Spelt, Rye and Red Fife Sourdough No. 3

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Benito on 28 Mar 2020 at 07:21

I’m still trying to hit the sweet spot on this recipe from Maurizio’s The Perfect Loaf.  I’ve posted the recipe that I followed two blog posts earlier.  

I didn’t extend the bulk fermentation this time as I believed that my starter was more active now than for the first bake which I felt was underproofed.  After final shaping I did leave the dough in the banneton on the counter for 30 mins before placing it in my 3ºC refrigerator for its cold retard overnight.

Slap and folds were employed after mixing, and again I did three sets of coil folds and one lamination to build structure.  Finally I’m continuing not to use any flour for pre-shaping or shaping instead using water which does seem to be working.  I think when I tried water only for shaping months ago and had a really bad experience with it, I probably used too much water.  Now I wet my hands and spread water on the countertop lightly and this seems to work.

I won’t be cutting this bread until later on as it has just come out of the oven.

The oven spring seems quite good but I’m hoping that I hit the fermentation so that the crust is good, we’ll see later on.

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Here are the photos of the crumb.  I’m quite happy with this, I think it is an improvement on my first two bakes, the crumb isn’t as dense, could it be more open, probably but I happy with it as it is.  The flavour of this still somehow is a bit sweet and I love it, best 50% whole grain bread I’ve made.

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Danni3ll3 on 28 Mar 2020 at 17:10

And I agree! I wouldn’t have guessed that there was that much whole wheat in those. 

You are very meticulous, especially with the preshape and the shaping. I think I might need to step up my preshape. ? Right now, I just round things off with a scraper and make a loose ball. 

Anyhow, the reason I posted was the video on your slaps and folds. Are you making a quarter turn each time you pick up the dough? It didn’t look like it in the video. 

From what I can see of your bread, you do not need to change anything Danni.

I’m inconsistent with the slap and folds sometimes I do the quarter turn and sometimes I don’t.  I saw Richard Bertinet in a video and he told someone then not to do the quarter turn, at that point I stopped doing it.  But since then I’ve seen multiple videos of bakers doing the quarter turn, so now I’m all over the place and inconsistent.

I wonder if I’m actually not doing myself any favors when doing the preshape, perhaps I’m being too meticulous and I could be losing some of the trapped gases.

Benny

Great improvement over last bake.  Crumb looks excellent and crust as well.

You can also use cooking spray instead of water instead of flour.  I only use flour if it's a ciabatta or I'm making rolls with a very high hydration dough.  I use a bench scraper to help shape high hydration loaves.

Regards,

Ian

Thank you Ian, I am happy with this bake.  It is true that baking the same recipe at least a few times helps you learn more about the process.

I don’t know what I would do without a bench scraper.

Benny

It's impressive how far you have got in just 3 bakes. The crumb and spring you achieved are awesome for 50% whole grain bread.

Thank you Elsie, I was very happy with bake No. 3, but in fact all three tasted great.  I might try this a fourth time since we are enjoying eating it and maybe increase the hydration to 82% and see what happens.  I also might add a bit of diastatic malt powder as well.

Benny