Hamelman's Whole Wheat Levain

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dmsnyder on 3 Feb 2008 at 18:03

I made the Whole Wheat Levain from Hamelman's "Bread" this weekend. It turned out just okay. The taste and texture are fine, but, although there was pretty good oven spring, there was disappointing bloom.

 I score the loaves as I would a mostly white flour batard but didn't get the result I expected. I'm wondering if one needs to score a whole wheat loaf deeper. I haven't found any advice in this regard in any of my bread books. However, looking at the photos in Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads," it does appear he is scoring those loaves deeper than he does a white flour loaf.

 Hamelman's Whole Wheat Levain

Hamelman's Whole Wheat Levain

Whole Wheat Levain - Crumb

Whole Wheat Levain - Crumb

Any advice regarding scoring whole wheat levain batards would certainly be appreciated.

David.

Toast

weavershouse on 3 Feb 2008 at 18:37

I don't know if whole wheat should be scored deeper but I do know a nice looking bread when I see it. The crumb looks moist and delicious.                                                                                                                           weavershouse
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dmsnyder on 3 Feb 2008 at 20:07

Hi, Weavershouse.  Thanks for the kind words.  If the eating is the real test, this was a good bread. It was moist and made an excellent tuna sandwich for lunch today as day old bread.  I wouldn't have minded if the loaves had had more visual pizazz, though.
David

Just a wild guess here...but could it be that the oven was too hot? I've found that Hamelman's suggestions for baking temp are usually too hot for my oven, resulting in crusts that set too quickly, so there isn't enough time for the slashes to open up to their full potential.  Whenever I follow his instructions, I get the same whitish scorched type of crust as it looks like from your picture, unless that is extra flour.

The crumb looks fantastic, so I'd say at least that makes up for most of the lack in visual pizazz :-))))

L_M

Whole grain is a different animal, a bit harder to get as much oven spring.  You need to proof a little earlier than you did and you'll see the cuts bloom open.  Your bread looks moist enough, but lack of moisture is another cause of whole wheat breads not blooking.