This Community Bake will feature Jeffry Hamelman's Five-Grain Levain. The formula and instructions are taken from his very popular book, "Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes". Many bakers consider this bread a favorite of theirs and I am in that group. The portion of whole grain along with the seeds makes this bread stand out among the best. The book can be Seen HERE.
For those not familiar with our Community Bakes see THIS LINK. The idea of a Community Bake is for those interested in baking and learning to bake with us and post the results. This way we can all learn together. This is not a bread baking competition, everyone wins!
I chose to post the bake today in order to give everyone time to gather the ingredients since there are 4 grains and/or seed add ins. It is not necessary to go out of your way to get the specified seeds or grains. I substitute all of the time and the bread is always great. Hopefully the bake will get into full swing by next weekend, but feel free to start right away.
I've included an additional image of the spreadsheet for those that want to bake a smaller batch. The formula is for 1000 grams, but you could easily divide each ingredient by 2 in order to make a 500 gram loaf.
Here are the instructions from Hamelman's book. If you don't already own the book, I suggest you give it some consideration.
Five-Grain Levain
by Jeffrey Hamelman
Resource --- Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes Pages 182 - 183
1. Liquid Levain --- Make the final build 12 to 16 hours before the final mix and let stand in a covered container at about 70°F. Mix Levain and Soaker at the same time.
2. Soaker --- Pour the boiling water over the grain blend and salt, mix thoroughly, and cover with plastic to prevent evaporation. Make the soaker at the same time as the final build of the levain and let stand at room temperature. If grains that don't require a hot soaker are used (such as rye chops in lieu of the cracked rye listed here), a cold soaker will absorb less water, and therefore it's likely that slightly less water will be needed in the final dough.
3. Mixing --- Add all ingredients to the mixing bowl. In a spiral mixer, mix on first speed for 3 minutes, adjusting the hydration as necessary. Mix on second speed for 3 to 3 1/2 minutes. The dough should have a moderate gluten development. Desire dough temperature 76°F.
4. Bulk Fermentation --- 1 to 1 1/2 hours (if yeast (.008%) is used). Otherwise see Step 7 for clarification.
5. Folding --- the bulk fermentation should be 2 hours with 1 fold
6. Dividing and Shaping --- Divide the dough into 1.5 pound pieces; shape round or oblong. Large loaves of several pounds are also a beautiful sight. And good rolls can be made from this dough. NOTE – I like to make 3 pound boules and place them into the Dutch Ovens and then refrigerate. After they are shaped I place the ball upside down on a water soaked towel and then put the wet side on a towel that is floured and filled with pumpkin seeds. This gives the bread an excellent flavor and also makes it more attractive.
7. Final Fermentation --- The dough can be retarded for several hours or overnight, in which case the bulk fermentation should be 2 hours with 1 fold and the yeast should be left out of the mix.
8. Baking --- With normal steam, 460°F for 40 to 45 minutes. There is a great deal of water retention in this bread, so be sure to bake it thoroughly.
Danny
Determining the right hydration is really something I need to work on, and hopefully, it will come with time and practice...I added 5g of water to the dough, but a bit without knowing what I was doing, to be honest! Furthermore, I added the water maybe a bit late in the kneading process, so the dough took its sweet time to absorb the extra water...So I ended up with a very reluctant dough, not wanting to be kneaded and not wanting to absorb the extra water; it's as if the water was running around the dough (not sure how I can explain that...)
It took so much time and patience for the water to be absorbed that I decided to not add any more water at that stage of the kneading process.
Again, I need more practice! Unfortunately, I can only bake on weekends, which is really frustrating!
Thank you for your help, Troy :-)
Gaëlle
The original formula calls for 25% pre-fermented flour in the levain and an additional 0.8% of commercial yeast. So your use of raisin yeast water (only) is way deficient in yeast activity relative to what Hamelman intended and others here have used. Your tight crumb is likely the result. This is ~34% whole grain by weight so you need some strong gluten to hold it together (strong flour and maybe even some mixing with water to develop the gluten before incorporting the soaker contents) and you need to fully hydrate the whole grain before incorporating it (Hamelman specifies boiling water when using grains that merit that treatment).
