Blog posts

Given my real passion is sourdough, it is odd that my first forum post and subsequent blog entry are centred on the topic of gluten-free baking. This one is for a friend. I am not an expert in gluten-free baking (or baking, for that matter), but this procedure has worked out rather well for me.

10-29-2019.

6:45 pm.  Mixed:

480 g home-milled, coarsely ground Prairie Gold hard white spring wheat, HWSW, grown by Wheat Montana.

3 g malted flour, Rahr Malted Red Wheat, home-milled, coarse, from whole grains purchased at brewer's supply.

36 g home-milled, coarse, Kamut.

Initial flour: 519.

Friday, Oct 25, 2019.

7:33 pm. Mixed 650 g of home-milled Prairie Gold flour, hard white spring wheat, 36 gram unrefined granulated cane sugar, 559 g bottled spring water. 86% hydration so far.

8:30 pm. Folded in 10 g home-milled malt flour (purchased malted wheat berries from a brewer's supply), and 27 g of Bob's Red Mill Dark whole-grain rye flour. Total flour so far: 687 g.  81.36% hydration so far.

Autolyse time: 1 hour. (7:33 pm to 8:33 pm.)

I previously made the turmeric and leek loaf from Sarah Owens and it remains one of my tastiest loaves. I decided to make it again, but to follow my own process with the dough, to up the hydration to 80%, and to change the mix of flours. I hope it's as tasty as the first time! One of my loaves has a small tumor on the side because it was too big for my DO and it stuck to the side as I put it in - oops! 

I was thrilled with the wild rice cranberry & nut bread I made last weekend so I decided to make another fruit/nut loaf. I didn't add rice this time, but I upped the percentages of whole grain. I briefly thought about adding cooked spelt, but then I forgot. 

I was looking through cookbooks for inspiration and found this recipe in Vanessa Kimbell’s The Sourdough School - The ground-breaking guide to making gut-friendly bread. I altered the ingredient list slightly by adding yogurt and changing the hydration. She uses a whopping 83% so I reduced the water since I really didn’t feel like dealing with goop. My final hydration was 73%. However, this doesn’t account for the water/beer retained in the spent grains. I also increased the salt and the levain slightly, and used my usual dough making procedure.

My father, Norman Horwitz, was a renaissance man. He was a medical nuclear physicist, at the forefront of the fight against cancer. Outside of work, Norm was an inventor and trendsetter. Among his passions were cooking and baking. From an early age I would find issues of Gourmet magazine around his reading chair. At the end of a year or so, my Dad had the issues bound at a book bindery. I remember how tempting those fat volumes were, sitting so properly on their shelf in his library. I loved to look through the glossy pages of these precious volumes.

Mon Oct 21, 2019.  

I've previously done 40% Kamut, then 33% Kamut, now this is 25% Kamut in relation to Prairie Gold (HWSW), in hopes of better gluten development.  Kamut has more protein, and can be used for 100% loaves, but it's like durum, it's not going to easily be a fluffy yeasted loaf.

525 g Prairie Gold hard white spring wheat (HWSW), home-milled, coarse.

175 g Kamut, home-milled, coarse.