I decided to make the bread recipe that I posted. It was a thousand times easier than the Poilâne miche and absolutely delicious. I highly recommend it.
Lovely Crust
One thing to note, first clear flour (at least the King Arthur version and the Great River version) smells funny. I always end up second guessing myself and tasting it to make sure it hasn't gone rancid. Usually, the strange smell goes away when it's baked into bread. This time, it lingered a little, in the bread (although it doesn't smell bad-- just a slight odd hint), but the bread tastes incredible.
Slightly Lopsided Blunt Batard
Here's my scaled down version of the recipe. My only modification was to feed my starter with first clear flour instead of feeding it with bread flour. This meant that my dough was a little drier than the SFBI version. It was delicious and had a nice crumb anyway, but I might add a little more water next time.
1024g first clear / type 70 / high extraction flour (I used Great River organic unbleached bread flour)-- divided: 204 to feed the starter, 1000 for the bread mix
1074g water (around 75 degrees F)-- divided: 204 to feed starter, 870 for bread mix. As a note, mine was a lot drier than the one in the video. You may add more water if you want a softer dough, or you may need to hold back water, depending upon the absorbancy of your flour.
42 g whole wheat starter (or white-- whatever you have lying around)
25 g salt
Method
Day 1: *if you have 450g of young, ripe sourdough starter, you can skip this step*
Mix the starter with 204g flour and 204 g water until it is homogeneous
Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until fully mature (should smell kind of like overripe fruit and a spoonful should float in water). This should take somewhere between 8-16 hours at room temperature, depending upon how fast your starter rises and how hot your room is. Mine took about 12 hours.
Day 2:
When the starter is ready, mix the flour and the salt in a large mixing bowl.
Add the water and the starter to the dry ingredients. One of the cool things in the SFBI video was that the baker poured water into the starter to lift it up and make it easier to remove from it's container. I tried this and it worked well. I suggest it. I don't specify how much water because it is going to depend upon the size of your container.
Mix the ingredients together by hand until it forms a homogeneous mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl or tub with a plastic pastry scraper and make sure the dough has picked up all excess flour and water.
Let the mixture rest for five minutes to fully hydrate.
Using your hand as a shovel, cut gently through the bread to increase gluten strength. I'm not sure how to describe this properly. See SFBI video.
The dough will now begin the bulk fermentation. I bulk fermented my bread for 2h45 at 77 degrees F. The video calls for 1.5h at 81-82 degrees, but I think the starter is a faster-working starter than mine is. Calculate your time based on this formula: for every 17 degrees below desired temperature, double the time. Then guess based on the rapidity of your starter.
For the first 45 minutes, you will stretch-and-fold the dough once every fifteen minutes (for a total of three times). By the end of this, your dough should be able to pass the windowpane test. If not, do a fourth stretch-and-fold.
Take the dough out onto a and divide it into 2-3 loaves. Round the loaves so that you develop some surface tension (See SFBI video).
Let the dough bench rest for 30 minutes. Make sure you cover it with something so that it does not form a skin. I bench rest my dough under large overturned bowls, but other things work. If you use plastic wrap, you should probably oil it to keep from sticking. If you're in a particularly forgiving, fairly humid climate, you can probably just use a dishtowel.
Then do a final shaping. The video suggests blunt batards. Fold the dough almost in half. Stretch out the two sides and fold them across one another. Then roll the dough three times to complete the batard. Pinch any extra seams. I need some more practice with this shaping method, and my dough wasn't as pliable because it was drier, so my loaves came out a bit lopsided.
Place the dough seam-side up in proofing baskets or in a couche and cover with plastic wrap or similar for 2 h (in his case 1 hour. Basically until an indent in the dough sticks.) If you can't bake your loaves simultaneously, remember to put your extra loaves in the refrigerator for the last half an hour of proofing and during the entirity of the baking process of the other loaf or loaves. This will ensure that your bread doesn't overproof while you're waiting to bake it.
Preheat your oven half an hour before baking to 450 degrees F.