If you want to do it by hand, try combining the high gluten flour and the bread flour and the water (with the salt dissolved in the water), and the levain and the yeast, let it autolyse for 30 min, give it a few folds, then add the whole wheat flour and fold again and let it sit for another 20 min and give it a set of folds, (take your aliquot jar sample here) then incorporate the soaker contents and give it another set of folds. Then fold it every 20 minutes until it feels right adding extra water if you need it (judgement call here). When after successive sets of folds at 20 minute intervals the dough is strong enough that it just wants to ball up and refuses to stretch, you have done enough folds. Just let it bulk ferment until the aliquot jar has increased by 25% in volume before dividing and shaping. Then proof until the aliquot jar shows a minimum of 100% volume increase relative to the initial sample volume (you can be as gutsy as you want here). You can retard if you want to but the real reason for retarding is to get the timing of the bake to be convenient for cooling and cutting or for immediate service after cooling.
Thank you so much for your help DocDough, I'll follow your recommendations to the T the next time I try this bread!
Adding water late in the process is difficult because the gluten is waterproof by then and absorption is slow. To get it to absorb you need surface area so a little water spread over the surface of the dough and allowed to soak in can work. It may be a little easier with this dough because it has so much thirsty whole grain. I have found that sometimes the easiest way to do it is to just do the folds with wet hands, re-wetting your hands as soon as they get sticky or dry. The water will be absorbed between sets of folds.
Gaëlle, the crumb looks very acceptable to me. I agree that the dough tests one out when hand mixing and kneading, but I don't have a mixer that is gentle enough (Thermomix). I think you have done an admirable job.
Cheers,
Gavin.
Thank you Gavin!
More than two years late to this community bake, but I really love this bread, thanks for this post! I’ve tried this recipe in the following two variations and I’m quite confused about the results. The main changes in the second version are a two-step build for the levain and an additional ground flaxseed soaker.
Variant 1 turned out great, but 2 was very sour, dense and rose very slowly, even at a room temperature of ~30 deg celsius (86 F). Apparently adding soaked ground flaxseed weighs the dough down too much? First photo is the first variant.
And here are the respective crumb shots!
Another question I have is about the high hydration levain, which I observe does not rise above 50% (see photo below). I’m worried that this levain is too weak even though it worked for the first variant - I’ve previously had issues with other breads with 125% hydration leavens. I keep my starter at 80% hydration, and refresh it (at 1:1:0.8) 12 hours before the levain feed. Is there an issue with converting hydration levels? My 100% or lower hydration levain builds usually at least double.
Thanks all!
Hey Frodo!
If your levain is bubbly and jiggly after the allotted fermentation time (near the instructed temp) you should be good.
Have you followed Hamelman’s formula and instructions without deviation? If you haven’t, I suggest you do until you succeed. Then slowly tweak future bakes as you wish.
Danny
Hi Dan,
My levain had bubbles but was still rather runny instead of jiggly. I'll try again following Hamelman's formula and instructions more closely, but probably after I get the levain right. Any suggestions on how to get the levain less runny? Thanks!
Frodo, because the 125% hydration levain is runny, it will not be able to hold as much of the gas produced as your 80% hydration starter so it won’t rise nearly as high. Your second bread, you’ve replaced a good portion of the whole wheat flour which has gluten with ground flax which has no gluten, so the bread will not be able to rise as high or have as open a crumb. You’ll need to adjust your expectation when doing substitutions reducing gluten from the dough.
Hi Ben, thanks for the info about the ground flax. Any tips on helping my 125% hydration levain be able to hold more of the gas? Should I do more feeds or leave it longer?
Danny and Benny made the most important comments, I just wanted to say that the first bread in particular looks really great!
