Blog posts

For my first foray into baking with spelt flour, I made a loaf with 50% spelt, 50% bread flour.  The spelt was stone-ground from a local water mill.  Using a kitchen sifter I was able to sift out a little bran, which I scalded with water and left overnight.  The amount of extraction was only around 6 - 7%, though.  The bread flour was King Arthur's.  The total amount of flour exclusive of the starter was 420g plus a few more for the bran scald.

Today's bake: Honeyed Spelt and Oat Levain

Source: Sourdough Recipes for Rustic Fermented Breads Sweets, Savories, and More - Sarah Owens

Notes:

Substitutions:  None

I attempted to make pizza with King Arthur 00 Pizza flour using their recipe on the back of the bag. The recipe was called "Detroit Style Pizza". I have no idea what that is but I had hoped it would make 1-12" pizza if I halved the recipe. It did not. Also, this was my first attempt at homemade pizza dough. It is not pretty and way too crispy. But for better or for worse here it is.

I‘ve been looking for a way to try out the Monheim Salt-sour process for a while, as I've been researching ways to get complex rye flavors without the pain of a 3-fold Detmolder. It's described as having a good aroma and being "almost as good" as a full detmold.

Normally the loaves I record here are the successful one.  There are plenty of so-so loaves that don't offer too much to dwell on worth writing about.  And then there are the total disaster loaves.

I have not been very active here in many years, posting only occasionally in reply to member questions, and even more rarely to my own blog.  Perhaps so much so that I may even appear to only talk the talk.  I decided today that I should, if not change that, at least speak into the silence a little bit.  So, I will tell you of  my latest bake.

Hello, friends.

My new rye sour is taking to the rye flour like a horse to water in the desert! This means a "New York" Jewish Sour Rye bake no later than tomorrow. The formula I selected comes after a visit to my Pisani  (Villager) Island 66 blog page. From there I was directed right back here. I landed at everybody's friend, and a fine baker David Snyder's blog. 

For this exercise (performance) I will attempt David Snyder's, Jewish Sour Rye. Which is based on Greenstein's formula. Boy that was a lot of acknowledgements! 

Onwards.

Earlier this year, Tony (CalBeachBaker) posted a bread made with einkorn flour.  I modified the recipe a tad, and this is my second attempt (these bakes were my first experience with einkorn).

For the levain, I mixed 3 grams of sourdough starter, 72 grams of einkorn flour, and 54 grams of water.  There is a soaker, and for that I mixed 48 grams of rye chops, 48 grams of sesame seeds, 120 grams of boiling water, and 2 grams of salt.  The levain and soaker sat overnight covered at room temperature.

   I made the same bread about a year ago to bring to my Cousin’s house for the Jewish New Year.  It was a big hit and I really liked the malty flavor the Guinness imparts on the overall bread.  It doesn’t taste like beer but you can definitely taste the underlying flavor.  I don’t really like beer that much and I definitely would not be caught dead drinking a motor oil type beer like Guinness but it’s my favorite one to add to bread.

A double build was used for the levain but you could easily just do one build if you desire.