Bake for 35-40 minutes under steam (I used an iron combo cooker and an overturned broth pot on a stone to create steam for my loaves). Then cook the last 10-15 minutes until the internal temperature reads 212 degrees F and the crust is lovely and brown.
Let the bread cool for at least 30 minute before slicing, but the best flavor will develop around 1-3 hours out of the oven.
Two of my 3 loaves (the third one was in the oven baking)
I highly highly suggest this formula. You'll have to play around with the times a bit given your environment and your particular sourdough starter, but this bread is delicious.
I love whole grains. More and more I find that white bread without at least 15% whole wheat is just too bland and I savor anything above 50% whole grains, with the 70% Whole Wheat Tartine Loaf being my favorite bread that I've made. I realized recently that I have a lot of unbleached starter sitting around and I needed to use it for something. So I decided to make Peter Reinhart's Transitional Multigrain Hearth Bread from Whole Grain Breads which is one of the few multigrain breads I have seen that does not require high gluten flour.. Instead of the Biga, I used my white starter.
Here is how I modified the recipe (it is now about 71% water instead of 61%): Day 1: Soaker and Starter
Soaker
170g water
56.5g red whole wheat flour
56.5g rolled oats (I used steel cut by accident)
56.5g semolina flour (I didn't have any cornmeal around)
42.5g white whole wheat flour
7g flax seeds, whole or ground (I used toasted whole flax seeds)
7g wheat or oat bran
4 salt
Mix soaker ingredients together in a bowl for about 1 minute. It will form a dough that resembles thick porrage.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap at room temperature for 12-24 hours.
Starter
200g mature starter (unbleached flour)
100g unbleached bread flour
128g water
28g whole wheat flour
Blend ingredients together until fully hydrated.
Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.
Day 2:
Final Dough
456g starter (all of it)
400g soaker (all of it)
100g whole wheat flour
5g salt
20g sunflour seeds
20g pumpkin seeds
20g sesame seeds
You may need a little bit of extra whole wheat flour for adjustments
Two hours before making the dough
Take the starter out of the refrigerator
Toast the sunflower, pumpkin, and sesame seeds. Let them cool.
For the final dough
Mix together the starter and soaker until fully combined. Warning: this was an oddly challenging process, but it does work. I used a danish dough whisk. The dough will be very wet and sticky.
Add in the whole wheat flour a little bit at a time and mix it into the dough.
Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
Mix in the salt and the seeds. Make sure the dough fully absorbs the salt.
Using wet hands (the dough is very sticky) need the dough for two to three minutes.
Use the Peter Reinhart stretch-and-fold technique, but do two stretch and folds in a row every ten minutes for 40 minutes. This dough is very troublesome. Note that it will probably not come completely together until the second stretch and fold and it should become significantly silkier by the fourth stretch and fold. [1]
Let the dough rise between 78-82 degrees for four hours. Do a stretch-and-fold after the first, second, and third hours of the rise.
After four hours, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and fold it in half so both sides are lightly floured.
Then gently stretch it into a rectangle. Fold it up 2/3 of the way, and then fold the left side over 2/3 of the way. Fold the right side directly over the left side and pull the top down over the bottom to develop surface tension. Turn the dough seam side down and let rest under a large overturned bowl.
Let the dough bench rest for 20 minutes.
If the gluten structure seems weak, repeat this process again. If the dough spreads out with fairly even thickness, proceed to the final shaping.
Shape the dough any way you like for the final shaping. I decided to make a large batard. My shaping skills are pretty terrible, so I would suggest looking at some videos (e.g. Bread Cetera) for shaping suggestions. Place in a banneton or in a bowl or pan lined with a floured dishcloth.
Let the dough sit out at room temperature for 1 hour under plastic wrap or similar
Then, place the dough in the refrigerator for 8-16 hours.
Day 3:
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with a combo cooker or brothpot and stone.
Take the bread out of the refrigerator 20 minutes before you are ready to bake.
When you are ready to bake, turn the bread onto a floured peel and score it.
