HeiHei29er's blog

Inspiration for this loaf came this fall while canning up some of the many cucumbers we grew this year.  Garlic dill pickles are something I really enjoy and felt that combination had potential as a bread as well.  Happy to say that it turned out quite well.  A friend tried it this morning as buttered toast for breakfast and then again as avocado toast for lunch.  He's tried many of my breads and said he thought that this was one of my best.  I'll run with that for now...  :-)

For this bake, I wanted to do something to really bring out and blend the dill and garlic flavors.  To do that, I added both of them to the whole wheat mash.  The mash helped to both increase the sugar content in the whole wheat as well as fully hydrate and soften the bran.  It also helped bring out the dill and garlic flavors and give them time to meld.  In my mind, it's similar to how a soup just seems to taste better the next day after the flavors have had a chance to combine.

For the last 5-6 months, I've been trying both Wheat Montana and KAF flours for my All Purpose and Bread.  To me, the Wheat Montana feels finer and has more flavor (the flour itself is noticeably more yellowish), but the KAF is stronger and forms better gluten.  Over time, I've started blending them 50:50 on many of my bakes and that's the case with this loaf.

Levain
67.5g   Bread Flour (WM/KAF)
67.5g   Water
13.5g   White Flour SD Starter

1)    Combine all ingredients and ferment at 68 deg F for 12-14 hours

Mash
45g    Whole Wheat Flour (freshly ground - Janie's Mill (Blend of Glenn, Red Fife, Turkey Red, and Warthog)
90g    Water
9g      Whole Dill Seed
13.5g Garlic Cloves, minced

1)    Preheat mash equipment to 150 deg F (I use Crockpot with water bath and an Inkbird controller)
2)   Combine flour, dill seed, and minced garlic in a bowl.
3)   Preheat water to 165 deg F.  Add the water to the ingredients from Step 2 and stir.  Immediately cover and place in Crockpot water bath.
4)   Cook the mash for 3-8 hours.  I went for about 6 hours overnight.
5)   Heat the mash to 180 deg F to denature the amylase.  (This step took about 90 minutes for me.  After 1 hour I checked and the mash temp was at 180 deg F.  I held that for another 30 minutes)
6)   Remove from water bath and cool to room temperature.

Final Dough
247.5g   All Purpose Flour (WM/KAF)
90g        Bread Flour (WM/KAF)
247.5g   Water
67.5g     Blueberry Yeast Water
9g          Himalayan Pink Salt

1)    Combine all Final Dough ingredients but salt with the levain.  It will be stiff but workable
2)    Fermentolyse for 15 minutes
3)    Add mash and salt in small amounts and fold into the dough.  After all the mash is folded in, pinch and squeeze dough until the mash is mixed in and the dough is uniform.
4)   Perform 4 sets of bowl kneading with 10 minute rests to form good gluten.
5)   Perform bowl stretch and fold every 45 minutes until dough starts to feel puffy.  Let dough rise 80-100%.
6)   Pre-shape and shape.
7)   Pre-heat oven to 465 deg F for 1 hour.  Immediately steam the dough after loading into the oven.  Bake at 465 deg F for 1 minute and then lower temp to 400 deg F for 19 minutes.  Vent oven and remove steam sources.  Increase oven temp to 440 Deg Fand bake for 20-25 minutes more until you have a hollow thump. 

I originally tried this bread with the 90% biga version.  I struggled with lumpy dough like others did and couldn't get them all out.  Even with the lumps, my sister-in-law really liked the bread, and she asked for it again this week.

I decided to give it another go but approach it a little less extreme.  The flours and hydration are the same as the original, but I reduced the biga to 50% of the flour and increased the biga hydration from 47% to 55%.  In addition, this time instead of adding final dough water and starting to mix right away, I added the final dough water to the biga and let it soak for a 5-10 minutes to hydrate the flour a little more.  Then, I gently worked it to start loosening it up.  The Final Dough flour was added a bit at a time and worked into the loosened biga.

This method worked MUCH better.  No clumps and a nice smooth dough formed after a few rounds of bowl kneading with 10 minute rests.  My next attempt at this will be to keep the PFF at 50% but work the biga hydration back down towards 50%.  My understanding is that there's a unique aroma and fermentation that occurs when the biga is sub 50%.  But...  that was from reading other threads and I may have misinterpreted the statement.  Anyone with experience using low hydration bigas and if it's a noticeable difference from the 55% hydration version I used with this bread?  

