I have made most of his recipes many times but this is a first time through the Mixed Flour Miche. MIxed it up. Pretty sure I got the measurements right but its like soup. Already added a 1/2c of bread flour but I'm afraid if I bake this off I am going to have whole grain pancakes.
He says the dough is "wet" but this looks like its way over 50% hydration. See nothing in the Errata.
Anybody made this?
Using Maine Grains sifted wheat / Main Grains rye / KA Bread.
It is an 83% hydration dough. No wonder it is difficult to handle. Try to develop the gluten well which should help. Failing that and you really can't handle it then loaf pan it. Here is a link to someone else who has tried this recipe which might help.
http://yumarama.com/2468/non-miche-miche/
Most of his recipes are fairly low hydration compared to other authors. I've never seen anything this high in the book which leads me to believe something is wrong.
this confirms that you haven't gone wrong as far as following the recipe is concerned. The dough is very high hydration and the loaf looks very flat. You could either thicken it up with more flour not forgetting to add more salt proportionately then you'll have to go by feel from here on as everything else will be different. Or when final shaping flour the bench well, fold it like a letter in both directions with the help of your dough scraper then put it in a loaf pan.
If you try it again you could lower the hydration.
There is nothing wrong with the recipe, but it's a challenging bread to make.
Well nevertheless it is radically different than the other recipes in the book some of which I learned from Hamelman in person (his rye class before it became impossible to get into). So I think I will email him to see if that's really what he intended.
I wish to try this over the weekend. I do have the book at home but if you don't mind can you just write the recipe here, sans method, so I may make sure I get all the ingredients on my way home.
Overall Formula
U.S. Metric Home Baker ’s %
High-extraction wheat flour 12 lb 6 kg 1 lb. 3.2 oz 60%
Whole-rye flour 4 lb 2 kg 6.4 oz 20%
Bread flour 4 lb 2 kg 6.4 oz 20%
Water 16.6 lb 8.3 kg 1 lb, 10.6 oz 83%
Salt .36 lb .18 kg .6 oz 1.8%
Total Yield 36.96 lb 18.48 kg 3 lb, 11.2 oz 184.8%
Let me see... think I need some more whole wheat otherwise I have everything else. Will have to be one medium sized loaf though. See what I can come up with.
Thank you!
Strong Whole Wheat Flour : 3.2 oz
Whole Rye Flour : 6.4 oz
Bread Flour : 6.4 oz
Water : 10.6 ??
Salt : .6 oz ??
Water should be 83% which should be 83% of 16 oz = 13.28 oz
Salt should be 1.8% which should be 1.8% of 16 oz = 0.288 oz
Something isn't adding up here.
That's 1lb + 10.6 oz of water (26.6 oz) and 1lb + 3.2 oz (19.2 oz)of High Extraction Flour
Here is the page image
1lb + in both cases.
Haven't even begun yet and i'm making a mess of it.
Don't give myself high hopes if I carry on like this.
My only defence is that i'm used to grams.
If you read his description it doesn't really match what comes out of the recipe. I have made the regular Miche more than once both at KA and at home and it's a dense bread but with a fair amount of spring. Not a pancake.
80% hydration for an all whole wheat bread is quite do-able. Takes a bit more getting used to but if you use a strong whole wheat flour (that's the high extraction bit) then should be ok. It's 83% with some bread flour and whole rye. The bread flour % will make it more difficult at this hydration but it is balanced with an equal amount of whole rye which drinks up a lot of water. Of course I won't know till I try it.
Depends on how much pre-fermented flour. which flour is pre-fermented. etc. I don't have a banneton but i'll try to improvise. Even if I can't improvise at least I can get an idea of how it handles and leavening power.
His regular miche is 82% hydration and if you look at the photo in the book is anything but dense.
Give me a day or two
Did you use the correct flour? Strong bread and whole wheat bread flour?
Jeffrey Hamelman via kingarthurflour.onmicrosoft.com
Hi John,
83% would not be out of the range of “handle-able” with those flours. There have been times when I’ve actually gone to 90%, and I assure you I’m not someone who believes in adding water unless the dough actually can benefit from it. If your dough was overly wet, and if you are certain the scaling was accurate, then it’s likely that the flours you used were low in protein, hence could not tolerate the 83%. If you are mixing this dough at home, you may find that an extra fold is a good idea too.
Anyway, I hope the loaf pan bread came out well for you.
All the best,
Jeffrey
jeffrey hamelman|certified master baker and bakery director|king arthur flour | tel 802-526-1870
100% employee owned | 100% committed to quality
Nice! And nice of him to help.
I think you shouldn't give up and give it another go making sure you've got some strong bread and whole-wheat flours. Adding in extra folds too to build strength.
I'm actually looking forward to the challenge. I wonder what it tastes like.
If I were you I'd print that message and hang it on a wall :D I didn't know he was that accessible. All the added reason to be a fan!
I baked this bread twice, and didn't find the dough was hard to manage. Harder than other recipes, definitely, but doable. I also share his view. A high % of whole wheat, plus the whole rye drinks a lot of water. Maybe you're using medium rye?
Very low in gluten. Like a cake flour. No wonder it didn't form a dough at that hydration.
If I'm not wrong, in the preceding recipe, "Miche, Point À Calliere", Hamelman instructs that if you don't have high extraction wheat flour, you can use a mixture of 60-80% whole wheat flour and AP flour. That's what I do, btw.