Put the oven down to 450 degrees F and bake under steam for 20-25 minutes.
Remove the lid for keeping the steam in and bake for another 20-30 minutes until the outside of the bread is a rich brown and the internal temperature reads 212 degrees F.
Wait at least 1 hour before slicing.
Crust
Crumb
The bread is great. It's very hearty and seedy and it has a lovely, rich, nutty flavor. I will most definitely make it again.
I am sending this into Yeast Spotting. I hope it doesn't look like too much of an ugly duckling among the beautiful breads.
Endnotes
I did mixing techniques by trial and error which is why I don't think my bread rose as much as it could have it did not develop quite the crumb I was hoping. I am hoping to have better luck with this technique as written.
This is my first hearth bread that actually came out as bread instead of a gummy mass [1]. I stuck pretty close to Reinhart's recipe from Whole Grain Breads, so I won't replicate the recipe here (Reinhart 153-155) [2]. If I tweak it some more, I will probably add it [3]. If you are new to bread baking (like I am or newer) and you like whole grains, this book is fabulous, not only for it's fabulous introduction on whole grains but also the incredible glossary in the back.
I thought I would use this bread to remember some lessons that I learned (and am learning) about baking. A recent comment from a wonderful friend (who is, in fact, the person who gave me Whole Grain Breads in the first place) reminded me that I am guilty of not providing adequate information to those who are self-teaching in breadmaking (which is what I did). So, I will go through my process making the bread and discuss the different techniques that I learned. I will omit a discussion of baker's percentages because I discussed them in a previous blogpost.
This bread starts out with a soaker and a biga, each at 75% hydration. Biga and soaker are both types of pre-ferment or "old dough." Pre-ferments are used to increase the flavor of the dough without having to spend a long time and lots of space increasing the flavor of dough through a slow, cool fermentation process. In this particular case, almost all of the dough goes through this long-fermentation process (only enough flour is added the next day to move the dough from 75% hydration soaker and biga to 70% hydration dough and no water is added). Biga is "the Italian name for pre-fermented dough. It is usually a stiff dough with a small amount of yeast and no salt" (Reinhart 299). By contrast, a poolish (not used int his bread) is "a French-style, sponge-type pre-feremt, usually made of equal parts water and flour and a very small amount of yeast" (Reinhart 300). Soaker is an "old dough" but a non-fermented one, "containing grain, along with water or other liquid, and sometimes salt. Soaking the grain initiates enzyme activity in advance of fermenting the dough" (Reinhart 303).
Instead of a biga (made with baker's yeast) I used wild yeast (better known as sourdough starter, sourdough culture, or levain). I keep my sourdough starter at 100% hydration, so I modified it by adding enough extra flour and water to give it the 75% hydration of the biga.
Baker's yeast is the yeast that you can buy at a grocery store. There are two kinds: instant yeast (or bread-machine yeast) is Reinhart's preferred yeast. It does not require hydration before it is mixed into the dough. The alternative is dry active yeast, my preference, which requires a small degree of hydration before use. In this case for the final dough, I added a little bit of water to my yeast so it became a paste when I put it in, and I added a in small amount of flour to compensate for the change in hydration. This dough uses a large amount of baker's yeast (2.25 teaspoons) so that it can rise rapidly. Even with the large amount of yeast, I doubled Reinhart's rising times because my house is at a lower temperature than the ideal conditions for rapidly proofing bread (which I believe, but I could be wrong, is about 80-85 degrees F for bakers yeast and about 70-75 degrees F for wild yeast [4]).
In the morning after the overnight fermentation of the old dough, you have to allow any old dough that has been in the refrigerator to warm to room temperature, and then mix the final dough. My final dough included honey, which sweetens the flavor of the whole wheat. It also softens the crust and means that the crust and brown or burn at a lower temperature. Reinheart gave the option of adding oil or butter as well and instructed that the baker roll the dough in oil later in the process. The oil/butter also compromises the hard crunchy crust, so I decided to omit it. After mixing, the dough rests so the flour can fully hydrate. Reinhart suggests five minutes. A longer period is called an autolyse, and usually allows the dough (or the dough except for salt or oil) to sit for often 30 minutes in order to allow the flour to hydrate and the dough to gain the silky texture of well-worked dough more quickly (Reinhart 299).
