This is a follow-up of the recently concluded rye experiments, where it was established that:
1) A straight starter loaf gave a softer texture compared to a levain loaf (PFF 40%, all rye), fermentation time (16 hours) and dough components held constant, but
2) A straight starter loaf had less oven spring and was harder to shape than the levain loaf, though the straight starter loaf had an airier, less tight crumb.
3) The difference in taste was not that discernible.
I wanted to confirm if the above held true, but this time with a 30% wholewheat loaf, 70% hydration, and lengthening the fermentation time to 19 hours - would the straight starter loaf hold up?
The straight starter loaf used 7g of starter for 240g of flour. BF and final proof 19 hours at DT 19 degrees.
The levain loaf had 30% wholewheat and 15% bread flour in the levain. Levain took 13 hours to mature, BF and final proof 6 hours at DT 19 degrees.
I also added a third loaf that used an overripe levain to see if that would increase the sourness of the loaf without compromising on dough strength, oven spring and crumb. Levain with 30% wholewheat and 15% bread flour; it peaked in 11 hours, and I left it for another two hours to collapse. The pH of this levain was 3.9 whereas that for the ripe levain loaf was 4.15. BF and final proof took the same time - dough strength was not affected.
Results:
Here you can see that the straight starter loaf had an equally good oven spring as the others. Like the previous experiment, the straight starter loaf yields an airier crumb.
Notes on taste, sourness, crust and crumb
This time I invited 3 other friends to do a blind tasting.
Straight starter loaf: Clearly softer texture. One taster said it was "mushier, drier, less bite". Flavour-wise: I thought it had a slightly more well-rounded flavour compared to the other two loaves, but not all tasters agreed on this. However, all tasters did place this loaf in the last place. (what!)
Ripe levain loaf: More bite and bounce than the straight starter loaf, but "weaker flavour" compared to the overripe levain loaf.
Overripe levain loaf: Slightly more sour than the other two loaves. Same bite as the ripe levain loaf. One taster had a strong preference for this loaf.
So it seems the difference in bite and texture is pretty significant, and with my small sample group, more of them prefer bread with more bite. They did agree that the flavour was rather similar, though all discerned more sour notes with the overripe levain loaf.
An interesting conclusion - a more elastic bite can clearly be controlled with the use of a levain, but the levain also at the same time retains complex flavours of long fermentation. Sourness can perhaps be manipulated by using an overripe levain (I do not know how far this can be pushed) without compromising on dough strength.
My next experiment would involve adding IDY to see if my results would agree with Rob's.
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Another interesting experiment! But do you not think that the addition of nuts and cranberries confuses things both in terms of crumb structure and appearance - and possibly flavour evaluation?
Lance
For the tasting I only provided slices without the nuts and cranberries to keep things less confusing - each loaf only had a meagre 10 walnuts and 10 cranberries. They definitely do mess up the crumb structure and appearance, if equally so! It remained interesting that the difference in bite and crumb was so evident to tasters who are not as bread obsessed as me.
Fair enough, Lin. Strange how normal baking wisdom would suggest that a refreshed, ripe starter would give better rise and crumb than a stored starter, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
Was your starter recently refreshed, and how is it stored?
Lance
My starter's stored in the fridge and refreshed once a week, Lance. I generally bake twice during the week from it, but up till now, I had always made a levain from a small portion of the stored starter. I tend to store it in the fridge before it is mature so that there's some leeway with additional rise in the fridge.
The starter was refreshed two days before the experiment, which might explain why the rise was similar to the levain loaves.
The crumb is not necessarily better - it was definitely much softer and less elastic than the levain loaves. But I think the elasticity has to do with the high PFF (45%) of the levain loaves, and that all of the bread flour was added to the final dough with relatively short BF + proof (5-6 hours). The difference would not be as distinct with a lower PFF, I think.
amazing, Lin!
That one of your panel described the straight starter loaf as mushier lends credence to what Abe & Tom suggested about texture's influence on taste.
I sense that you might have disagreed with your tasters somewhat in that you admired the subtle balance of flavors in the straight-starter loaf.
Rob
I think the increased density of the crumb concentrates the flavours/sourness somewhat.
I did think that the flavour of the straight-starter loaf was indeed more subtle than the edgier profiles of the levain loaves. I just wasn't prepared for the outright, blatant, unfaltering preference for the levain loaves over the straight-starter loaf!
