Five Grain Levain

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SallyBR on 27 Aug 2011 at 12:52

Today I made Hamelman's Five Grain Levain

Excellent flavor, pretty straightforward formula, a bit of starter, a bit of commercial yeast - 90 minutes bulk fermentation, 1 hour final rise, and bake it.  No fuss, no mess, just a great bread.

My question, though - the bread is called FIVE grain levain, but no matter how I count it, there are only FOUR grains in the bread: flaxseeds, cracket wheat, oats, and sunflower seeds.    Is he considering the regular flour, milled in the dough, as a grain too?    Next time I might add some sesame seeds and call it "SIX grain levain"   ;-)

 

Hey Sally,

Take a second look at the recipe: it's whole wheat flour, cracked rye, flaxseeds, sunflower seeds, and oats.

I love this particular bread for sandwiches - and I'll bet that sesame seeds would only add to the celebration.

Larry

So, he does consider the wheat (ground as flour) as another type of grain - I guess it makes sense, in a way.  In my mind, I would only call "grain" those that are kept intact in the formula

 

the bread is delicious, hubby gave two enthusiastic thumbs up!  ;-)

Hi,

funny, i made this bread myself today too (first time)! I mixed it yesterday and retarded it though, so no commercial yeast.

No crumb shot; the leftover from dinner is in the freezer sliced already... It was fairly open though, considering all the seeds and the whole wheat. I let it in the WFO for 60min and it was not dry at all at the end; very moist. Crust was not too thick but stayed crunchy; great toasted flavor.

I'll repeat it for sure.

Daniele.

Hi, Sally.

Your bread looks great!

To give the flavor a kick up to an even higher level, next time do the optional overnight retardation. You will be amazed. Your husband will give it three thumbs up. (Might have to borrow one of yours.)

David

Will definitely do so - in that case, if I understood correctly the commercial yeast is omitted, and the bulk fermentation extended to 2 hours instead of 90 minutes.    Is that what you did, or you just retarded the dough from the "regular" recipe?

 

 

.....Hope he does have to borrow at least one of them from somebody....:p

 

Lovely looking bread, Sally, both crust and crumb!

Just realized I haven't baked any bread with grains this summer....   Have to bake again now that it's so cold last few days, it's feeling like autumn already.

lumos

That's a gorgeous looking loaf, Sally.  And I must second David's recommendation about the overnight retardation.  Although the flavour of this loaf is going to improve over the next few days (if there is any left)!  The crumb looks so soft and the crust so crisp.  Great baking.

Syd

Thank you!   The flavor of this bread is pretty amazing - it has almost a smokey flavor, maybe it's the sunflower seeds?

Very nice sandwich bread - I am slicing the leftovers and freezing, to preserve our body dimensions.