Weekend Projects: Sourdough Bread, Sightseeing, and Meals Recap

Sunday, March 12, 2017

The multigrain bread and muesli morning rounds clone has been delayed again. I was planning on baking at least the multigrain bread but on Friday morning, I took my sourdough starter out to feed. I stuck it back in the fridge on Friday night because I didn't believe I started refreshing the starter early enough to have a healthy starter ready for baking during the weekend. I took it back out on Saturday morning and fed it again because I really wanted to make sourdough bread. 

The Tartine method calls for building a levain 12 hours before starting the dough.  It was Saturday morning and according to the timelines I read about, I should have mixed the levain before going to bed on Friday and since my starter has been in the fridge since Sunday, I really should have taken the starter out of the fridge and fed it twice a day for several days before mixing the levain. 

I watched videos and read articles about sourdough. Maybe it wasn't too late for sourdough using a different method even if it was too late for Tartine. I noticed that my starter is extremely vigorous, bubbling up and doubling in volume in just a few hours. Maybe my starter didn't need 12 hours for the levain. 

The Tartine method says 12 hours and to do a float test. I read several posts on perfectloaf.com. The author makes beautiful bread and has baked many loaves using the Tartine method. His best sourdough recipe post looks like it's based on the Tartine method. His recipe mentions the 12 hour build time but also a 5-6 hour time frame for levain built in the morning and kept in warmer 78-80 degree temperature. 

I decided to forge ahead. I was pretty confident my starter would make a floating levain in a few hours but for extra insurance, I placed the container of levain in the garage where it was warmer. It was one of our first warm days this month but the house was still relatively cool but not cold enough for the heater to kick on.  

I'm glad a decided to go ahead and not wait until next weekend. There were moments when this recipe tested my patience and I thought I screwed up a step by rushing ahead but in the end, the bread turned out a lot better than I expected.  When I went to bed on Saturday night, I was sure I rushed the bulk fermentation and I knew for sure I botched the shaping and rounding. I was really nervous.  

I only have one french oven with a metal knob. I replaced the plastic knob with a metal knob during my no knead bread days. I didn't want to burn the plastic knob so I bought a metal knob at the Le Creuset store in Silverthorne. I think the 5.5 quart round is the most versatile size. It's the one I leave inside the house and gets the most use. The oval is a smaller size. I also have a larger round and a larger oval that I seldomly use. I almost used a bare cast iron rectangular dutch oven that came with my Camp Chef but at 13", it was too large to fit next to the French oven.

After 20 minutes at 500 degrees, I took off the lid and baked about 25 minutes longer at 450 degrees.

I put the dough on a pizza peel and did my slashing but when I slid it off the peel, it landed off-centered and on its side in the pot. Instead of ruining it more by trying to re-center it, I let it be. I just added more slashed on the top.

I checked for doneness by tapping the bottom of the loaves for the hollow sound. They were done so I stopped the baking at 25 minutes. I actually prefer a lighter color crust. I would have baked longer and compromised with a darker crust if they were not done. With these high hydration breads baked in enclosed pots, the texture and crumb ends up really wet and gummy if underdone or cut before completely cooling.

The crumb could be better but considering the fact that I screwed up a few of the steps, the crumb ain't half bad.

Here's my starter late on Sunday evening. It was last fed on Saturday morning, allowed to get all bubbly on the counter before it went in the fridge. This starter is even better than my 2 previous starters from a few years ago.  I started one on Friday, February 24 by attempting to grind up some whole wheat berries. The berries were too hard for the food processor so I used all purpose flour, a few spoonfuls of wheat berries/wheat berry dust, and filtered water. When I went to feed it again, late on Sunday, it was already bubbly and started smelling like starter.  It look less than two days.  We've been baking a lot of bread lately. In the old house, it took almost an entire week. On Sunday morning, before my discovery, I thought I might have better luck with a starter made with the water from soaking raisins. I made a second starter with the raisin water, all purpose flour, and more of the wheat berries. Both starters were equally active and ended up looking very similar so almost two weeks after starting both, I combined the two starters on Friday morning, kept about two spoonfuls in the jar, and dumped everything into the compost pail.

Sourdough Bread 

Adapted from Recipes and Techniques Adapted from Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson

INGREDIENTS

For the Levain:

1 tablespoon active sourdough starter

75 grams all purpose flour (approximately 1/2 cup )

75 grams bottled water (approximately 1/3 cup)

For the Dough:

800 grams King Arthur bread flour

75 grams Wheat Montana whole wheat flour

725-750 grams water - heated to 90 degrees

18 grams salt (I used flaked Kosher salt from Penzey's only because it was the first container I grabbed)

150 grams levain (I was aiming for 150 grams but I had just a tad more.)

