Make Bread

A bread blog for home bakers

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Pain Au Levain with Whole Wheat

bread-finalWhen it comes to making bread, one of the things I really enjoy is trying to make it LOOK good as much as I enjoy making it taste good.  This bread is packed with a little bit of rye flour, a little bit more whole wheat flour, and the rest is AP or bread flour.  Paired with fairly low hydration, this combination of ingredients make a nice looking, easy to shape delicious loaf.

Jeffrey Hamelman is somewhat of a superstar these days.  Not only is he the man behind the bakery at King Arthur’s home bakery his book is also well reviewed and award winning.  The recipes in this book are available in three versions, one for commercial quantities in metric, another commercial size batch in imperial, and one for the home baker.  As a home baker I just take the commercial quantity and divide by 100 to get my weights in grams.

This recipe starts with building a stiff levain with rye and whole wheat, which is then added to your final dough.  This bread is a little less hydrated than most and I deviated a bit from the recipe by adding about 20g more water than what the book calls for.  My loaves ended up being crusty with a nice soft interior and good crumb.

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This recipe is based on Jeffrey Hamelman’s “Bread – A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes”

Levain:

  • 145g AP flour
  • 10g rye flour
  • 90g water
  • 30g mature starter

Final Build:

  • 605g AP flour
  • 200g whole wheat
  • 40g rye flour
  • 580g water
  • 18g salt
  • 250g levain
  1. Mix the levain and let it mature for 8-12 hours.
  2. When the levain is ready, mix the flours and add most of the water, reserving some for later.  Mix and let autolyse for 15 minutes.
  3. Break up the levain and add it to the mixture, mix and knead until well incorporated. Add the remainder of the water.
  4. Add salt and knead until well incorporated.
  5. Add a little more water if desired and knead until fully incorporated.
  6. Transfer the dough to a bowl and cover.  After 30 minutes stretch and fold the dough.  Repeat this two more times at 30 minute intervals.
  7. After an hour and a half of rest and stretching and folding, let the dough proof for another hour and a half to 3 hours.
  8. Divide the dough and pre-shape, then shape as desired.
  9. Proof for an hour and a half at room temperature or up to 12 hours in the fridge.
  10. Add your baking stone to the oven and pre-heat the oven to 450˚F
  11. When the oven is ready, bake under steam for 15 minutes.  Rotate after 15 minutes and let bake another 20-30 minutes until done.

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submitted to YeastSpotting

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15% Whole Wheat Sourdough Table Loaf

whole wheat table loafFor this inaugural post, I thought it would be fitting to share with you something that is a little bit of me.  I have worked on this bread formula for a little while and at this moment in time, is my ‘go-to’ bread.  I make it often and the family loves it, so it this post is about my 15% whole wheat sourdough table loaf.

In future posts I will talk about creating and maintaining your own sourdough starter if you don’t already have one (you should!) but this assumes you already have a starter.

I am not great at master formulas yet so this post will be elementary in nature.  The more I write the more I’ll challenge myself to be more formal with bread recipes in these tutorials but for now, this will work.

I keep my starter in the fridge so the morning before I want to use it, I take it out and give it a feeding.  I’ll go to work and sometime that evening I’ll feed it again before going to bed.  The next morning I’ll give it one more feeding and to make sure I have enough starter for the bake and head off to work.

When I come home and the kids are all settled I’ll get my act together and mix things together and start the making process.

[ezcol_1third]First Feeding[/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_1third]Second feeding of sourdough starter[/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_1third_end]Dough is ready to go after 2 feedings![/ezcol_1third_end]

This is what my process is like for making two 750g loaves of 15% whole wheat sourdough at 70% hydration.

  1. Weigh out 250g of starter on to a big bowl
  2. Add about 100ml of water and dissolve the starter
  3. Add 615g of King Arthur all purpose flour
  4. Add 130g of Whole Wheat flour
  5. Add remainder of water, roughly 380ml and stir until everything is wet and you can’t stir with a wooden spoon
  6. Use your hands and make sure everything is mixed and happy, then cover with a dish towel and let it get happy (i.e. autolyse) for about 30-45 minutes.
  7. After the autolyse, add 25g of salt and mix with your hands until you can feel the salt granules become saturated and absorbed by the dough.
  8. Pick the mass up with both hands and stretch it, knead it on the counter, and repeat for just a minute or two until you can form it in to a rough ball like this:Rough ball of dough
  9. Cover it and let it sit for 30 minutes.
  10. For the next hour and a half, remove the cover and do a series of “stretch and folds” every half hour so the dough develops a good amount of strength.  After the first hour and a half, I cover the dough and put it in the fridge until the next day.  If you plan to bake same night, let it proof for another hour and a half before dividing the dough and shaping.
  11. My procedure is to let the dough proof overnight.  The following day I will divide and shape the dough and put it back in the fridge until an hour before I bake them.
  12. About an hour before baking, remove the bread from the fridge and let it come up to room temp.  At the same time, turn on your oven to 500F and put in a baking stone.
  13. When the oven is good and hot and you’re ready to bake, turn the bread out on to a floured peel and slash the bread.  Slide it on to the hot stone, spray some water on it, and cover it.  I use either a big aluminum bowl I got from Sam’s club or a heavy clay lid from my le cloche.
  14. Let it bake with the lid for about 15-20 minutes and remove the lid for the remaining 15-20 minutes.

Your finished product is a hearty hearth bread, made with 15% whole wheat and 70% hydration! Let it cool and enjoy!

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sourdough egg sandwich

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