My sister-in-law hadn't arrived before I left for my work trip, so this loaf hasn't been sliced yet either.  Will get some crumb shots when I get back home.

Biga after mixing

After Final Dough mix

After 4 sets of bowl kneading

Let's get the obvious out of the way...  My first attempt at decorative scoring is, well, let's say rudimentary at best.  Still a lot to learn on that!  :-)

Just before Labor Day weekend, I had a bunch of windshield time and was thinking about random stuff.  Thought I remembered reading somewhere that the Gold Rush cooks would keep a ball of their starter in a bag of flour and break it out when they needed to bake.  Then, refresh it and put it back in the flour bag.  I tend to like the traditional and historic side of things, especially this hobby, so I decided to give it a whirl.

I have a blend of wheat varieties from Janie's Mill that I've been grinding as my whole wheat: Glenn, Red Fife, Turkey Red, and Warthog.  Before we left for a 3-day camping weekend, I mixed up 40g of flour (50% WW blend and 50% Bread flour) at 45% hydration and formed a dough ball.  That went into a jar, was covered with bread flour, and put in my proofing box at 76 deg F.  3 days later I came home and found a nice mound in the top of the flour and the dough ball had definitely grown.  It also had a hard shell with an active starter center.  I did multiple refreshes.  A few at 24 hours.  Then a few at 12 hours.  Since then, I have been refreshing it at 1: 0.9: 2 with about an 8 hour ferment.  After 8 hours, it goes into the fridge.  This is my first bake with it.

I've also been done a few bakes recently with a 2-stage build on the levain.  The first is at 100% hydration to promote yeast and the second down at 60% to promote acetic LABs.  This is based on comments from one of the recipes on The Rye Baker website.

This bread is a country loaf with 15% whole wheat at 68% hydration and 15% PFF.  The whole wheat uses the blend of grains mentioned above.  My first build was 11g of stiff starter, 20g of water, and 18g of bread flour (haven't done the math on the hydration but should be close to 100%).  This was fermented for 6.5 hours at 76 deg F.  It was more than doubled, but hadn't fully peaked yet.  A young levain...  The second build was all of the first build combined with 20g of water and 49.5g of bread flour.  This fermented for 10.5 hours at 70 deg F.  The levain was fully matured and maybe just starting to show signs of deflating.  Wish I would have grabbed photos at both stages...

The resulting loaf had great spring and was maybe the thinnest, crispiest crust I've ever achieved.  This isn't full of cracks like others have attained, but it's the first one I've ever had.  My baking setup, times, and temps were standard for me so no changes there.

The loaf hasn't been sliced yet and I had to travel for a day.  It smelled great though!  Will try to post a crumb shot when I get back home and slice it.

I've only made this a couple times.  It's a Finnish bread and a favorite in the local bakeries.  It makes great French Toast!  Traditionally, it's a 3-strand braid, but this is my second attempt making it with a 5-strand.

Makes two braids...

Levain
114g    AP Flour
74g     Water
0.5g    Active Dry Yeast
1)  Dissolve yeast in water.  Combine all ingredients and ferment at 70 deg F for 12-14 hours.

Final Dough
646g    AP Flour
281g   Scalded Whole Milk
7.6g    Salt
4.8g    Active Dry Yeast
134g   Sugar
3 large eggs (beaten)
75g     Butter (softened to room temp)
5.5g    Cardamom (2 tsp)

1)  Combine flour, salt, sugar, and cardamom in a bowl.  Whisk them to mix.
2)  Scald milk and cool to less than 100 deg F.  Dissolve yeast in milk.
3)  Add eggs and milk to the dry ingredients and mix until flours are wetted.  Rest 10 minutes.
4)  Slowly add the butter while mixing.  Continue mixing until the dough comes back together.  Rest 10 minutes.
5)  Four sets of bowl kneading to develop gluten with 10 minutes rests between sets.  Knead for 2-3 minutes on first set.
6)  Place in oiled bowl and let double.
7)  Divide dough in half and then split each half into the number of strands you want to braid.
8)  Shape each piece of dough into a ball and let rest for 15-20 minutes.
9)  Roll out each dough to approximately 16" in length using a rolling pin.  Flour each side of the dough to avoid sticking to counter top.
10) Tightly roll the dough lengthwise into a long tube and pinch the seam shut.  Let the strand rest on the counter (seam side down) for 5-10 minutes to relax gluten.
11)  Braid dough loosely and tuck the ends under the loaf.
12)  Cover the dough and let rise till doubled. 
13)  Preheat oven to 350 Deg F while dough is rising.  Apply a light egg wash to dough and bake for 25-35 minutes until top is browned and internal temp is 190-195 deg F.
14)  Remove from oven and fully cool before slicing.