Lin you're super quick, wasn't expecting your story about this for another week yet. Loving these experiments too, and appreciate the care and insights you give.
I got the impression from your writing that you were secretly hoping the straight starter would be the one that was preferred. Am I right? For simplicity reasons?
Chad Robertson (of Tartine fame) and his use of a young levain has been influential to me. I do want an active levain too. But, lately my tendency has been to use it younger and if necessary to give it an extra feed first to keep it 'young'. I would have expected the overripe levain here to have had a faster and more furious ferment, so did you notice if it was it any more 'active'?
And, one thing that caught my eye was the mysterious word 'bite'. So we're just talking about the texture and mouth feel of the crumb, ignoring the crust, right?
What are you looking for, is it chewiness and bounce or fluffy texture. Or is it more than that?
In South Africa our bread flour is normally about 11.5% protein, so for ages now I've just added vital wheat gluten. At first I used to use food geeks calculator tool to work out how much to add, but now I just know that say 8g in a loaf with around 800g of dough will help with the loft and generally make the dough easier to handle with a better outcome.
I've always had the intention to reduce the amount (and I do reduce it periodically), thinking (perhaps incorrectly) that I prefer a softer mouth feel and less of that chewy rubber texture that gluten brings in. But, I'm fully aware that I could be deluding myself and I do secretly and subconsciously love that bounce in my mouth that the extra gluten brings in! Never mind the bad rap that gluten has in the popular consciousness, and perhaps in our consciousness too, after all we all want to make healthy bread.
So, do try and tell us what kind of 'bite' you like in bread?
-Jon
Spot on, Jon. I was hoping that they would consider the straight loaf as a strong contender. Maybe it's because I found the softer crumb so refreshing, and the flavour profile more balanced than my usual levain loaves. Perhaps I've been eating too much of my usual bread...
The overripe levain did not seem to have a faster and more furious ferment, and I definitely used it much later than I normally would. It is quite reassuring to know that the window for using the levain is pretty wide!
Bite - yes, texture and mouth feel of the crumb, chewy/bounce vs. fluffy/soft. Before this experiment, I thought I fully belonged to the former camp. I like a good spring. But I remember biting into the straight loaf in the previous rye experiment thinking - wow, this is really nice, tender, softer, but retaining enough body. So I'm not so sure anymore. It could be a matter of the type of grain as well. If it's predominantly a white loaf, I might go for a more elastic crumb, but with rye and browner loaves, perhaps a more tender crumb is favourable.
I'm enjoying this conversation, this is the kind of thing that separates great bread from bread that is just pleasant to look at.
Darn it, I need to play with some low protein flours now after all this talk! Got a bag of cake flour that will be making some low protein bread in the next week... the funny thing is that I know it makes some pretty chewy challah as well.
Do post about it. I use my cake flour (9g protein) for steamed buns and soft bread for the kiddos! Very interesting that it produces chewy challah. Perhaps the eggs and yolks help that somewhat?
Very interesting. But it doesn't seem to me that the differences were very significant, except maybe for the texture, because of the lack of agreement between the participants. in addition, using the same bulk ferment times and temperatures might not be optimum for the different loaves. In particular I would expect that the straight loaves would take a different bulk ferment time than the levain ones.
So these experiments are a great start, and as usual there will be more to do!
TomP
You're right, Tom, texture's the main difference here. And perhaps that a levain loaf allows more control over the sourness, i.e. by adjusting the degree of fermentation of the levain before mixing into the final dough.
The bulk ferment time is actually quite different. The straight starter loaf took the whole 19 hours. The levains took 13 hours and then BF + proof of the final dough was but a short 6 hours or so.
I wonder what you'd get up to with a proofer! From previous discussions here I think a lot of us have some sort of system for keeping dough warmer, for instance I have a polystyrene box with a heat mat and controller.
At 25/26°C I'd imagine your bulk time would be easier and faster. Even after years playing, I still can't tell you for sure if faster and warmer is better than slower and cooler though, I've had so many contradictory results, but what I do like is the dependability it gives with knowing my starter will be ready for me when it should be.
Especially since you're in winter now, but honestly I use mine throughout the year.
-Jon
I have a makeshift system of rising my dough in a slightly warm oven (heat it at 150 for one minute). My resulting dough temperature is usually 20 degrees. If I want to drag out fermentation times for experimentation or just to fit the schedule I leave it on the counter, which generally gives me 18.5. And then there's the bathroom, which gives me 22......