Thanks Ilya! :)
I think that the levain is weak. I mostly bake with a 125% hydration levain. My mother culture is stiff rye at 85% hydration. I convert it to the required levain in any formula over two stages. I've never had a levain that looks flat like yours. Did you miss the peak of ripeness? I can confirm that a healthy 125% hydration levain does in fact rise to at least double. I inoculate the final build of the levain with 20% of the starter and ripen it over 14 hours at 21C. I have included a picture of a ripened levain ready for the final dough mix.
Image
Cheers,
Gavin.
I agree with Gavin. My 125% levain definitely doubles and then some. So your starter is not strong enough possibly. I have found that sometimes I have to feed my starter a few times before I make the 125% levain to make sure it’s strong enough.
Hi Gavin,
Yeah, my levain is definitely weaker and much less bubbly than this. I didn't miss the peak - my levain never got past that amount of rise. I've tried two methods both at around 30C:
- One build for 12-14 hours (~1:5:6.25) - This was for the first bake, but also had only 50% rise
- Two builds for 4-5 hours each (~1:2:2.5 for each build) - For the second bake
Perhaps my inoculation levels are too high or the temperature is too high? I think I'll try with around 20% inoculation as you mentioned. What does the first levain build look like - do I wait for it to double as well?
Thanks! The picture for comparison is also really helpful.
Take a week off and focus on getting your starter under control. It seems pretty clear that it is not. I don't care how you feed it or what temperature you ferment at but it needs to return to the same condition as when you started before you feed it again. That generally means that it has lost 2% of the weight of the flour that was used for the feeding. See this blog entry for details. You have to pick a time and temperature and refresh ratio that work for you. Twice a day is OK, three times per day works too. Once a day and warm (30°C) is not going to work since you need to feed at something like 1:500:500 to keep it from starving before you feed it again and that puts you at risk of contamination from bacteria and yeast in the commercial flour. Once a day and cool can work but then temperature accuracy becomes an issue. You have to have a process that is as reliable as a stone.
Once you have your mother starter growing well, you can begin to make bread with it. This one or another formula, but when you do, you start with your mother starter and take a little of what would otherwise be thrown away at feeding time and uses it to begin your levain build. That way you know that you are starting from a mature starter and not something that is indeterminate. 1:3:3 for 12 hrs at 80°F/27°C is fine, but it still has to lose at least 2% of the ADDED flour as CO2 or it is not ready. If you lose 6% of the weight of the ADDED flour you are probably past the point where you will get good results though it will work if you plan to feed it again in a staged growth plan.
Thanks Doc, I'll focus on trying to get a better and more consistent starter. The blog entry was helpful and interesting as well.
The first stage build from my stiff rye culture is calculated to convert it from 85% to 125% hydration and just enough white bread flour to keep it happy until 5 pm the same day. I then use a small amount to innoculate the levain for the next moring. This first stage texture is light and airy; I'll take a photo this week sometime.
You may find this interesting where I solved my starter issues: Solved my starter issue | The Fresh Loaf
Cheers,
Gavin.
At the point where you refresh at 10:17:20 you are close to if not over the line with respect to building yeast at the expense of LAB. You are trying to get back at the end of your cycle to a place where the numerical density of LAB and yeast are the same as they were when you started and have a healthy ratio [something like 100:1 (LAB:yeast)]. If your post-refresh pH is too low, the pH of the resulting levain quickly gets down to 3.8 and the LAB stop replicating while the yeast continues to grow exponentially until the glucose is consumed or you use the levain and feed it some new starch. You can check the pH of your post-refreshed starter/levain and determine where you are operating (based on Gänzle's original paper a good point to shoot for is pH>5.5). However, whole rye is tends to be a good buffer and may help you get above pH5.5 with a smaller feeding. When feeding a starter I like to be up around 3:13:16 if the weather is warm, with a little more seed when it is cooler but always at least 1:3:3 (for white flour).
