trailrunner's blog

As far as I can tell these are a first ! No one’s ever posted an Apple Yeast Water levain bagel. I used to make bagels all the time. Have always and only used the formula from Wild Yeast blog. They are always perfect. I always use a lye bath. It’s extremely easy and so dilute there’s no danger at all. 

Three qts water and add 3 tsp lye. Bring to boil. Can reuse stored water. I’m stirring up another batch of bagels  in the next couple days so covered and left on back burner. 

Following are my adaptations to the no levain no knead bread. I mix everything together just til moist using a large wooden spoon. Autolyse 1 hr or so.

I  then do my version of bassinage by thoroughly wetting the counter scraping out the dough throughly wetting the top and patting out to a large rectangle then letter fold and tuck into a ball and place in oiled container. I do this 3x with 30 min rest inbetween ultimately using an extra 100 g of water. Dough responds exceptionally well and becomes like silk. 

500g t80 French import 

I wanted to see how this would work with really old stored starter and a substantial amount of fresh milled whole wheat. Worked beautifully! 

My stored YW starter hasn’t been refreshed in I don’t know how long… maybe months. I milled 400g of a generic WW . I used 40 g of the stored starter and for good measure subbed 200g of stored Apple YW for part of the water. 

Nothing different except I frequently swap out my grains so as to get through my inventory. Milled  the grains right before using them they were  still warm. Mixed everything except salt autolyse 30 min. KA mixer 7 min speed 2  adding in the salt and some extra held back water. Cleaned the bowl as usual with a perfect ratio of dry/ wet ingredients. 

I am very pleased with the crumb and crust and amazing wheat flavor. Made great grilled cheese sandos. Don’t recall ever making 3 loaves as identical as these 3! 😊

It’s been a while since I posted my successes with flaking grain. I got new oat groats from Breadtopia and wanted to do a very short tutorial. I have an older Marga Marcato hand crank with aluminum rollers. The steel rollers are not available and the price of this one has gone up. There are other flakers available and the Mock Mill folks have an electric one. 

Fermentation is everything.Photo is of dough right out of fridge after 48 hrs. Amazing movement still after that length of time. Formula has 40g of levain in 400g of flour. TDW 700g. Fed old rye starter from cold storage 2 feedings of T80. Let ferment 24 hrs. Stirred up usual formula with 1 hr fermentolyse and 3 folds in 90 min. Bulk ferment went over but will be a habit from now on! They just get better and better. Amazing crumb and crisp crust with beautiful crumb color due to the bit of rye and wow the flavor. Dough handles so beautifully. Can’t get over this flour.

So pleased!!! 36 hr cold fermentation and boy did the dough respond. Flavor is terrific as well. Really enjoying this flour… good thing since I have 22 kg! 

Had to wait for the flour which was in a shipping container on its way from France. Worth the wait! Gorgeous flour with flecks of brown . Same formula as before. Absolutely lovely to work with and great flavor and crumb. These are 20% Semola . 

White Bean Marcella soup beans from Rancho Gordo, worth the price they are incredibly tasty with baggie

Making SD YW T65/Semola pizza crusts in my Detroit pans. Prep with sauce and parmigiana and then par bake and freeze. Better than Costco 😂😬. The little one on my 40 yr old steel pan ( can’t get it anywhere anymore) will be gone almost immediately after coming out of the oven fully topped. Let me know if you want the best crust formula. 1700 g of yum

And it’s only Tuesday  

par baked goodness ready for freezer when cool

A variation of previous bakes. More pleased than ever with shaping and scoring…thank you TFL . This iteration has home milled 300 g spelt, 300 g Yecora Rojo and 400 g AP Arrowhead Mills flour. 40 g  rye storage starter used to make 280 g YW  and home milled rye levain at 100% hydration. I do not feed my stored starter prior to bakes and my stored YW hasn’t been fed in weeks. Both present with rapid growth so I have let them be.