However once I was really impatient and I left it to rise in an even warmer oven, which resulted in DT 26 degrees. This resulted in the fastest and most sour focaccia I've ever made...!!
Lin, I always enjoy reading about your experiments, they are always insightful and interesting. Please keep posting about them.
Happy holidays.
Benny
Appreciate your thoughtful responses always. Happy holidays too! We are spending the next 5 days with at least 8 adults at the table each dinner, so lots of blind tasting coming up. ;)
Lovely loaves as always Lin.
Haven't had much time to post on TFL due to time pressures from the day-job, but have been experimenting along the lines you have whenever I had a little time.
Started with trying to get a 25% wholemeal rye Deli-type loaf I was happy with and when I run out of rye flour, starter on trying to make a 100% wholemeal wheat loaf that was soft and moist and as close in texture, crumb, and crust as possible to a white wheat loaf. Here are the results of those wholemeal wheat experiments:
The first attempt used Benito's wholewheat milk bread with tangzhong recipe as a starting point. I substituted olive oil for butter and aquafaba for the egg and developed a sweet stiff preferment from my liquid SD starter. It was nice and soft but probably needed more time for both BF and proving as it was not as lofty as the loaves Benny has made and with much closer if soft crumb. I also struggled with the handling of the dough quite a bit and probably added quite a bit more flour to bring it to what I could handle.
For the second bake I decided to try for more of a sandwich loaf type bread than a milk bread. Reduced the tangzhong to 7% of the full flour and cut out the sugar from the BF dough entirely while keeping the sweet stiff starter. Also reduced the hydration slightly and left the BF and proving to go longer. Again, was nice, good flavour, soft, but again crumb closer than I was aiming for and oven spring slightly less than I was hoping for.
For the third bake I decided to go towards processes I have used before and went for a 1:2:2 100% hydration SD preferment with 20% of the total flour and a freeform loaf. The novel part was doing an overnight autolyse with salt of the remaining flour and water, minus the equivalent of 100g of cooked potato to be added to the BF at the final mix. Total hydration was 75%. Was not very attentive to the timing of the BF, going only by smell, texture, and eyeballing the rise rather than measuring. Formed into a batard and baked in DO, 20min covered 15min uncovered. Had to add some more water during the final mix, so the autolyse clearly helped increase water absorption of the wholemeal flour compared to the 75% hydration bakes I had done in the past. The loaf came out really great. Good oven spring, crunchy crisp and thin crust, good balance between softness and openness in the crumb. All of these characteristics would easily compare to similar loaves I have made with strong white flour, so considered the brief almost met. Only exception was a slightly greater sourness than I was aiming for.
The final loaf, I opted for my SD shaggy biga as a preferment for a freeform loaf. As I did not have enough wholemeal flour, decided to do the biga with 50% of the total flour, but using strong white, while doing the overnight salt autolyse with the remaining strong wholemeal flour, plus 1g of diastatic malt powder, minus the cooked potato equivalents to be added in the final mix. Overall hydration 80%. Also used my little measuring glass as an aliquot to judge the rise more accurately. Aimed to get the loaf into the oven when the sample had doubled. This time the bread was superb. Great flavour, crust, and crumb. Maybe one of the best loaves I have made. Texture, bite, and mouth feel were pretty much identical to white loaves with added flavour complexity from the wholemeal flour. I think the overnight salt autolyse and added potato really made a big difference compared to my past wholemeal wheat loaves which were always heavier, more crumbly as they matured, and with thicker less crunchy crust.
Next experiment will be to do the last bake from above, but with 100% wholemeal wheat.
Also keen to get better at Benito's wholemeal milk bread, but that will probably be a more long-term objective.
I'll post a proper catch-up post with photos etc in the blog section when I have more time.
Wishes for an enjoyable festive season and a good New Year, with many more great bakes ;-)
Thanks for the update RR and glad that you've returned to the forum. Very insightful as always! I agree that doing an overnight autolyse with the wholewheat really makes a big difference, though I tend to leave out the salt. And as you've noted, the autolyse usually means being able to increase the hydration further when mixing the final dough, which results in a more open crumb with good BF management. Plus, the SD shaggy biga method reduces sourness and gluten degradation. A lot of good thinking there.
The cooked potato is something I've yet to try - will give it a shot at some point, together with your shaggy biga method.
I'm looking forward to your photos and next biga WW loaf. Sending best wishes from Belgium to you (in Italy now?) too! Less work and more TFL next year :)
-Lin