Follow me on Instagram at sweetandsourdoughdad.

I love Autumn in the UP...  Not only the colors that start popping on the maples, but Autumn means the tomatoes and peppers are ready to harvest!

Jalapenos

Fresno Chilis

Lots of good peppers this year, so the perfect opportunity to make a garden pepper and sharp cheddar sourdough.  This loaf uses a Country Blonde as a base bread with 10% peppers and 20% cheddar as add-ins.  The pre-fermented flour was 15% (includes flour in SD starter).  I was in the process of doing a starter refresh, so the levain was made with a 1:1:1 refresh. I usually don't include the starter flour in the PFF calculations, but I did in this case because it is such a high percentage of the levain.

Levain
40g   Bread Flour
40g   Water
40g   Sourdough Starter (100% bread flour)

1)   Combine all ingredients and ferment at 70 deg F for 8-9 hours.  Don't use levain until it has peaked and started to recede a bit.  Mine peaked in about 6 hours. 

Final Dough
210g   AP Flour
80g    Bread Flour
16g    Whole Wheat Flour
16g    Semolina Rimacinata
8g      Whole Rye Flour
8g      Barley Flour
60g    Blueberry Yeast Water
148g  Water
8g      Pink Salt
40g    Diced Garden Peppers (Jalapeno, Fresno Chili, and Garden Salsa)
80g    Sharp Cheddar (Crystal Farms) (Block cheese shredded - NOT pre shredded)

1)   Combine Final Dough flours, BBYW, and water and autolyse for 20 minutes.
2)   Add levain to autolyse dough and mix with dimpling/pinching/squeezing.  Rest for 10 minutes
3)   Add peppers, cheese, and salt with dimpling/pinching/squeezing.  Rest for 10 minutes
4)   One set of bowl kneading (24-28 folds).  Assure add ins are well distributed during these folds. Rest for 10 minutes
5)   Two sets of bowl kneading (10-12 folds).  10 minute rest between sets.
6)   Bulk ferment at 76 deg F with bowl S&F every 45 minutes until dough is starting to get "puffy"
7)   Pre-shape when dough volume has increased 75-80%.  Dough should have some jiggle to it. (3.5 hours)
8)   Final proof at 76 deg F (2 hours).
9) Preheat oven to 465 deg F with Fibrament stone.  Presteam oven with roughly 1/4-1/3 cup boiling water 2-3 minutes before loading dough.  Add 2/3-3/4 cup boiling water immediately after loading dough.
10)  Bake 465 deg F (1 minute), 400 deg F (19 minutes); vent oven; 425 deg F (10-15 minutes).  Remove when you have hollow thump.

Crust turned out really nice on this one and the aroma from the fresh peppers really came through!  The cheese that was near the surface caramelized nicely and gave the loaf a mottled look.  Ironically, the jalapenos have almost no heat to them but the Fresno Chilis and Garden Salsas have a pretty good bite.  Not sure how spicy this one will be, but it smells really good!  First slice will be toasted with some butter.

Follow me on Instagram at sweetandsourdoughdad.

It was a busy weekend and a busy weekend of baking!  Catching up on a few posts...

Have been trying a few recipes and techniques of other TFL'ers in my last couple bakes, and this weekend I tried trailrunner's holy trinity of equal parts honey, EVOO, and yogurt in place of some of the water.  I chose to try it on one of the whole grain recipes I've been wanting to bake again:  60 rye:40 spelt with toasted pumpkin seeds and flaxseed.

The recipe is well outlined there, so I won't repeat it here.  There were a few changes though...

- For Levain #1, I replaced the RYW with bottled water and 30g of 100% hydration whole rye starter. 
- For the Final Dough, I reduced the water by 60g and added in 20g each of honey, extra virgin olive oil, and plain greek yogurt
- Fermentation on both levains was done at 76 deg F instead of 82 deg F.

This bread turned out really nice.  Different than the original recipe but very good!  The most notable changes...
- it lost the chocolate over tones, but instead has a more earthy (almost spicy) rye flavor
- the crumb is most definitely more tender...  almost on the verge of being crumbly. (I might have over baked it)
- of the four times I've baked it, this is the first time the crust formed the large natural cracks, which I think gives it a little visual character (I'm curious what may have caused this and hoping some of the experienced rye bakers can shed some light.)