Kneading is the most important part of the process. At this point, you develop the gluten structure that will allow the bread to rise and gain an open crumb, that wonderful light, airy, holey texture of artisan bread, and incorporate some air into the bread. I think the air incorporation helps because it adds some air into the dough but it also means that the yeast that is raising your bread during the proofing are in aerobic respiration-- i.e. they eat faster and produce more carbon dioxide. If it lacks oxygen, it respires anaerobically, which is slower and produces ethanol which will eventually kill the yeast [5]. Bread Cetera describes the slap-and-fold technique as a way of mixing bread which incorporates air. I agree and I used it for a while on this bread, but I find that slap-and-fold tends to work best for breads over 70% and under 80% hydration. At 70% hydration dough, like this hearth bread, the momentum of slapping the bread against a surface does not seem to stretch the dough sufficiantly. Because of this, I used a combination of first slap-and-fold and then stretch-and-fold. Stretch-and-fold is Reinhart's technique of stretching the dough and folding it in half away from you, and then the same toward you, then folding the left half in a third of the way, and then the right half in a third of the way, and then flipping the dough so that it is seem-side down. Repeat four times in a 40 minute period. When the dough is ready, it becomes silky and elastic.
Another way to test is called the window pane test: stretch one corner of the bread in front of a light to the point where you can see light through it. If it works, gluten is developed. If the dough rips, it requires more kneading.
Before first fermentation
After kneading comes the first fermentation or the first rise. The dough usually rises in a clean, lightly-oiled bowl (although Rayner alleges that even this small amount of oil slightly compromises the crust) covered with plastic wrap or some material the will keep the dough air-tight so it does not dry out. Using a moist towel does not help (Rayner 78).
The end of first fermentation
Once the first fermentation is over, round the dough by placing it on a floured surface and pre-shape it without degassing so the shaping will be easier. Let the dough relax for 15-30 minutes so that it does not try to shrink back into it's old shape. The comes shaping. Shaping is my least favorite part of the process because it is my weakest area. Servia actually shaped my Pain au Levain for me while I was at work. The most important thing for a free-form loaf (one not cooked in a loaf pan or similar) is making sure the "skin" is taught to hep ensure a crunchy crust and open crumb. I put my boule (the round shaped loaf) into my banneton (a wooden bread basket which I sprayed with a little bit of oil and dusted with flour) to rise for the final proofing.
After the pre-shape
I may have been a little over-zealous putting flour on after the pre-shaping. This is not advised.
Shaped and in the banneton
After the final proofing
The final proofing allows the bread to rise again after the partial-degassing that happens during the shaping process. Then I placed a floured peel over the banneton and turn it over so the dough falls onto the floured peel. I use a peel, because I bake my bread on an oven stone. You can use a traditional oven stone or you can use an unglazed terra-cotta tile. My first baking stone, which I still use although I now have a more traditional oven stone, was a granite tile ($4) that I turned so that the polished side was facing the bottom of the oven. I oiled my stone with olive oil before I used it and dust it with flour immediately before the bread goes on it. An oven stone helps mimic the stone ovens that bakers use to bake their bread and it helps to more evenly distribute the heat to the baked goods.
On the peel.
Then I scored the dough. I did a particularly sloppy job this time. Scoring the dough provides that great artisan look and allows it to expand. It also, according to Understanding Baking, allows some of the gasses to escape so that the bread does not swell too much in the oven and end up with gigantic air pockets (Amendola 165). I think there are other reasons for it, but I do not remember what they are. I use an exacto-knife, but traditionally one scores dough with a lame. Let the knife do the work, and cut at a shallow-ish 45 degree angle for that textured scoring. I did not know this when I scored my Pain au Levain.
