Kalamata & Rosemary Sourdough

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WoodenSpoon on 5 Feb 2014 at 15:29

Hey yall!, yesterday and today I made this sourdough with kalamata olives and rosemary.

The formula is as follows. 592g bread flour, 29g whole wheat flour, 29g whole rye flour, 452g warm water, 98g olive juice, 130g chef (100% hydration), 72g kalamata olives, 33g rosemary and 13g salt.

First I whisked together my flours and in a separate bowl I whisked together my chef and warm water. I poured my olive juice onto the flour then added the olives and rosemary then added the water/chef slurry. I did my best to pull it together with a bowl scraper then with a mixing spoon, mixing just until the flour was hydrated and then giving it an hour autolyse.

After the autolyse I gave it a stretch and fold, spread the salt on the counter and gave it six minuets of slap and folds each time slapping it on the salt so it grabbed a bit every time. after that I let it rest for three or five minutes then gave it three more minutes of slap and folding, another rest and another minute of slapping and folding. I then put it in a bowl with a cover and let it sit at room temp for an hour, during that hour I gave it three evenly spaced sets of stretch and folds. then I put it in the fridge overnight. an hour after I put it in the fridge I gave it one set of stretch and fold, then another a few hours later.

Today, I removed the dough from the fridge and let it warm for an hour or so at room temp. then I divided/pre-shaped /shaped and proofed it at room temp tented in a damp towel for right around three hours, I popped it onto the preheated stone in my 550 degree oven and splashed a bit of hot water on my preheated sheet pan. after a minute or so I added a bit more water and after another minute i turned the oven down to 470, I baked at 470 for fifteen minutes or so, then rotated the loaves and baked at 460 for maybe fifteen additional minutes then baked at 450 until the loaves were done.

you must be pleased with these loaves.  They look lovely.  I have baked olive bread, but have shied away from the rosemary.  You used a generous amount of rosemary in this bread….was that 33g of dried or fresh rosemary?

I've been dreaming of kalamata olive bread for quite some time now. There's a sage and olive loaf I usually do, but it doesn't include the olive juice, and I find myself searching for the olive flavor. I'll have to give this formula a try. Your bread just looks delicious!

Rachel

Lovely loaf of bread and nice recipe.

I have one question, you mention Olive Juice, is this vinegar or oil?

 

Thanks

 

Richard 

That looks lovely, I love the olive and rosemary combination, it is one I have done quite often in focaccia. Kalamata olives are delicious, I would love a slice of that bread.

And Dickey, the olive juice I spoke of was the brine in the jar of olives. and looking back at my post I most certainly did not use 98g of salt, I used 13g, I will fix that now.

Hot damn I love the look of this one.  I will have to try it out.  I wonder if you can do all the steps but shape and retard in fridge overnight for the final proof?

Thanks for this.

John

This may be a goofy question, but what the heck is chef?  Levain or starter culture?  If just starter, that means you add it directly to the final dough without a levain?

John

Yes sir-e, there are a lot of sourdough culture names seemingly used interchangeably so i totally understand the confusion. But in my mind your chef is your sourdough culture typically kept at a high hydration, and levain is a firmer dough made from the chef.  I feed my chef equal parts water and flour each morning for two days before baking and let it ferment at room temp, I don't know if those feedings count as elaborations thus making it a levain, I'm gonna keep calling it chef :-)

Ok, makes sense....the problem is I only keep about a total of 100g of starter in my jar perpetually.  Wonder if I can just use about 10g of starter with 60g water and 60g flour to make a levain which would make 130g chef...hmmmm

I would say yes for sure, you could/possibly should build up to that 130 over the course of two days to avoid feeding it more then it can handle and risking having it sluggish and immature when baking time comes... sounds an awful lot like making a levain.

My question is, if you can exclude the levain method, and do the way you do by just adding starter directly to final dough, why do bakers use levain??  I always thought it was for added strength and flavour.  Your bread looks amazing so just wondering if there is a reason one would use levain or not in a bread like this.

John

The way i understand it building a small amount of wet chef into a firmer levain over the course of a few days dramatically increases the depth of flavor, and also the more mellow lactic acid producing bacteria thrive in the warmer firmer levian environment as opposed to the wetter cooler chef environment. Since the beginning of winter I'v been going the straight chef route due to super cool indoor temps and time constraints, but last summer I had very similar results with a two day build 65% hydration levain.