I've made sourdough starter before and already had one going so I proceeded to the steps for building a levain using an active starter. Refer to the recipe for Tartine's Country Bread found on the NYT website for instructions for a sourdough starter using Chad Robertson's method. 

The amounts for the levain makes just over 150 grams of starter. The Tartine recipe makes just over 400 grams of levain.  Some people build their levain, measure out what they need, and put away the remaining as their starter. The only problem with this method is forgetting and using the entire amount for the dough. I like to treat my starter as I treat my container of instant yeast.  

I basically followed the method for Tartine Bread except for a few changes based on comments from The Fresh Loaf discussion boards, a post on the Kitchn, various YouTube videos, and the many sourdough posts on the Perfect Loaf. 

A few of the changes:

- Shortened levain build time due to increased temperature versus cooler overnight temps.

- Reversed the autolyse step and increased the time by starting the autolyse by mixing the flours with 700 grams water before the levain was ready. The levain was almost ready but not quite and it looked like it had about an hour left to go.

- The flours and water was autolysed for 1 hour before the levain was mixed it. The mixture was then allowed to sit another 30 minutes before salt and 25 grams of reserved water was mixed in. At this point I still had approximately 25 grams of water left. The dough looked really wet so I didn't add the rest of the water.

- I followed the bulk fermentation schedule outlined by Perfect loaf - a total of 6 sets of folds with 3 spaced 15 minutes apart and another 3 spaced 30 minutes apart. 

- The dough was then divided, bench rested for 30 minutes for shaped, placed in baskets that were lined with clean towels and sprinkled generously with rice flour.  I didn't mix rice flour with wheat flour and used straight rice flour. More rice flour was sprinkled on the top of the dough, covered with plastic wrap, left on the counter for another half hour or so and then they went into the refrigerator for 15 hours

- It took a good 1.5 hours before the dough came to room temperature and it didn't appear to have adequately proofed even though I allowed them to proof in the warm garage. I let it proof a little longer (about 3.5 hours) before I baked them at 500 degrees inside dutch oven for 20 minutes and another 25 minutes at 450 degrees with the lids removed.

I think I'll test other variations and maybe one day I'll make the recipe as written. Overall, this is a great recipe/method for making this style of high hydration dutch oven sourdough.

The sourdough took a lot of time and required a lot of attention but I didn't spend the entire weekend on it. I did manage to take a road trip out to Anza Borrego Desert to see the Super Bloom I've been hearing so much about. We couldn't find the Super Bloom and apparently we were not the only ones. We had several people come up to us, asking if we knew where the flowers were at. Everyone was looking for the magnificent display of flowers. 

If you look closely, you can see a few yellow and purple flowers. We even climbed up to the top of  scenic overlook and scanned the landscape and still couldn't find the flowers.

There were flowers but I was expecting to see a carpet of flowers on the desert floor like I've seen in pictures.

This one is kind of pretty.

A lone flower on the desert floor.

This is kind of pretty.

I'm like, "What the hell? Where are the flowers? It's hot out here and I didn't grab a hair tie from my purse!"

And here are a few more lunches and snacks I prepped for work.

The piece of toast was breakfast.  Eggs are usually for mid-morning.  I prepped this for two days because I spent Sunday night peeling and removing the pith from the pomelo.

I was a little out of it on Wednesday morning. I really needed probiotics and did not have any kefir or yogurt made. (Because I've been baking bread and making soap.) I threw a few things into a bag and ran to Sprouts to by some Lifeway kefir while I waited for my kefir to refresh.

My kefir didn't take very long to refresh because I did two milk changes a day instead of my usual 1x per day schedule. I made a quick berry kefir smoothie and chugged it before I left the house. I wanted hummus so I made some when I got home one night. I'll have to post a recipe. This time, I pureed the chickpeas immediately after cooking and did not remove the skins.

I packed my usual snacking lunch but I ended up with a California Roll from Costco. They were giving out samples and I think it was the crispy onions that got me. I only ate half.

A few dinners we had this week:

Wahoo fish with a simple soy, garlic, and ginger marinade. I tried a different recipe but forgot to add the sesame oil.

Instant Pot Turkey chilli made with tomatoes and peppers we grew in the garden last season and froze.