I haven't baked a white loaf since my disastrous encounter with Leckford Estate bread flour, so I thought it was time to excise some demons and have another try - with a different flour!
Having had success with a bulk retard in my last bake A Trio of High Extraction Loaves I decided to use the same technique again.
The only thing I wasn't totally happy with last time was the scoring and ears on the loaves baked uncovered, so I thought I might as well give the "double retard" a try on one of the loaves; I've always had good loaf appearance after a retarded final proof.
Flour mix
3% Aldi whole grain rye passed through a fine kitchen sieve
20% Walk Mill stoneground BF
38.5% Marriages strong BF
38.5% Waitrose strong Canadian BF
Levain
22.5% young levain at 56% hydration, 30% of flour is Rubaud wholegrain mix
Other
True hydration 72%
Salt 1.8%
Process
Levain made in a 2 1/2 stage build at e5, e11, m8. The half build is a small top up one in the morning 1:0.21
At m11, autolyse all flours in all water for 20mins. in mixer
Add levain, mix in, stand 15min
Add salt, mix in
Mix on high speed 1mins 55secs
Turn out of the mixer into proofing bowl, dough temp 25C (I was looking for 27C)
Bulk ferment at 28C for 2hrs with in bowl S&F at 45mins and 120mins
Transfer to fridge for retarded bulk
Out of fridge next day (14 elapsed hours)
Rest 50mins at 24C
Preshape to 3 rounds, BR 25mins
Shape to 2 650g boules, 1 680g bat
Boules FP in woodpulp brotforms for 1hr 15min at 24C
Boules baked with steam for 12mins, 13mins without.
Bat FP for 15mins at ambient, then into fridge for rest of FP (8hrs 30mins)
Bat baked same as boules
Thoughts
Nice loaves with good flavour and very open crumb. The double retarded bat was much easier to score than the boules, as you would expect with chilled dough.
It baked with a good ear and nice blisters.
The flavour of the single and double retarded loaves was similar
The double retard makes for a long process cycle, but seems to give the best of both worlds - a good flavour from the retarded bulk and good appearance from the retarded FP.
It's been abnormally hot in Deepest Lancashire (as with most of the UK) these past couple of months. So much so that my normal 900g batardes are going stale before we finish them. The obvious solution was to make something a bit smaller, so I split my usual dough quantity, based on 1kg flour, into three loaves, each around 670g unbaked weight.
I'm also currently exploring retarded bulk fermentation, so I incorporated that into this bake.
Flour mix
5% Aldi whole grain rye passed through a fine kitchen sieve
32% Marriages white wholewheat sieved the same
32% Mockmilled Priors wholewheat grain through a #40 sieve
31% Waitrose strong Canadian BF
Levain
22.5% young levain at 56% hydration, 30% of flour is Rubaud wholegrain mix
Other
True hydration 75%
Salt 1.8%
Process
Levain made in a 2 1/2 stage build at e5, e11, m8. The half build is a small top up one in the morning 1:0.21
At m11, autolyse whole grain flours in all water for 15mins. in mixer
Add BF, mix in, stand 10mins
Add levain, mix in, stand 10mins
Add salt, mix in
Mix on high speed 2mins 15secs
Turn out of the mixer into a bowl, dough temp 27C
Bulk ferment at ambient (about 24C) for 1 1/2 hrs with in bowl S&F at 45mins and 90mins
Transfer to fridge for retarded bulk
Out of fridge next day (22 elapsed hours)
Rest 1hr at ambient
Preshape to 3 rounds, BR 20mins
Shape to 2 boules, 1 bat
FP in woodpulp brotforms for 1hr 25min
Boules baked with steam for 10mins, bat baked afterwards with a metal cover over the loaf on the bakestone
Thoughts
I was pretty pleased with these loaves - they had a great flavour, good loft, open enough crumb for me and kept well.
I definitely think that the retarded bulk gives a good, complex flavour to the loaves - as soon as you turn the dough piece out of the retarding bowl onto the dough board you can smell some good interesting aromas.
