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Back from two weeks off without any baking. My starter was refreshed two weeks ago at 50% hydration, given 1 hour at room temperature then refrigerated. The pH had only dropped to 4.4 or so when I returned so there was plenty of food left. I discarded some, then brought the hydration up to 100% and did a small feed. He tripled in 3 hours but had not yet peaked, so I discarded and fed him again. 5 hours later he had peaked at 3.5-4x with the dome just starting to flatten. He was ready to build a levain for this bake.

Made this soft and sweet sandwich loaf.

Still learning, but this is my favourite kneaded bread so far. I've used this recipe for cinnamon buns and mini loaves as well. It holds shapes really nicely. I have made pumpkins, skulls, snakes, and snails for example with it. 

Borrowing Mashing from Beer Brewers

In the last two weeks, I've played with "mashing" malted rye and buckwheat to produce a sweet scald for my baguettes. Mash is a term used by beer brewers when they add enzymes to their grains and keep them hot over time to break the starches down into sugars. My mash blended buckwheat flour, diastatic malted rye flour, and hot water, and kept it at 55 celcius for 20 hours. 55 celcius was the best my proofing box could do, and was also a good temperature to keep amylase enzymes active and not destroy them.

This recipe from Cedar Mountain was perfect for the new batch of grain berries that I received from Daybreak Mills. It took a bit of work when you consider caramelizing the onions, milling and sifting the bran out of the flour and toasting the seeds, but the one thing I didn’t count on, was how sticky the rye made the dough. Coil folds started off nicely but as the dough warmed up, it became super sticky. I took it out of the warm spot near the end of bulk hoping to make it a bit more manageable. And I preshaped it right after the last coil fold.

1-2-3 bread with 20% Caputo Semola Rimacinata. Add ins as part of liquid EVOO/honey / buttermilk( ran out of yogurt) levain all raisin YW. Crumb shot later. 

Edited to add crumb shot from 2 baguettes that I shaped with some of the dough just to see what would happen. Wow… cool custard open. Perfect. The book couldn’t be judged by the cover! 

As per my last entry, I was making a 12 hour fermentation no knead bread and my brain for some reason said 24 hours... 

I'm making myself a 12 hour fermentation no knead bread and my brain decided it needed 24... I noticed my mistake around hour 23... I should have noticed it earlier as I've been scrambling for hours trying to soften the "rind" that formed during the rise. 

I'm soldiering on. But I don't think there will be anything left for the second rise now that I've folded it.

It smells fantastic, but I think it will be small.

Almost the same as #67:  same types and amounts of flour, same amount of starter (though a little fresher), 8 grams less water, 8 g salt instead of 7, and added 1/2 tsp of ground toasted bread spice.  Same day bake instead of an overnight bulk ferment.

Valais Rye   Walliserbrot (Switzerland)  from The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg

The latest new bake is a Walliserbrot courtesy of The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg. I had to scale this one for a single large pan.  Note to self, always use parchment paper on the bottom of the pan for ease of extracting the loaf. Another improvement would be to bake it maybe 5 mins less, the internal temp got a little above the recommended 198 F, I think due to the heating efficiency of the pan. Overall I am pleased with the outcome.

Tasting notes:

After requesting and receiving some nice feedback last time, I applied some good tips with, I think, better results in crumb and flavor.  Many thanks to trailrunner and JonJ!