gavinc's blog

My starter is performing better than ever now I have a new regimen. Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough with 15% stone-ground whole wheat flour.

Today I baked Hamelman’s Deli Rye Bread with caraway seeds. I used 15% freshly milled stone-ground rye that was pre-fermented overnight in an 80% hydration stiff sourdough starter. The overall formula is 66% hydration and includes 1.75% caraway seeds. The dough had a good feel throughout the process and was proofed in a linen couche. I baked the loaf on an oven stone in a pre-steamed oven and steam for the first 10 minutes. The oven spring was particularly good and crumb nice and soft.

Issue

My liquid white flour starter gets gradually weaker over time, although was created from rye flour. My regimen was to feed my culture a couple of times a week and refrigerate after the starter had ripened on the bench. The culture is 125% hydration and is fed with white bread flour.

The culture was initially strong with good rising power. After about three weeks it becomes weak and has a reduced ability to give a good rise and volume to the loaves. I have to occasionally freshen the starter with stone-ground rye to return its vitality and power.

I was inspired by alfanso making baguettes using Hamelman's Sourdough Seed Bread recipe. His results looked stunning with great crust colour and crumb. Today I made the same recipe into an oblong loaf. Reasonably happy, except I was expecting more volume and more open crumb. Still tasted great. 75% hydration, 25% seeds; sunflower, sesame and flax (linseed). Definitely will make this again, but will extend the final proof. I didn't retard the final proof but gave it 2 1/2 hours at 24C. Ideas welcome.

I have never baked a ciabatta in all the years of baking. I wanted to take some nice bread to friends for late afternoon drinks that would pair nicely with cheese and selected wines. My usual bake for these events is baguettes with a poolish, but I wanted to try something. I went with Hamelman's ciabatta with biga which is a 73% hydration loaf.

The result was better than I was expecting, The crumb is not as open as some prefer, but I don't like the holes so large that the toppings fall through. I may experiment with upping the hydration a few points to test my nerve.

Cheers,

My second bake of the Swiss Farmhouse Bread. This time I was able to source organic raisins and make the raisin yeast water successfully.  My first attempt at yeast water failed due to impurities on the raisins, so I resorted to making the yeast water using kumquats and honey.

This time I made the raisin yeast water using organic raisins and was successful. I also changed the container setup using an airlock lid and a cling film layer in contact with the water. I observed the development daily and on the sixth day, the bubbles were very active.

Swiss Farmhouse Bread – “Bread. A baker’s book of techniques and recipes, 2nd Edition” by Jeffrey Hamelman.

My experiment into the world of yeast water bread was inspired by an organised community bake on the Fresh Loaf bread site. The members have such a wealth of experience and expertise.  When things do not go to plan, experts jump in with great advice. I learned a lot by participating and through others experience.

This bread contains walnuts and raisins and uses raisin yeast water for leavening. The first step is to make the yeast water and takes 5 to 6 days.

This Rustic loaf is my regular weekly loaf and never misses if I am true to the process. I use instant yeast to make only one loaf at a time. That's what I like about Hamelman's book; you get the bakers per cent and I can rescale one 750 g loaf to suit my banneton. 

I now get week by week repeated success with Hamelman's Vermont Sourdough which is our regular bread I bake each weekend.  My take-home message to all sourdough newbies is to persist and pay attention to detail.  It's tempting to skip and make do with estimates and a "she'll be right" attitude, but if I want consisency week after week with sourdough, I have to do all the below:

I usually only have time to make our favourite sourdough each weekend, but this weekend we have had rain and cold winds which cancelled some plans.  So I decided to make a recipe I hadn't tried before -Golden Raisin Bread - from Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread".  This took me out of my comfort zone somewhat but I enjoyed the challenge and will try to take on a new recipe regularly.  I think I've grown in confidence thanks to this site.