Yes it could be the flour. High extraction flour isn't all that easy to come by so when I saw Maine Grains Sifted Wheat I ordered some and that is what I used:
https://mainegrains.com/sifted-wheat-flour-stone-ground-5lbs-895
also used the rye:
https://mainegrains.com/organic-rye-flour-stone-ground-2lbs-595
rye you shouldn't be concerned about. The strength will come from the wheat flours.
Just googled Maine Sifted Wheat, Stoneground and it's very low gluten.
3g protein per 31g flour = 9.7g protein. And not all of that is gluten either but will give you an idea.
at 9.7% this is like cake flour. This is not high extraction aka strong whole wheat flour.
Issue solved! It's not you but the flour.
Turns out in the same order I got the Maine Grains Turkey Red Wheat which is off the web site for now until they get the fall wheat crop. It's 15.2% protein so it might be worth a try. They also hinted that they might have some new products closer to Type-85 but nothing specific.
I think give it another go with this strong whole wheat flour. Perhaps an extra stretch and fold won't go amiss either. With this much strong whole wheat, rye and bread flour I don't think 83% hydration will be too high. Get a good mature starter going making sure it's good and ready for when you bake.
I've just been studying the recipe from my book and have put this together as a first draft for when I try it...
Whole-Wheat Flour 250g
Whole-Rye Flour 50g
Bread Flour 100g
Water 345g
Salt 9g
Levain 170g (starter 20%, water 70%, flour 100% 1:1 whole wheat : whole rye)
Total : 924g
I keep a stiff starter already so good to go. My Levain build will be something like this...
18g starter + 63g water + 90g flour (45g whole wheat + 45g whole rye) = 171g (close enough)
Taking the flour as 100% the water is 70% and the starter is 20%.
All will go into the final dough.
The recipe says to autolyse for 20 - 60 minutes. Do 60 minutes! With this much wholegrain it'll benefit.
MIXED FLOUR MICHE
Baker's Percentages:
Flour 100%
Water 86.25%
Salt 2.25%
Levain 42.5%
Recipe:
Whole-Wheat Flour 250g
Whole-Rye Flour 50g
Bread Flour 100g
Water 345g
Salt 9g
Levain 170g
Levain build 12 hours before the final dough:
18g starter + 62g water + 90g flour (45g whole-wheat, 45g whole rye)
Method:
Autolyse flour and water only for 60 minutes.
Sprinkle the salt over the dough, add the Levain and combine. Knead till moderate gluten formation.
Bulk Ferment for 2.5 hours giving the dough a fold at 40, 80 and 120 minutes.
Pre-shape and bench rest for 5-10 minutes.
Shape and final proof for about 2.5 hours.
Bake for 60 minutes in a preheated oven. With steam at 440F for 15 minutes then reduce to 420F for the remainder.
Allow to cool and try to resist cutting into it for 12 hours.
Levain build went well. Lovely mix of 50:50 whole-wheat and whole rye at 70% hydration. Should give the bread great flavour I think. Smelled really good. Autolysed the flour for 1 hour then added the salt and starter and kneaded enough for medium gluten formation. I have just started the bulk ferment.
I'll agree with you it is high hydration, it is sticky. However it does have structure! Handled accordingly and it should behave. I don't believe that it'll attain great heights with so much wholegrain and high hydration but it shouldn't produce a pancake either. Wracking my brains how I'm going to do this sans banneton and I might have to resort to using the lekue afterall, so it will be supported. But this gives me an idea of what you're dealing with and I do think with the correct flour your bake will go better next time.
Here is the dough after the 1st stretch and fold. If you wet your hands it won't stick much. Letter box folds one way then the other. Grab one side of the dough, gently stretch (don't go beyond its resistance) and fold 3/4 over then with the other side fold over the 1st. Now repeat with the other two ends. Gluten formation and structure is developing nicely.
The pre-shape
Took the liberty of adding sesame seeds. Now I have to wait till its atleast cooled but recommended time is at least 12 hours! This did smell very good baking. Can I wait?
Lovely bake! The use of "miche" doesn't apply (and makes me smile) as this is a size description. Sort of like the words "Extra, Extra Large." Gotta be a much bigger loaf. Way bigger! More like "it took over my oven" bigger. There are special flavours that come out in a very large loaf that are hard to duplicate in a small one. The waiting time most likely refers to a 3 kilo plus loaf. Yes, a great test of the flour.
Now that I've burst your bubble, so to speak, how did the bread taste?
That's the size my mini oven can take Mini. Yes, the Miches I've seen are atleast twice the size. I did scale down the recipe for one 900g ish loaf. The taste was very nice but having starter issues. My starter has lost its tang. Been an issue for a while now and I'm now in need of help to restore it's former glory. Otherwise the mix of flours was very nice and the sesame seeds helped too.
Sounds like a lost colony of bacteria... you abuser, you! What do you think caused it? (start a new post?)
Practically bacterial genocide.
My mother culture was 70% bread flour, 20% whole wheat and 10% whole rye @ 80% hydration. Allowed to bubble up by half and refrigerated. Levain builds weren't calculated as much. Take some off and build to requirements usually with a single feed. Not really taking into account how much mother culture to the feed as long as it was 1:1:1 or higher.
Now I'm following this http://brodandtaylor.com/make-sourdough-more-or-less-sour-part-2/
I've converted my mother culture as described and have now done a Levain build. Just an experiment for now to see the results. If an improvement I'll use this method as a template for future breads.
Started this thread as a tangent to what I'm doing http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/49316/terminology
Just got me thinking about terminology while I was doing all this.