SPENT GRAIN - PART 3

Had some more spent grain gifted last week. Decided to dry some first to establish the water content. Weighed the rest out into 250g packs so they are pre-weighed for the recipe.

Drying was an eye opener. In 250g there is 187g of water. No wonder the last batch was so wet!

Reducing the water to 615g in the base dough meant that the final dough would have a hydration of 80%. Much easier dough to work with. Based  on the spent grains water content I estimate that the part 2 batch was about 85% hydration, which explains why it was so hard to finally shape.

Both loaves came out of the oven looking good, with good oven spring . The first loaf got away from me! My wife grabbed it for a gift before I could photograph it.

Nice oven spring

Here is the second loaf on the cooling rack.

Chewy crust, soft crumb.

 

 Ahh! Fresh bread with just a smear of butter.

CiabattAAAAH!

Last month, the Artisan's Bread Bakers Facebook page had Ciabatta as the "Bread of the Month". We are all encouraged to try the recipe and post the results. Ciabatta is Italian for slipper, probably named because of the long, wide, flat shape of the bread. These are high hydration loaves, this recipe has a 78% hydration.

The poolish after 14 hours

This recipe calls for an overnight poolish. Poolish is a slow ferment that adds flavor and complexity to the loaf. The recipe called for a 50/50 by weight mix of flour and water and a pinch of yeast. 14 hours later the poolish had a vigorous lot of fine bubbles breaking the surface and a pleasant, slightly sour odor. The rest of the flour, water, salt and yeast was added to the poolish and mixed with the dough hook. The final result was a very slack dough transferred to the proofing bin.

Thirty minutes rest followed by a stretch and fold saw the dough starting to develop. Three more rests and stretch and folds gave the gluten a good chance to develop and some large bubbles could be seen at the top of the dough. 

After a final 30 minute rest the dough is tipped out onto the bench. This is where things get interesting! When I made this two weeks ago for the first time I just made two large loaves. Big mistake! The loaves were too long for the baking stone and dripped over onto the racks. So this time I made two smaller loaves (about 12inches) two other 8 inch loaves and five buns. Much easier to handle and bake.

The final result

  CHALLAH DOGS

It's Labor Day weekend - time for cook outs, right? Well not this Saturday. Tropical Storm Hermine visited us last night and dumped five inches of rain and most of Saturday has been spoiled with showers. Already had the hot dogs in the refrigerator so time to experiment with a recipe I have eyed for some time. Hot dogs wrapped with challah bread dough.

Made a batch of my stand by challah dough, separated into 10 strands and spiral wrapped each hot dog. Finished with an egg wash and sesame seeds on half and poppy seeds on the rest.

25 minutes in a 350^oF oven and out they came. Some went for supper, the rest in the freezer for later.

Challah Dogs

BACK IN THE SWING OF THINGS

It's been unbearably hot in eastern North Carolina, so baking has been on the back burner for the past two months, except for my commitment of Challah for our local shul. 

But yesterday I got energized and put together two Overnight 40% Whole Wheat from Ken Forkish's Flour Water, Salt, Yeast, two loaves of Vogel's Bread and three Baguettes.

Overnight 40% Whole Wheat

Very pleased with this result, good oven spring, crisp, chewy crust, and soft crumb. Great flavor.

Crisp crust, soft crumb - delicious.

Vogel's Bread? Among other things it is the best selling bread in my home country of New Zealand. Created by a Swiss, Alfred Vogel who cared a lot about the enjoyment of good food and healthy living, believing that:

The best quality of life could be achieved by maintaining a well-balanced diet of wholesome natural foods.

And what better place to start than the ‘humble’ loaf? Alfred wanted to create bread full of wholesome and natural ingredients, making it simple and enjoyable for anyone and everyone to get essential nutrients into their everyday diet. So Vogel’s bread has been around for over 60 years now and baked in New Zealand since 1967.

Vogel's Bread

Essentially it's a multi-grain seeded loaf. Mine has 7 grain hot cereal, rolled oats, sunflower, pumpkin, flax and sesame seeds with 20% whole wheat flour. Here is a link to the recipe I used: Vogel's Bread. I used the 7 grain cereal in place of the kibbled wheat and rye. 

Cut into the Vogel's bread for a crumb shot, but did not try yet. Into the freezer for later in the week.

Vogel's Crumb

 
Baguettes were from a King Arthur recipe with an overnight retard in the refrigerator. Not at all happy with the result, so no photo. Recipe called for baking in a stoneware baguette baker, which I don't have. Tried baking in the oven on a stone with steam, but the crust did not crisp up, even with an additional five minutes. However, did make a great grilled Cuban sandwich from one of the baguettes, so all was not lost.

NO MORE UNLEAVEN BREAD

Passover officially finished at sunset on Saturday so the matzah was put away and the levain came out of hiding.

First up into the oven were two loaves of Steel-cut Oat Bread. Used the recipe and instructions posted by pjkobulnicky at thefreshloaf.com. You can find the recipe using the link above.

I confess to cheating a little bit as I refreshed the starter on Friday night and made the dough on Saturday. But did not bake until after sundown.

Here is the finished result before cutting into the loaf:

Steel-cut Oat Bread

Got a surprise when I cut for the crumb shot. Although the loaves sounded hollow when they came out of the oven, the interior was still wet!

I can only think the steel cut oats I used (Bob's Red Mill) absorbed more water. When I went to drain and reserve the water from steeping the oats, very little water drained out.

When I shaped the loaves, they were easy to handle. The initial hydration was 70%. Did not measure how much of the strained water came out from the oats, but the initial mix was 600g boiling water and 300g oats. So there could have been upwards of another 400g of water bound in the oats when they were added to the dough. Baking was 30 minutes in a closed Dutch Oven followed by 30 minutes with the lid off at 475^oF. Sunday morning I dropped them back in the oven at 475^oF for 30 minutes. Still a little doughy after that so gave them another 15 minutes.

Here is the crumb shot after the second bake:

Steel Cut Oats - Crumb

 
Tried a slice after the loaf had cooled. Great crunch to the crust, soft, sweet crumb. Will just have to play around with the bake time in future.

Bake # 2 was Overnight Country Brown from Ken Forkish's Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast. Abject failure! Over-proofed and finished up with two pancake loaves that will make great croutons, but not much else. I'm embarrassed to post a picture!

And finally a batch of Ciabatta. Used the formula from Linda West Eckhardt and Dianna Collingsworth's Rustic European Breads for your Bread Machine and the last cup of levain. Mixed by hand and then three stretch and folds during the fermentation. Turned the dough out onto a floured surface, cut in two and roughly shaped to 4x10 inches. 30 minutes more proof, then stretched out to 6x12 inches. Final proof then baked 30 minutes in oven with steam at 475^oF.

Ciabatta

 

New Equipment

Coming home on Friday I stopper at Pickers, a local indoor flea market. Wandering around I found a Zojirushi BBCC-X20 2lb bread machine. I have lusted over one of these for a long time but at over $200 I've balked.

So imagine my surprise on asking the price to be quoted $25.00. Whipped out my wallet and paid cash before they could change their mind. Machine is super clean and does not look like it has had much use at all.

So today took it for a test run with Max's flax seed artisan bread. Think I got the dough just a little wet but the end result looks inviting.

Certainly find this machine quieter than my West Bend machine. Remains to be seen which one is the best, but since I use my machines a lot, will probably alternate for a while. Will make baking challah easier as I usually bake four loaves at a time, but can only get two loaves from one machine. So now I can make two batches of dough simultaneously.