Community Bake - Hamelman's Five-Grain Levain

This was a fun experience: stiff, sticky dough, very strange.

Same old demon of not enough rise, but taste is great -- as Kat says, makes great toast. Will put together a blog post over the next couple of hours.

BTW, congratulations to everyone on the wonderful loaves being posted here. Too many coming in too fast to comment inviduually

Edit: write-up is here

but it turns out that my last one was almost the same thing - Very strange - I winder if Lucy had designed a Premonition app for this bake:-)  So here is mine

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/58982/sprouted-12-whole-grain-seeded-sourdough

I had not tried this loaf before, so my attempts as a relative novice were tentative.  I used a premix of sunflower, pumpkin, sesame and flax seeds, and followed the formula with reasonable attention to detail.  However, some points of departure were: I was confused when it came to shaping: perhaps implied by folding, I could see no mention made by JH of degassing before shaping.  I was wary of causing trauma owing to the seed mix, and, coupled with a rather sticky texture, tentatively shaped to batard on north/south axis on a floured board, then again after a ten minute rest but on east/west axis (I hope this makes sense!) with slightly more tension, before proofing in a banneton.

The end result was a slightly bulging proofed dough peeping over the top of the basket perhaps lacking in surface tension as the sides went a bit limp when on the baking stone; so it failed to deliver what I would have preferred by way of oven spring.  I did anticipate this by popping the loaf in the fridge for the final ten minutes of proofing/final fermentation, but to no obvious positive effect.

Final observations for next time:  I used yeast to avoid retarding overnight owing to time constraints, and I will now attempt the no yeast/retard route; I probably let it bake five minutes too long, being over-mindful of JH’s counsel that “[t]here is a great deal of water retention in this bread, so be sure to bake it thoroughly”; and a “maybe” swapping some, if not all, the water out for a dose of AYW or similar.

Lessons learnt, and a definite “keeper” as the taste was sensational.

Joe

Hi Bakers,

I have to say, I am so impressed--blown away, really--by the dedication, inventiveness, commitment--and results!--from all I've seen and read here on this very interesting thread. Thanks and thanks again for all your inspiration~

~Jeffrey Hamelman

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I had to do a lot of searching to find some rye berries to crack for this recipe! Most of my local stores have cut back on their bulk selections but I eventually found some in my county at least! So this was following the original formula: oats, rye,sunflower, and flax in the soaker. I used CM’s ABC+ for the white flour and sifted, freshly ground Red Fife whole wheat. Bran and excess rye went into the levain along with white flour.

 I made this as a one-day bread due to time constraints, no retarding at any stage. Machine mixed (Ankarsrum) and 4 stretch and folds during bulk ferment.

 I should have baked a bit longer but it’s just barely not gummy. The flavor is terrific, rich and complex, and a very moist crumb. The crust is thin, crisp, and glossy.

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“Bread” doily in honor of Mr. Hamelman.

The loaves didn’t rise quite as high as I hoped, but I think that’s because I let the bulk ferment go too long, pretty close to doubled in volume. And I’m quite happy with the crumb. I’ll make another run at this recipe next week.

Tom

Recommended accompanying beverage: A nice Belgian-style Amber Ale from North Coast Brewery in Fort Bragg, CA

Bon appetite!

David

I can’t keep up, but want to I have learnt a lot from you all, wonderful stuff.

thank you every one of you for taking part! 

Look forward to any further bakes and posts - high light of my day.

Leslie

Just found a small stash of the stuff. Could I use that in place of cracked rye on he next bake?

Yes, I agree that the bulgur works just fine in place of the cracked rye, was just wondering about pearl barley, since I've never done anything with it but stick it in the oven with vegetables…

Merci beaucoup!

Keep on baking,

Carole

Don't worry--I had a carrot and a Persian cucumber first.

For once, I slavishly followed the recipe - unusual for me! Even the 125% levain, a big change from my normal 56% - soup as Gérard Rubaud would have called it; I wonder if that was potage or consommé?

I went for the yeasted version as I was concerned that the retarded levain-only version might overproof in my fridge. The dough was a bit strange to work with, as someone has already commented: firm but sticky. Incidentally, I reckon what I would call the true hydration, including adjuncts and seeds, is 73.2%.

The bake went OK, but I am currently cursed by lack of ears in many of my loaves (I am currently trying to work out why) and the crumb was tighter than I would have liked. Nevertheless, a great flavour and a good excercise - thank you, Dan - and Jeffrey!

By the way, the coating on the loaf is chia seeds.

Lance

I have been retarding the bulk fermentation to avoid exactly  overproofing the final shaped loaf. Very nice results Lance.

When I make a multi-grain loaf, I have found that I prefer to not soak the oily seeds since they don't really need hydration as much as the grains do, and I use cracked wheat and steel cut oats instead of cracked rye and use rolled rye in place of rolled oats to get the rye flavor.  The oat bran provides water holding capacity.  The seeds get incorporated along with the soaker contents but without any additional liquid.  I think there is a good argument in favor of crushing the flax seed by running it through a roller mill like you are making rolled oats, adjusting the roller gap appropriately. I have tried ground flax seed but in the process lost the texture of the flax all together. The millet needs to be soaked as there is not enough oil in it to call it an oily seed and it stays dry and crunchy if you don't soak it.  The soaker and oil seed quantities below are scaled for a 1170g batch of dough and I tend to go with no yeast and 5% pre-fermented flour.  The openness of the crumb is better if you use less (no) whole wheat flour and go to 80% high gluten white with up to 20% of T85 to enhance the flavor and darken the crumb while providing enough strength to get a relatively open crumb.  The sunflower seeds can be toasted in a hot air popcorn popper but the flax is too fine for that and needs ~15 min on a jelly roll pan in a 350°F oven with a minimum of convection.  Of course if you are going to crank up the oven to toast the flax, you might as well toast the sunflower seeds at the same time.

Dough:

40 g        starter

220 g      water

384g       soaker

100g       seeds

314 g      high gluten white

100g       T85

15 g        salt

 Soaker (384g net):

 6T (74g)          millet

4T (38g)          steel cut oats

4T (34g)          oat bran

4T (22g)          rolled rye

3T (26g)          cracked wheat

190 g               water

Seeds:

30 g                 toasted golden flax seed

70 g                 roasted sunflower seeds

 Sorry I can't participate in this bake as it would be both fun and tasty.

Doc