trailrunner's blog

It’s been a while since I posted my successes with flaking grain. I got new oat groats from Breadtopia and wanted to do a very short tutorial. I have an older Marga Marcato hand crank with aluminum rollers. The steel rollers are not available and the price of this one has gone up. There are other flakers available and the Mock Mill folks have an electric one. 

Prepping of the grain is essential. I will link at the end the blog where I learned how to be successful. Two cups of grain and 3 tsp water shaken well to distribute the moisture and then left covered for 12-24 hrs. This ensures extremely flat even flakes with little to no effort. The flakes can then be toasted and then cooked to porridge or be added as flakes to any breads. All the grains I have tried have been successful with this method. I’ve done Emmer, Spelt, Oats, Wheat of several kinds Barley. They all work using this method. If you try a few grains at 12 hrs and they need more time just wait the full 24. Do not add more water , this really is plenty.

http://www.foodprepper.com/tag/oat-groats

Fermentation is everything.Photo is of dough right out of fridge after 48 hrs. Amazing movement still after that length of time. Formula has 40g of levain in 400g of flour. TDW 700g. Fed old rye starter from cold storage 2 feedings of T80. Let ferment 24 hrs. Stirred up usual formula with 1 hr fermentolyse and 3 folds in 90 min. Bulk ferment went over but will be a habit from now on! They just get better and better. Amazing crumb and crisp crust with beautiful crumb color due to the bit of rye and wow the flavor. Dough handles so beautifully. Can’t get over this flour. L’Epicerie has been amazing to work with. Give them 5 ⭐️
Glistening crumb

So pleased!!! 36 hr cold fermentation and boy did the dough respond. Flavor is terrific as well. Really enjoying this flour… good thing since I have 22 kg! 

Had to wait for the flour which was in a shipping container on its way from France. Worth the wait! Gorgeous flour with flecks of brown . Same formula as before. Absolutely lovely to work with and great flavor and crumb. These are 20% Semola . 

White Bean Marcella soup beans from Rancho Gordo, worth the price they are incredibly tasty with baggie

Making SD YW T65/Semola pizza crusts in my Detroit pans. Prep with sauce and parmigiana and then par bake and freeze. Better than Costco 😂😬. The little one on my 40 yr old steel pan ( can’t get it anywhere anymore) will be gone almost immediately after coming out of the oven fully topped. Let me know if you want the best crust formula. 1700 g of yum

And it’s only Tuesday  

par baked goodness ready for freezer when cool

A variation of previous bakes. More pleased than ever with shaping and scoring…thank you TFL . This iteration has home milled 300 g spelt, 300 g Yecora Rojo and 400 g AP Arrowhead Mills flour. 40 g  rye storage starter used to make 280 g YW  and home milled rye levain at 100% hydration. I do not feed my stored starter prior to bakes and my stored YW hasn’t been fed in weeks. Both present with rapid growth so I have let them be. 

This is based originally on a Buttermilk Rye that David Snyder posted. He got it from a baker on the net. I’ve changed a number of things but want to give credit for the idea . 

This is another mostly hands off formula. The incredible outcome belies the easy process. This once again proves time and fermentation are your friends . 

2150g dough 2 boules 450 /20 min covered graniteware 

   400/30 min uncovered 

levain: 110g freshly ground rye sourced Breadtopia

            110g active  YW 

               60g stored Rye SD starter mixed all and left for 4 hrs was tripled. Left on counter til morning. 

Dough:

400g fresh milled  Spelt- Breadtopia

300g fresh milled Sonora - Barton Springs

300g Arrowhead Mills bread flour (+ 50 g extra if dough doesn’t form perfect non sticky ball in KA mixer) 

280g levain mixed into 740g buttermilk, 22 g salt ,60g EVOO and 60 g date syrup can substitute honey but crust/ crumb color will be lighter

mix on 1 till thoroughly wet. Let rest 1 hr. Mix on 2 four minutes. Should clean bowl completely dust in extra 50g +/-  to make this happen. Shape in ball into oiled large bucket. 30 min then one s&f. 30 min another s&f. Let rise til 30%. Shape and into  floured banneton rise approx 4 hrs in fridge. Can continue retard overnight or bake . I usually retard overnight but the dough was huge so I decided to try something new to me. Beautiful flavor crust and fine crumb much like the Pullman crumb. So much flavor. 

Crumb pics . 😊

Haven’t baked this in awhile. It’s so easy that it’s almost unfair because it looks like work. Mix everything til moist in KA mixer. Rest 1 hr. Mix on speed 2 for 9 minutes. Butter your 13” Pullman REALLY WELL…. for flavor as well as crust/ color and easy removal. Let dough rise 50% up pan sides. Place in fridge. Next day resist urge to peak inside as it will pull the dough which should be very close or touching lid. Preheat oven 375. Bake covered 30 min and uncovered 20 min. That’s it. The bulk is done in the pan . Dan was the first to popularize this method. 

335g AP 

335 WW ( milled Rouge de Bordeaux and Turkey Red) 

70g Semola Rimacinata 

28g Rye ( milled Danko Rye)

400-460 g H2O- watch your dough and adjust as needed

( I used 100g YW as part of my water. ) 

42 g each honey, EVOO, Buttermilk = 126g trinity

13g salt 

126 g active YW levain 

Don suggested I try scoring with 3 slashes. Hm… I was in a huge hurry trying to shape preheat oven and get to Yoga then race back home to slash and bake. Not bad but certainly can be better and I have a better idea of how to proceed. 

This is the best flavor and crust/crumb so far so I think 40% is the sweet spot. Everything handled the same. I’m going to lower temps to preheat 475 and then 450 after the 13 min  covered bake. Otherwise the cold shaping etc and YW levain are great. 

A great dough to work with. Followed Alan’s spreadsheet numbers. I used AP fed YW levain did a double feed to be sure I got an open crumb. 3 folds - I do lamination with letter fold and then roll it up from the short side form a ball and back in container. Did this about every 45 min then left it till quite puffy. Retarded overnight and it filled a 2 qt bucket. Very light and airy. Patted out quite firmly while cold and shaped and let rise 90 min. Beautiful gold from the flour. Very very fragrant crisp crust with a soft but chewy crumb. Very happy with this one. Thank you thank you for all the suggestions and support! 🙏