RSS

White flour warm spot levain

This is one of the most difficult bread I have ever made. It is not the process itself that gives you troubles but its schedule. I wanted to make this bread for a very long time but I never found the time to fit it in my daily life.

You make this bread in 3 days. In the first 2 days you grow up a preferment and, at the end of the second day, you prepare the final dough. The loaves are baked on the third day after they have spent the second fermentation in the refrigerator overnight.

More, you need to make this bread during a hot summer. In my case, there were more than 30ºC foreseen in the first 2 days, so it was the perfect time for me to try this bread. If you do not have a high temperature outside during these 3 days when you are in the mood of making this recipe then use a hot spot from your house.

Step 1. Day 1, 12:15 PM - build preferment

  • 25g sourdough
  • 87g water at 26ºC
  • 125g white bread flour
Mix the sourdough with water and when well distributed, add the flour and stir until well combined. Cover with a lid or plastic film and let it stay at room temperature.

Step 2. Day 1, 23:15 - build preferment
We repeat the process, discarding the remaining preferment.
  • 25g sourdough
  • 87g water at 26ºC
  • 125g white bread flour
Mix the sourdough with water and when well distributed, add the flour and stir until well combined. Cover with a lid or plastic film and let it stay at room temperature.

Step 3. Day 2, 15:30 - build preferment
  • 50g sourdough
  • 175g water at 26ºC
  • 250g white bread flour
Mix the sourdough with water and when well distributed, add the flour and stir until well combined. Cover with a lid or plastic film and let it stay at room temperature. The remaining sourdough is to be discarded.

Step 4. Day 2, 21:15. Now it is the time to make the final dough.
4.1 But first is the autolyse. Combine the following quantities of flour and water and let it stand for 30 minutes.
  • 750g high protein flour
  • 605g water (26ºC)
4.2 (21:45) Add 425g of preferment from the total of 475g made at step 3. Discard the remaining 50g.
Mix the final dough using a standing mixer or by hand for 10 minutes.

Step 5. Day 2, 21:55 - First fermentation. 
Let the dough grow for the first fermentation but make 2-3 stretch and folds at 30 minutes interval:
22:30 Stretch and fold the dough, first time.
23:00 Stretch and fold the dough, second time.
23:30 Stretch and fold the dough, third time.

Step 6. Day 2, 23:55 - Divide and shape and start the second fermentation
Divide the dough in 3 and shape the loaves in oblong or round shape.
Put the dough in floured bannetons and place them in plastic bags. Put them in the refrigerator overnight.

Step 7. Day 3, 8:30 - Take the loaves out of the fridge. Depending on how much they have raised during the night you can bake them now or you can wait to grow more, inside or outside the fridge. My fridge is very cold and I did the bake in a fire wood oven just late afternoon, so the loaves remained outside for 6 hours to pass the finger test. Also the temperature during this day was lower than on the previous ones.
If you want to bake even later, just keep them in the fridge and bake them straight from the fridge without letting the dough to arrive to the room temperature.

Step 8. Day 3, 14:25 - Bake.

8.1 Prepare oven. (13:35-13:45) The baking process starts with preaheating the oven. In a conventional oven, preaheat a baking stone for 45 minutes at 275ºC.This means that you are turning on the oven at 13:35.
In a wood oven I started the fire 30 minutes before. Preparing a wood oven to bake bread depends on on a lot of factors like the size of the oven, the type of wood that you use , the dryness of the wood and so on. Know your oven before baking bread inside. As a general rule, have around 300ºC in the wood oven and the ground stone at 275ºC.

8.2 Baking.
In a conventional oven bake at 275ºC, preferable with steam for 15 minutes and reduce to 230ºC for the next 30 minutes.
In a fire oven they were ready in 25 minutes. After the first 13 minutes, I have turned and switched the place of the loves in the oven. This needs to be done as you get differences of temperature depending on the spots in you wood oven.


0 comments:

Post a Comment