Whey Sourdough

Egnatius and Sue made some incredible cheese yesterday. Sue made her fabulous ricotta and Egnatius made mozzarella. In cheese making, one has to separate the curds from the whey and they whey is discarded.

Fortuitously, on Yeast Spotting this week, I noticed txfarmer's Whey Sourdough. She, too, apparently, had decided to make ricotta and used the whey for making sourdough. However, I was worried about the lemon juice in the ricotta being in the whey so I just used they whey from Egnatius' mozzarella.

There was a huge amount of whey left-- the result of an entire gallon of milk-- so I decided to make a variety of loaves. I made one double batch by txfarmer's specifications. I made the second set at Egnatius's design (he calls them his "designer loaves"). While I used the same process, I used this formula:

800g whole wheat flour
50g whole spelt flour
200g whole wheat starter
100g unbleached flour starter
610g whey + a little extra to soak the oats
20g salt
25g oat bran
50g rolled oats

The only changes to the method that I did were to add the soaked oats (both kinds) in during the mix at medium speed. I also added a preshape and a 25 minute bench rest to the shaping process.

Egnatius' Bread

Egnatius' bread was absolutely fantastic. It was nice and wheaty without being bitter. He is going to freeze one of the loaves and take it back to Ireland for his family.

Crumb is soft and crust is thin

So while whey thins the crust which I dislike, it also softens the interior and makes a 100% whole wheat loaf viable without being bitter which is fantastic. Whey is fantastic. Next time I will add even more whey for a more open crumb.

I also made two loaves by the specifications in the recipe. They were much lighter than Egnatius' loaves. They, too, did not bloom beautifully like txfarmer's loaves, but they were wonderful. The flavor was slightly sweeter and richer than traditional country sourdough on account of the whey. Also, the crust was heavier than on Egnatius' loaves, which I liked better. I am not yet sure of the reasoning.

If you make cheese, I would highly recommend using the whey for sourdough. It is quite a revelation for me.

Oat Bread: A Beautiful Experiment

I was intrigued by an item on Yeast Spotting about two weeks ago and so last weekend, the Oat Bread, so last weekend I made a batch. I added a little extra water. It was absolutely delicious. I highly recommend this bread.

Loaf 1

Loaf 2

Two Beautiful Loaves

Crumb of Loaf 1

The only changes I made was substituting whole wheat starter for rye starter and adding more water. I am making another batch of this bread this weekend. My Homeric Hymns professor rescued my bag and so I need to provide a token of appreciation. This bread, while having the nice hint of oat, is not a super healthy tasting bread (although it has both whole wheat and rolled oats) so I thought it would be universally appreciated. Maybe one of my favorite breads of all time. Delicious.

School Bread

It's been a while since I've been in school. Although I have been working and continuing my education, without a full day of formal classes life is a little more relaxed. Some days I had the day to read and make the wonderful Tartine Country Bread or my whole wheat breakfast bread. However, studying for these exams, I realize that these days, with the exception of special occasions, are coming to an end.

Yet, I simply cannot give up my bread, especially as winter approaches and meals of soup and bread are so appealing. So what to do? Well, there are some recipes that take as much time, but less intervention. I have had a lot of success with breads from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day, and so today I am trying to make (a modified version, of course) of his San Francisco sourdough. Pictures and analysis to come. I also will try some breads that take a little less time such as Wild Yeast's Norwich More Sourdough which I attempted recently.

I have also been considering venturing into the territory of no-knead bread. Although this does not have the stress-relief of kneading, it also has less of the clean-up stress. I have been very skeptical in the past (with the exception of the no-knead challah I make). One bread that captivated my attention was an Italian No-Knead featured on Yeast Spotting recently. That may be my next experiment.

An Extremely Modified Transitional Multigrain Hearth Bread

Multigrain Bread

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

1. Mix soaker ingredients together in a bowl for about 1 minute. It will form a dough that resembles thick porrage.
2. 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

1. Blend ingredients together until fully hydrated.
2. 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

1. Take the starter out of the refrigerator
2. Toast the sunflower, pumpkin, and sesame seeds. Let them cool.

For the final dough

1. 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.
2. Add in the whole wheat flour a little bit at a time and mix it into the dough.
3. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
4. Mix in the salt and the seeds. Make sure the dough fully absorbs the salt.
5. Using wet hands (the dough is very sticky) need the dough for two to three minutes.
6. 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]
7. 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.
8. After four hours, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and fold it in half so both sides are lightly floured.
9. 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.
10. Let the dough bench rest for 20 minutes.
11. If the gluten structure seems weak, repeat this process again. If the dough spreads out with fairly even thickness, proceed to the final shaping.
12. 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.
13. Let the dough sit out at room temperature for 1 hour under plastic wrap or similar
14. Then, place the dough in the refrigerator for 8-16 hours.

Day 3:

1. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with a combo cooker or brothpot and stone. 
2. Take the bread out of the refrigerator 20 minutes before you are ready to bake.
3. When you are ready to bake, turn the bread onto a floured peel and score it.
4. Put the oven down to 450 degrees F and bake under steam for 20-25 minutes.
5. 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.
6. 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

1. 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.

Surprise: Tartine Bread

I first heard about Tartine Bread when it popped up on my Amazon recommendations because I had been looking at bread books. As it turns out, Servia also found the book seperately. I didn't think much of it until she sent me this video which was a fabulous advertisement for the book.

This week, at least two of the breads on Yeast Spotting were from Tartine Bread, so I mentioned to Servia the amazing reviews. She left my room and returned with a copy of the book. Apparently, while I was up at my Alma Mater she bought the book and had planned to bake a loaf to show men when I got home, but had so much trouble with her knee that she ended up spending her time reading the book at the doctor's office instead of baking bread.

 

Anyway, we now have a copy of the book and I plan to bake a loaf from it. I will report.

For now, there were three loaves that encouraged me (all from the book): the traditional country bread, one with spelt flour, and one with full pictures.