Definitely a keeper.  Thanks for the suggestion Caroline!

I've been on a bit of a whole grain kick lately, and after a brief back and forth with Dave, I decided to give his 97th Bake a try.  Let the fun begin!

I converted his recipe to my standard 450g flour, and other than a few deviations, I followed his method as outlined in his post.  My only deviations...  I didn't have hard white wheat, so I substituted with hard red.  I didn't have whole coriander or time to toast the spices, so I used 2.5g ground coriander, 3.5g fennel seed, and 3.5g caraway seed.  I didn't have time to grind the flaxseed or chia seed, and based on Dave's observations about the bread drying out, I made a soaker with the flax/chia seeds using 150% boiling water.  Finally, I skipped the chia seeds in the topcoat.

While weighing out the ingredients, I thought the bread spice mix would be overpowering, but it doesn't appear so on the baked bread.  The fennel is definitely noticeable, but it doesn't seem over the top.  Looking forward to the taste test tomorrow!

At mixing, I made a rookie mistake #1...  I followed Dave's hydration verbatim and didn't contemplate the differences in our flours.  I used a blend of Glenn, Red Fife, Turkey Red, and Warthog from Janie's Mill.  It was great after the saltolyse, but the additional hydration with both leavening sources plus the soaker put it over the top.  The dough was extemely slack and sticky.  Rookie mistake #2...  I was stubborn and thought I could work the hydration into the dough.  A couple of tablespoons of flour would have gone a long way...  During folds, the dough would start to firm up and lose its stickiness but would go slack and get sticky by the next fold.  If I hadn't ground the grain myself, I would have bet good money that this was an 80% rye bread instead of 20%.  Next time...  I'll start at 73-75% hydration and bassinage in extra hydration as needed.

Shaping was "interesting"...  I did my best to handle it with a little extra flour.  Couldn't get any strength into it with folds.  Finally had to get a little tension into it by using my bench scraper and shaping a boule for about 10-12 quarter turns.  It was just enough to wet the surface and roll the dough through the seeds for the top coat.  Flopped the dough into the Pullman and crossed my fingers.

The dough was so slack, I didn't trust the poke test.  So, I let it go in final proof until I had a good rise and always watching for pin holes in the surface.  After 3.25 hours, it to was within an inch of the lip and hadn't formed a pin hole.  I didn't want to push it any further and moved to baking.

The bread has a nice aroma and formed a crisp (but not thick) crust.  Even though I didn't get a pin hole, I think it overproofed and I'll have caverns under the top crust.  That said, it smells really good and can't wait till breakfast! 

Wanted to try making a mostly lean but soft sandwich loaf for my wife to try.  Did a slight variation on my semolina bread hearth loaf.  Subbed a little more AP in and added 5% WW.  Also increased the EVOO just a bit.  

Sliced about a third of the loaf after 3 hours of cooling and was really happy with it.  Wonderful aroma and very soft.  Will see how it ages over the next few days.

Benny's milk bread and trying to make hamburger buns are two bakes that have been on my list for quite a while.  I've also been wanting to do another round of my Honey Ginger and Jasmine Rice bread.  This weekend I tackled all three at once and used this bake as the basis, but I went with Active Dry Yeast (ADY) instead of sourdough.

Makes twelve buns big enough to easily handle a 1/2 pound hamburger patty (as a size estimate)...

Biga
130g   Bread Flour
84.5g  Water
0.3g    ADY
Combine until all flour wetted and ferment at 70 deg F for 12-14 hours

Porridge
65g    Jasmine Rice
32.5g Honey
13g    Fresh Ginger Root (minced)
97.5g Water
97.5g Whole Milk
Combine water and rice.  Simmer in covered pot until water absorbed.  Add honey, ginger, and milk.  Continue simmering in covered pot stirring regularly until milk absorbed.  Rice needs to be soft.  If still firm, add another 13g whole milk.  Keep doing small milk additions until rice is soft.  Let sit in covered pot until fully cooled.