Scored
Then I baked the bread for 15 minutes under steam. As I mentioned in my comment, baking under steam means that, in imitation of a real baker's oven, you make sure there is some steam in the oven. My preferred way is to fill a small pan with 1-2 cups of water in it. You take the pan out partway through just as a baker would release the steam from his/her professional oven. I put my pan on the shelf under the stone. Peter Reinhart suggests placing it above, but this caused my oven light to burst. For similar reasons, do not use a glass pan to hold the water. I am told it will explode. The guy who runs Bread Cetera uses a metal steamer thing and injects steam. He has a great video on his blog.
Baking under steam improves the crust and crumb of the bread, because according to Understanding Baking, "steam...has the principle purpose of keeping the crust soft during the first part of the baking so that the dough can expand rapidly and evenly" (Amendola 141). The bread can be cooked at a high temperature and once the steam is taken out, the bread's crust will harden into the wonderful rustic crust.
Out of the oven
In the oven, the bread should rise a little bit more. This increase in size is called oven spring. My breads (until this one) tend to have a lot of oven spring at home. The reason that this one did not spring was probably because we used the oven on convection and the temperature was too high. A convection oven blows the heat around. I noticed my breads were rising more on one side than the other on the regular setting so I put it on convection this time. However, the crust browned far more quickly, meaning that it was not soft enough to allow the bread to rise. I think I will put more water in the pan and put it in when heating the oven in order to make it steamier so the crust stays soft and allows it to spring before hardening.
Apparently it takes at least 30 minutes for the crumb to set, so do not cut into the bread before then, no matter how tempting it is. The flavor improves as the bread cools. For this bread, Reinhart recommends waiting one hour (Reinhart 153-155). The crumb was a little more dense than i had hoped due (most likely) to inadequate oven spring, but it was not significantly denser than Reinhart's own version. I personally like a more open crumb, so I may try another whole wheat bread.
Crumb
Crust and crumb (odd because of the flash)
Anyway, the bread was great with brie. Servius said it had a "malt" flavor (probably from the honey) and it will certainly go well with almond butter for breakfast.
Endnotes
The gummy mass happened a few months ago when I first tried this recipe. I covered the soaker and biga wrong and they completely dried out overnight, making the bread an icky mess and making it impossible to develop proper gluten.
Although I will discuss baker's percentages.
For anyone who has a copy of the recipe, I used the stretch-and-fold technique after some more traditional kneading to develop the gluten (which seems to have worked). I also doubled the suggested rising times (so the first one rose for two hours and the second rise was for 1.5 hours). I omitted the butter/oil, used honey as the sweetener, and used sourdough starter instead of biga (although I used the recommend 2.25 teaspoons of instant yeast in the final dough).
This comes from Wild Bread and Rayner actually says 65-75 degrees F (Rayner 78), but the dough will rise more slowly at 65 degrees F than at a slightly higher temperature.
I remember this from 10th grade honors biology, so I might be over-simplifying a bit.
which is one of the few multigrain breads I have seen that does not require high gluten flour.. Instead of the Biga, I used my white starter. 
alleges that even this small amount of oil slightly compromises the crust) covered with plastic wrap or some material the will keep the dough air-tight so it does not dry out. Using a moist towel does not help (
(a wooden bread basket which I sprayed with a little bit of oil and dusted with flour) to rise for the final proofing.
over the banneton and turn it over so the dough falls onto the floured 
or you can use an unglazed terra-cotta tile. My first baking stone, which I still use although I now have a more traditional oven stone, was a granite tile ($4) that I turned so that the polished side was facing the bottom of the oven. I oiled my stone with olive oil before I used it and dust it with flour immediately before the bread goes on it. An oven stone helps mimic the stone ovens that bakers use to bake their bread and it helps to more evenly distribute the heat to the baked goods.
, allows some of the gasses to escape so that the bread does not swell too much in the oven and end up with gigantic air pockets (
. Let the knife do the work, and cut at a shallow-ish 45 degree angle for that textured scoring. I did not know this when I scored my 
