suminandi's blog

Was inspired by Martadella's recent rye breads, and the somewhat recent community bake to make bread similar to the Danish rugbrod. I was short on rye, so I did include some whole wheat. Must try this again when I replenish my stock of rye.

Ingredients:

300 gr whole rye flour

150 gr whole wheat flour

150 gr last night's belgian beer (completely flat and most of the alcohol had evaporated)

200 gr water

80 gr 100% hydration rye starter (recently refreshed)

70 gr old ww bread, soaked with an unknown amount of water and then wrung out

With the kids out of the house and unable to bring baked goods to the office, I mostly stopped baking croissants. Husband has been wanting to eat some recently, and we never seem to catch the short hours of our favorite local bakery. So I made some yesterday and baked a few this morning (putting most of the batch in the freezer after shaping). 

I have a stock of organic whole red fife flour purchased from a local farm several months ago. My first runs with it seemed to show that it was too weak to be the only flour in the bread - the dough would start breaking down around the time it was proofed to my eye- it made tasty bread, but the crumb was tighter than hard spring wheat loaves. So I was mixing it with some hard spring wheat and getting good results.

Very hot here. High temp around 110 F, so, to keep the kitchen cooler and reduce electricity use, i cooked a bread on our weber grill. I put a clay baker on to preheat for 15 min before loading the dough and cooking covered for 20 mins and then uncovered for another 20. The grill cover was on for all of it, besides to remove the clay baker cover. 

Today's bread is made from fresh ground, sifted Hard Red Spring wheat from Montana Flour and Grains

Very basic bread - 

400 gr bolted fresh ground flour

320 gr water (80%)

8 grams salt

30 gr olive oil

2 tablespoons honey

60 grams levain (stiff starter ~65% hydration)

Process:

2 hr autolyse flour and water

Mix dough including autolyse, levain and salt - let rest ~30 min

mix in honey and oil.

Bulk ferment until nearly doubled (~4 hr as warm room temp)

WW flour 900 gr

water 700 gr

levain 150 gr

salt 18 gr

2 hr salt soak ( flour, water, salt) 

5 hr bulk fermented 

1.5 hr proof after shaping into 2 batards

baked at 450F for 35 min

one loaf cut right away. That’s why the crumb is wet in picture. 

malty-wheaty flavor. Soft texture. Crust is crispy 

Weekly bread for my friends. Continuing the series of 100% red fife loaves. Hydration 78%, salt 2%. The reviews have been good. No crumb picture because they were all given away. 

Today’s red fife loaf. I dropped the hydration a bit from the recent loaves. The past few loaves have been tending to relax a lot while in proofing and flattening out bit. So I brought the hydration down a bit from 78% to 75%. Added a small amount of olive oil for flavor. 
Very good wholewheat flavor with malty notes. Soft crumb - not at all chewy. I’m getting the hang of this grain, which is weaker than the northern red spring wheat I usually use. Could have proofed a bit longer, but not bad for 100% wholegrain. 

I’m lucky to have (so far) a healthy household and furthermore employment that I can accomplish with telework. 

I continue to bake 100% wholewheat sourdough, thanks to buying flour from a local-ish farmer. It is California grown red fife and after a few experiments, I’m getting delicious, light ( for ww) loaves out of it. I’ve been sharing loaves with friends which has given us all a chance for a few minutes socializing in the driveway. One friend even brought his violin and played some tunes :-). 

Here’s a crumb picture 

I bought some Glenn wheat berries from Kenter Canyon farm at the Atwater Village farmers market ( in Los Angeles). It was $2 per pound, not cheap but not too outrageous. The Glenn wheat is grown in Santa Rosa, California. I’m currently buying hard red spring wheat from Montana Flour and Grains by mail, and I would like to transition to a more local supplier.