Final Dough
357.5g    All Purpose Flour
130g       Bread Flour
32.5g      Semolina Rimacinata (Janie's Mill Sifted Durum)
195g       Whole Milk
13g         Sea Salt
6.2g        ADY
84.5g      Butter (Room Temp (soft))
84.5g      Egg (beaten)

1)    Make biga and porridge the night before the bake
2)    Combine milk and ADY.  Let sit for 10 minutes.
3)    Combine milk/ADY, flours, salt, egg, and biga,  Use pinching and squeezing to fully combine ingredients.  Rest for 10 minutes.
4)    Smash cooled porridge with fork, potato masher, or other means to assure there are no full grains of rice (want to minimize large pieces of whole grain in the soft buns).  Combine dough and porridge using pinching and squeezing.  Rest 5-10 minutes.  Add butter in small amounts using pinching and squeezing to fully mix.  Rest 10 minutes when all butter added. Will need to adjust hydration at this point depending on how much moisture was retained in the porridge.
5)    4 sets of bowl kneading to develop gluten.  Dough will be pretty shaggy for first set and will start to develop on the second set.
6)    Bulk ferment until dough doubles (75-76 deg F)
7)    Divide dough into twelve 120g portions.  Degas and preshape into loose rounds.  Rest 5-10 minutes.  Shape into tight rounds using bench scraper and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
8)    Cover dough and let rise at room temp (73-74 deg F) for 1 hour
9)    Preheat oven at 350 deg F.  After final proof, apply egg wash to buns and bake at 350 deg F on center oven rack for 30 minutes (until golden brown).
10)  Fully cool before slicing....  If you can wait that long.  :-)

These turned out GREAT!  Nice and soft with a wonderful blend of jasmine rice and ginger aroma.  I'd still like a bit more ginger in it, but I think that's a bit of a personal preference.  

Today's bake is another using my sour raisin yeast water as the predominant leavening.  I also added in a bit of starter at the final mix because the RYW poolish seemed a little sluggish.  This was also an overnight cold retard during bulk.  I've made this once before at 30% whole grain, so I bumped it up to 40% for today.  I think I could go up to 50% and get similar results, but not using the cold retard (or I would have to go into cold retard sooner).  The dough looked good after the cold retard and during shaping, but it was starting to lose steam and dough strength by the end of final proof.  The dough looked like it wanted to really spread, so I scored it cross loaf instead of lengthwise.  I've found the straps from the cross loaf help keep the loaf from spreading too much when it's on the edge of being over-proofed.

Raisin Yeast Water Poolish
90g    Bread Flour
108g  Raisin Yeast Water 
Let yeast water warm up to room temperature and become active before using (if stored in the refrigerator)

Final Dough
67.5g    All Purpose Flour
112.5g  Bread Flour
90g       Fresh milled Black Emmer
90g       Fresh milled Einkorn
58.5g    Raisin Yeast Water
126g     Water
9g         Sea Salt
18g       White Sourdough Starter

1)   Combine Emmer, Einkorn, and Final Dough Water about 45 minutes before Final Mix.  Let autolyse on the counter in covered bowl.
2)   Combine poolish, white flours, starter, and remaining raisin yeast water and mix until flour is just wetted.  Let rest on counter in covered bowl for 15 minutes.
3)    Add autolysed whole grain dough to the final dough and mix by pinching until well mixed.  Mix by pinching only and do not do any stretching or folding if you can avoid it to minimize gluten development.  Similar to Forkish's Pincher Method but without the folding.
4)   One set of bowl kneading with 24-32 folds (I did 28 with this loaf).  Slowly add the salt during the first 4-6 folds.  Let rest for 10 minutes.
5)   Two more sets of bowl kneading (12-16 folds) with 10 minute rest between sets.
6)   Place dough in oiled bowl and bulk ferment at 78 deg F.  Bowl stretch and folds every 30-45 minutes.
7)   Do a final bowl stretch and fold and move to cold retard when the dough is starting to get puffy and has increased roughly 25-30% in volume.
8)   Remove dough from refrigerator and let warm on the counter.  Fold the dough after 30 minutes to help equal out the temperature.
9)   Shape after 1 hour and proof at 78 deg F
10)  Preheat the oven at 465 deg F.  Steam oven when the dough is loaded.  Bake at 465 deg F for 1 minute, 400 deg F for 19 minutes.  Vent the oven and increase temperature to 425 deg F.  Bake for 10-20 minutes longer until you have a hollow thump.

Mixing the doughs before adding salt

Dough after third round of bowl kneading

After cold retard - Dough still has a decent dome which tells me gluten strength and fermentation gases are still holding up

Baked Loaf

Will slice it tomorrow.  Smells great!