I tried a couple of Maurizio's recipes with Kamut (baguettes and ciabatta), and while I had other issues with those breads, I loved the nutty/buttery taste of that grain!
I had some Kamut flour left from those bakes, and recently saw Benito posted his amazing looking 20% and 30% Kamut breads. So I decided to also just go for it! I used his 30% recipe, with some simplifications of the procedure (e.g. no lamination and shorter autolyse). Here is the compositions of the bread (I made two loaves): https://fgbc.dk/qeo
The dough was nice to work with, a little sticky but completely manageable. I shaped one as a batard (below) and one as a boule, that I gave away to a friend (I always bake two breads, and give one to someone). And these were one of my most successful "regular" (i.e. normal shape/process) breads in the last couple of months!
I accidentally switched on the broiler for the steamless part of this bake, and I actually loved the colour it brought out in the crust!
And of course it's delicious! For a 30% whole grain flour it's surprisingly light in colour, as usual for Kamut, and the golden hue of the crumb is just so beautiful. Definitely going to come back to this bake!
- Ilya Flyamer's Blog
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What wonderful loaves you baked, you must be so pleased. It always surprises me when someone bakes something based on one of my bakes that I post, it is an honor and you’ve done the formula justice with the great oven spring and crumb you achieved. I really enjoy Kamut too and was so happy to finally find some, it wasn’t easy to come by in Toronto here for some reason. The scoring you did is very attractive by the way.
Happy Baking
Benny
Thank you, I am indeed really pleased with this bake! I love reading your posts, you always produce amazing bread.
Still planning to try one of your miso breads - I had this idea myself, and then a few days later I saw you made one!
I actually need to work on the scoring a bit, here the wheat decoration got a little deformed by the opening ear on one side, it was placed too close. But I do like the contrast of the scores against the white background of rice flour!
I have a miso loaf to bake today, the oven is pre-heating as I type this. I’m not sure how well this one will turn out. I was putting together the saltolyse for this pretty late Thursday night and mistakingly put the total water amount (which I record from bake to bake so I know the hydration) into the saltolyse which isn’t the right amount. I record total water which includes the levain’s water amount. As I was mixing it I thought, gee this seems wetter than normal. Being tired and such I just keep going. The next morning after adding the levain and trying to slap and fold I realized for sure that the dough was way to hydrated. I tried to save it by sprinkling in some red fife gradually and mixing further. Hopefully this worked and the bread won’t have bits of raw flour or clumps of hard dough.
That should teach me not to mix late at night.
Probably my prettiest loaves ever so far.
Wow really beautiful bloom you got on both loaves and wonderful scoring you did, very successful. I love the yellow colour of the crumb coming through. Awesome baking!!
Thank you for the formula, consistently produces great loaves! I am very happy with the results both times (and it's the first time I bake exactly the same bread twice in a row - my girlfriend wanted me to repeat it!).
I’m so happy you and your girlfriend are enjoying that bread, it is very photogenic. Love to see the crumb too. You’re doing the formula proud.
Just took a crumb shot actually!
She just came after having some bread and said we don't need to cook dinner tonight :)
Wonderful crumb, her compliment is the best one of all.
Interesting that the crumb looks quite a bit less open than yours, by the way, I wonder if it's just different flour, or fermentation or handling of the dough...
In your post you say you felt the dough was wetter than you expected for 78% hydration, but I actually had an opposite feeling! I don't have that much experience, but I wouldn't have guessed it was above 75% if I didn't know. So maybe my flour is more thirsty.
Our flours are most certainly different. When I last baked this it was still quite humid in Toronto, that would make the flour less able to absorb as much water. If the humidity where you live is very low then yes your flour could be thirstier.
In terms of crumb openness, it is a result of so many factors, dough handling and fermentation probably most affect it and then also hydration to a lesser extent.
Of course, it's a multi-faceted issue! Being in Edinburgh, it's also pretty humid, but the flours could be just inherently different. And probably other factors contributed too.
Oh, I just noticed you posted a video of how you are shaping your loaf - I think I shape much tighter! And I guess you "pre-shape" is just coil folds during bulk? I do a relatively tight preshape into a boule first, so that's another factor. Could be that.
Very nice videos, by the way!
Thanks Ilya for subscribing to my YouTube channel. My last coil fold is my pre-shape. I used to pre-shape but found that extra step tightened my crumb more than it needed to be. Also, sometimes I stitch the loaf when it is in the banneton, now I only do that if the shaping didn’t seem to create enough tension as I’ve found the stitching can also tighten the crumb if it isn’t really necessary.
Yeah, I always stitch batards, actually.
I always make two loaves, so I don't think coil folds can work as preshaping, but I can probably do it less tightly (or just do a coil fold on individual loaves after dividing the dough!), especially with not very highly hydrated doughs where risk of flattening when taking out of the banneton is very low.
Yes the preshape doesn’t need to be tight, just a loose boule so you’re not degassing it too much.