely don't like sour and semolina together !  I did not that after freezing the bread, which I do with all of my bread, the flavor was much less sour. Any info as well as the numbers you used for your bake would be helpful. The linked Italian /translation  is a little hard to understand :) I have been using the formula that Pul posted in his links some time ago. They do work perfectly.  Thank you. c

Not sour at alll Caroline. Possibly because I keep my starter at 50% hydration and salted at 0.5%. I did add 0.2% fresh yeast to the main dough, so that may have helped too (if it's good enough for French bakers....).

Here's my bread log for the bake and the starter refreshes. It's not in a format like anyone elses, so may be slightly tricky to understand!

 Semola refreshes     Altamura style bread

 

What do you use the caco3 for ? I know some folks use a pinch of Vit C . I have read that others do salt their starter. I've never had bread get " sour" so I think it is a feature of the semolina fermentation that is different. I will add some FY as I had thought I might do that. It and the malt would speed up the fermentation which in and of itself would reduce the fermentation time and thus help with sourness. Also the temps you note play an important part in your process and I have not ever paid any attention to ferment times. 

All that said I shall make a couple changes and see what happens. Always an adventure. Thank you for sharing your process . c

CaCO3 simply because our water is very soft here an of course some calcium is good for dough and gluten development.

Not needed for most bread flours here because in the UK they are fortified.

Lance

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The Golden Temple comes in 4 styles.. The one I got is this one https://www.goldentemple.ca/Products The No 1 Fine Durum Atta. It's really beautiful and looks and bakes just like the Caputo and no need to re-mill at all. Also develops a lovely gluten when autolysed and using my own version of laminations with extra water I can get an extra 100g of water in with no problem. It was $1 a pound. I have a loaf left to use and will bake again soon. I wish I could solve the photo posting problem !!!  c

Those are some great looking 100% durum loaves Lance! Nice colour on the crust and crumb, they look golden all round. Good open crumb and I like the leaven prep steps, they make sense...

Regarding the heating of the dough during mixing, I can confirm the effect and its due to the nature of the durum wheats gluten which is known for its high tenacity and resistance. Flour milled from strong hard wheats generally tilts the balance toward tenacity over extensibility. You'll find that all Semola Rimacinata flour is characterised by very high P/L values from Alveograph testing. Typically >2.

Great bakes, well done!

 

Michael

It's interesting that the DOP specification appears to have quite a low hydration:

Dough:

1. the mother yeast is obtained with at least three renewals to increase the fermented mass by adding

water and durum wheat semolina, in the percentage of 20% compared to the quantity of re-milled

semolina of durum wheat to knead;

2. doses and composition of the dough: for 1 quintal of re-milled durum wheat semolina you need 20 kg

(20%) of natural yeast, 2 kg (2%) of sea salt, lt. 60 (60%) approximately water at a temperature of 18°C;

Though I guess the hydration will depend on the hydration of the mother yeast. I was never able to find a good video of the whole commercial process - they often seem to skip past the key points!

Did you ever find a good one?

Lance

 

Indeed it's interesting regarding the moderate hydration but I've answered that one for myself. Once you start putting 2% salt in the process 60% becomes more workable. Durum works best with low acidity (low TTA) but you have to repeat the full process daily to get the full effect.

Acidity affects absorption, just as the level of starch damage and protein content do but because of the high level of starch damage, re-milled durum appears quite thirsty only to release its water later on and it seems lactic acid also increases the thirstiness.

I hear you, I can't say I found a sufficiently detailed video either.

In the end I got the impression that the so-called sourdough is built from a reserved piece of the final dough containing salt and in many bakeries they add a little fresh yeast which becomes part of the sourdough. Some purists might argue that its not true SD but this isn't the case as it still contains LAB and acidifies to a low pH.

To summarise a low TTA aided by the addition of salt and proteolytic degradation from long maturation times as combined factors will allow for 60% hydration to work well and give a soft dough.

 

I described a process like this in this bake: 100% Durum wheat loaf, lievitazione naturale | The Fresh Loaf but mine is SD without added yeast.

Well, thinking about it, similar low hydrations are a feature of classic British breadmaking practice in the 19th & 20th century (until Chorleywood came along).

Looking in Manna, by Walter Banfield, I see recipes with typical hydrations of 57% and salt at 1.5%. I used to think that perhaps flours had less water absorption back then, but I'm not sure; you can certainly make these types of loaves with modern flours - the crumb won't be open, but that was never an intended characteristic; indeed, it was considered a fault.

I wonder if the durum loaves of Italy were originally close crumbed and the more open style is a recent fashion?

Nothing wrong with a hint of yeast in the dough; French law permits it in pain au levain up to 0.2% (fresh rate, not dried).

And yes, I'm sure the "old dough" system of leavening must have been very common, especially for bread made at home.

Lance

That’s a wonderfully open crumb for 100% durum.  You should be very satisfied.

Best regards,

Ian