gavinc's blog

80 percent Sourdough Rye with a Rye-Flour Soaker

Baked 22nd August 2024.

This is first time baking this recipe. I do not usually bake rye breads, so I did as much reading on what to expect and handle the rye as possible leading up to this attempt. I stone-milled the rye berries the day before so they would be as fresh as possible and have an abundance of microbes. My firm whole-rye culture as fully active when preparing the sourdough stage overnight for 14 hours. The hot rye-flour soaker was prepared at the same time.

I’ve been making our favourite sourdough weekly for years and have not varied the process at all (don’t fix something that’s not broken). Same flours, same temperatures, same hydration, same process and same kneading technique, which is hand stretch and folds for 15 minutes, quite an effort towards the end. Recently, I broke four ribs and punctured a lung and therefore haven’t baked in four weeks. With the help of painkillers, I got back into the kitchen today. While convalescing I read that I can achieve good dough strength by kneading for 5 minutes and then rest for 15 minutes.

Semolina bread. Two 750-gram loaves. 60% durum flour and 68% hydration. 15% of the total flour is pre-fermented in a liquid levain. Hamelman does not include an autolyzed stage and it appears that it is not required for the durum flour. I’m very happy with the result. The crumb was more open than I was expecting and the crust slightly chewy.  Eating quality excellent and very different from my usual sourdough.

I love to hear the crust "sing" when first out of the oven. Lovely crisp cracking sound.

Debra Wink’s English Muffins with Biga.

I’ve tried several different English Muffin recipes and keep coming back to these, magnificent flavour and crumb.

I made some English muffins for lunch today. I'm tweaking the recipe and process as I go. These are great without too many enrichments like you see on some sites.

English muffins baked today. I haven't made EM's before so I used 1/2 recipe from King Arthur site to make 8 muffins. I hand mixed with a Danish whisk. Very slack dough much different from my regular sourdough bread dough and baked in a caste iron skillet on the stovetop. Looking forward to bacon and egg muffin tomorrow morning.

Sourdough with 10% Lupin Flour – test bake 1.

Date baked: 23rd April 2023.

First, a thank you to Debra Wink and Derek Hughes for their valuable advice.

This is a sourdough with 10% lupin flour. Lupin flour does not have any gluten, so experimentation is advised starting at a low per cent. The flour has a yellow colour and has high nutritional value.

Pullman Sandwich loaf with 16% lupin flour – 2nd test bake

Date Baked: 17th April 2023. 

Changes for this 2nd bake:

 1       Pre-cook 5% lupin flour.

 2.      Add 4% wheat gluten.

 3.      Increase hydration to 70%

 4.      Slight increase of IDY to 1.1%

Bread Evaluation Notes - Advice welcome.

Pullman Sandwich loaf with 16% lupin flour

Date Baked: 16th April 2023. 

Tangzong method adopted (5% bread flour)

Weight against Volume

I mixed 1000-gram dough @ 60% hydration. The dough was very tight, and I should have added extra water but didn’t. It became more pliable and softer during the bulk fermentation and shaping.