Your observation that a refrigerated starter will last ~3 weeks without a refresh agrees with my data as well. But if I let it go that long I always do two sequential feedings before I refrigerate or use it to make a levain.
Thanks once again Gavin. The blog post was helpful, I'll give it a shot.
Thanks Gavin! I followed your method with the 85% hydration rye starter and got two better bakes. The 125% hydration levain didn't rise by 100% but was significantly more bubbly and the dough rose in the times indicated in the recipe. Also thanks to all who helped me. :)
Beautifully baked, well done.
Benny
I'm happy to help. The levain is a big improvement. The crumb looks great.
Cheers,
Gavin
I’ve used the 12 hour levain then a two hour RT rise with one fold and then I shape and into the fridge overnight and bake. No issues with sour. I’ve only used that method and it never fails. Such a great bread. I haven’t changed the soaker ingredients except to decrease the flax seeds.
Baking this bread sure feels like a right of passage around here. Really did appreciate this community bake.
My major deviation from the recipe was using a lamination to mix in the soaker. The dough was stiff and highly elastic and had to work at gently coaxing it from each side in order to get it to spread out, this was one of the more difficult and ultimately clumsy laminations that I've attempted. The soaker was spread on top, and it was rolled up like a swiss roll (pic is with aliquot jar).
The dough continued to be both stiff and tight and at the same time it mostly kept the moisture inside whilst leaking seeds out the sides! Plus, there was some tearing (as can even be seen at the top of the swiss roll pic), and it was also the first time that I've pulled the banneton from the fridge after the cold retard and found that the base 'opened' up - I didn't 'stitch' the dough after it was placed into the banneton, but I should have with this unusual dough. It didn't seem to do too much damage other than a few of the center slices of the bread had a 'defective' gummy cavity at their base.
Certainly I'll follow Jeffrey's instructions more carefully the next time I make this bread and mix the soaker in upfront, think the lamination wasn't 100% succesful here.
And, also mistakenly made up a 100% hydration levain - I did a multi-step levain build with a 1:10:10 overnight build, followed by a 1:0.5:0.5 refresher the next morning before using in the bake, and must have been tired when I prepared the overnight levain and forgot to make a 125% hydration levain. At the time of mixing I compensated by using 14g more water and 13g less flour from the quantities given.
Pre-shaping was done at a 40% volume increase, and after final shaping the banneton was returned to the proofer until the aliquot showed a 60% volume increase before it went into fridge for the cold retard.
What an interesting and lovely bread, and you folks are right about it making fabulous toast. Next time I'll be sure to toast the flaxseeds and sunflower too; won't attempt a chopped pumpkin seed topping as it is seedy enough already and finally think that grinding the soaker's flaxseeds might also be something to try. The chopped rye used was from pre-sprouted and subsequently dehydrated rye, chopped in my coffee mixer/spice grinder.
(The colour wasn't this golden - some of it is from the morning light outdoors)
Edit: this was the no yeast version, forgot to mention!
I suggest following Jeff’s method and formula very closely. After the bread has been successfully baked you will have confidence to tweak it based on prior experience.
Mix the soaker in with the other ingredients. I also tried laminating the soaker, but after many tries I like his method best.
BTW - most bakers report that they like the no-yeast version better.
I once made the mistake of overlooking the step for inclusion of the soaker during the final mix and the dough was way too dry to handle properly. "won't make that mistake again..."
Nonetheless, your loaf looks quite nice.
Well done Jon, I too first tried making this bread by adding the soaker in during a lamination, I never did that again. Your bread looks great despite the added difficulty of adding the soaker in lamination. As with everyone who has made this bread, good to see you like the flavour.
Benny
Hi Danny, I just found this post, I know this is an old post, but I hope I can still reach you. I am new to sourdough and making bread. I couldn't find the initial post on this topic for the link to download the spreadsheet and accompanying files that you mentioned to Carole.
would you either email me the link or post it here, please?
Austin,
PM me with your email address and I send it to you. It is an Excel file