agres's blog

Poilane was and is correct. A sourdough miche of whole wheat is great bread. It is the "Pain de Campaign" that I was seeking.  Such bread can be baked at home, and it is not that hard for someone with some experience with sourdough.

For years, I worked with various mixes of flour (bread, AP, spelt,  whole wheat, rye) and I used one starter, and it worked on all mixes. It was slow - about the speed indicated in the books on baking.

More recently, I have moved to all whole wheat (with 2% rye & 2% bean flour), all the time, and I have seen my fermentation/final rise times go way down (considering the dough temperature.)

I have been making bread here for 22 years. We have good tap water, so I used it for bread, and never thought about it. My schedules for starter were about the same as it the books, so I was happy.

A few years ago, I started milling my own flour, and my starter with the fresh ground flour, was more active. I was happy.

Recently I was reminded that even good tap water has disinfectants in it that kill microorganisms such as those in sourdough. I moved to boiling my water to remove the . Now my sourdough rises faster. I am happy.

People made very good bread for a long time before they added Vitamin C to their flour.

I do think the effect of Vitamin C is detectable to a careful hand baker. However, hand bakers can easily compensate by using a slightly wetter dough or longer fermentation times.

At this point, I think Vitamin C is added for professional bakers using mechanical dough mixing and handling equipment on a tight production schedule.  

I like fresh stone ground flour. One issue is that the dough is not as extensible as commercial bread flours that contain citric acid. Good extensibility is important for good oven spring.  Certainly,  small amount (2%) of rye will improve extensibility, and long ferments generate acids that improve extensibility. 

I buy organic whole hard red winter wheat, temper it with 2% water for 2 days, and stone grind with 3 passes through my electric mill. I add 2% fresh milled rye flour and 2% fresh milled fava bean flour. (The rye and fava flours do make a difference.)

I use a 6-liter, 4" deep plastic tub with a good lid as my dough trough.

In one end, I put 2.2% (baker's percentage) of salt in one end.

In the middle, I put my flour.

By the time I was in high school, I baked regularly - including huge challah for large Friday night gatherings at my girlfriend's house. Mixing the the dough for those huge loaves was a significant effort. Oh, I wanted a stand mixer!

My current daily bread is fresh ground whole wheat flour, 2% malt powder, 2% salt, a hand full of yesterday's dough, and enough water to make a firm dough.

 The night before I put the flour, malt, & salt in my plastic dough trough. I mix enough water into my old dough to make a runny mess. I make a well in the flour mix, very gradually pour in the old dough mix, as I stir the liquid, pulling in flour from the edges of the well as I stir. I pour in water with my left hand as I stir with my right to make a firm dough.

I make bread almost every day. Being retired, I have  time to experiment, which I did not have when I was a chef in a commercial kitchen.  And, I do not have customers that expect consistency.  On the other hand, I have other things to do,  and seek to produce my bread expeditiously. 

As a kid, I was fascinated by dough troughs, and traditional baker’s technologies. I tried making some dough troughs out of wood, but I was never satisfied with my product. In the kitchens, I made do with stand mixers. Here, at the Tulip Patch, the mixer habit carried over, but I was still on the look out for a dough trough.