The holiday is over. It was an awesome 3 week trip to our South Island incorporating a 7 day adventure of 4WD in back country, catching up with relations and exploring parts of the country I had never seen before.
So it is great to eat home made bread again. Today's bake was a simple loaf of 72% bread flour, 22% rye (freshly milled) and 6% whole wheat (freshly milled) at 77% hydration. Refreshed starter which had been languishing in the fridge since Mid March, built the levain on Saturday evening, mixed the dough early afternoon Sunday. I did a hour long autolyse followed by hand incorporating of levain, and salt. I did 2 sets of 10 slap and folds and 1 stretch and fold. The dough was left to almost double. It was nice to handle and far away from the stickiness and problems I had had with Country Style Champlain bakes. Preshaped just before dinner, then shaped and popped dough in banneton dusted with bran into fridge overnight. It was baked for 15 minutes at 250 deg C in DO with lid on, and fan on to keep temperature up followed by 15 minutes at 425 deg C.
It is a great everyday bread that I haven't made for a while.
Crumb shot, sitting on the sunny bench.
On my travels we visited an organic farm near Christchurch to buy wheat, rye and spelt berries and also some barley flakes. So in addition to the above bake, I made 2 small loaves comparing the 2 lots of wheat berries that I now have - one from North Island (2)and one from South Island (3). I used 25% freshly milled wheat and followed the same time lines as above. Hydration was about 70% so I wasn't pushing it.
There seems to be a bit more volume in bread (2) on left, which was North Island grain. This surprised me as I expected it to be the other way.
Crumb shots
Nothing dramatic, just every day loaves - a good bake.
Leslie
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I could easily dive into those. They look awesome and I love the ears! Well done!
I was wanting a light open crumb so kept the wholewheat to 25% in the 2 small loaves. might up it to 30% next time.
Leslie
I too was vacationing and was glad to get back to baking. Those are lovely loaves crust and crumb are perfect!! Nice that you got new to you grains to try.
is such a non event in general! and I now have a heap of grain to use. whole wheat will feature more now I suspect.
Thanks and I reckon your holiday sounded great too!
Leslie
Those are lovely Leslie. Perfect crumb. I do like the bran dusting. It sure is healthy and looks good. Does it bring any taste to the loaf? And what about sticking to the banneton? I thought a wholegrain dough is more sticky because of the bran. I can buy a big bag of wheat bran.
i sliced and froze it but had one of the small 25% wholewheat loaves for lunch. The dough was not really sticky, and the bran ended up just on the top, I had to dust the sides with rice flour. I had a very thick layer of bran and had to brush quite a bit off before baking. this was something new for me.
a question though - how long can you keep the bran before it goes rancid? it has quite a bit of fat/oil doesn’t it?
Leslie
Its the wheat germ that contains the oil/fat and can go rancid and give off flavours, straight bran is pretty stable regards Derek
something I read had me wondering.
Leslie
Wonderful looking bread. Thanks for posting.
.
Beautiful as always.
it was good to bake again
looking breads inside and out....with a lovely ear. Do you find scoring more difficult with the bran? I tried once to use bran with a bread and my scoring turned out not the greatest to say the least.... Kat
it was a challenge - maybe scissor snips would work? will try that next time..
Leslie
bread after a vacation and have them turn out so nice as these. Hearty and healthy, bold crust with an open, soft moist crumb that tastes great. Can't ask more of an everyday bread. Very nice indeed and
Happy baking
I am always happy that my starter is ok after a holiday. It hasn’t let me down yet and a month isn’t long to be left, but all was well.
happy baking
Leslie
some wonderful crumbs and crusts on display here.
getting back to baking after a holiday satisfies that itch.
alan
and thank you alan. the taste and texture is so satisfying after eating supermarket stuff for a few weeks.
happy baking Alan
Leslie