Hamelman’s Five-Grain Levain - Take 2

I loved the taste of this bread so decided to make it the way it was originally written by Hamelman as much as possible (except for the addition of yogurt) since I am doing this by hand and he used a mixer. I also used some vital wheat gluten to replace his high gluten flour which I am guessing is around 15% protein. To do this, I found the niftiest online calculator. 

http://flourmath.bradfordrobertson.com

Hamelman calls for wholewheat flour and I used sifted freshly milled Red Fife flour. The bran was used in feeding my starter to get it up to speed before making the final levain.

Makes 3 loaves

Liquid Levain build 

272 g Bread flour 

343 g Water 

55 g Starter (liquid)  

Soaker

100 g Rye berries

100 g Flaxseeds 

85 g Sunflower seeds 

85 g Oat groats

484 g Water, boiling 

6 g Salt 

Dough

533 g Unbleached flour 

15 g Vital Wheat Gluten

274 g Sifted freshly milled Red Fife flour  

303 g Water 

30 g yogurt 

21 g Salt 

All of the Soaker 

650 g Levain 

A couple of days before

1. Soaker prep: Crack the rye berries and the oat groats by putting through a very coarse setting on the Komo mill. I turned the dot right to the back to get the texture I wanted. Reserve. Grind the flax seeds coarsely in a Bullet or spice grinder. Add to the rye and the oats. Toasts the sunflower seeds and add to the rye, oats and flax. Add the 6 g of salt. Cover and reserve.
2. Main dough and levain prep: Mill 320 g of Red Fife berries and sift to obtain ~278 g of sifted flour and ~36 g of bran. Use 274 g of the sifted flour for the main dough and reserve the bran and the remaining few grams of sifted flour to revive or feed the starter prior to making the final levain. 
3. Main dough prep: To the 274 g of sifted flour, add the unbleached flour, the vital wheat gluten, and the salt. Cover and reserve.

The night before making the dough

1. Levain: Twelve to sixteen hours before the the final mixing of the dough, put all of the ingredients together for the levain and keep covered at room temperature (73 F).
2. Soaker: Add the boiling water to the soaker ingredients and cover. Leave to cool overnight at room temperature.

Final mix and bake

1. Put the water and the yogurt for the dough in a bowl and add the soaker. Mix well to loosen the mass. Measure 650 g of the levain, add to water and soaker, and mix again. Add this mixture to the reserved flour mix. Mix well to integrate all ingredients and do several series of folds to begin developing the gluten.
2. Place the dough in a warm spot (oven with the lights on and the door cracked open) and do 2 sets of folds a half hour apart. Do another set 45 minutes later. Let rise 50%. My dough rose more like 60-70% by the time I got to it. This took 3 hours at about 82 F. 
3. Divide the dough into 3 loaves of ~900 g and pre-shape gently on a lightly floured counter. Let rest 15-30 minutes. Do a final shape by cinching and pulling the dough to make a fairly tight boule, but without deflating the dough. Place seam side down in rice/ap floured bannetons and cover. Put to bed in the fridge for the night.
4. The next morning, pre-heat the oven and the Dutch ovens to 475F. Place parchment rounds in the bottom of the pots and place the dough in seam side up. Score if desired. Cover and bake for 25 minutes at 450F. Remove lids and bake for another 25 minutes at 425F or until the inside temperature is 205 F or or more.

They came out of the oven looking very nice!