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Multigrain Sourdough Bread

I know that Christmas is gone already for 1 month but this bake was too interesting to wait for the next Christmas to post.

I bought this flour by mistake. I confused the classic bread flour package that I buy from the supermarket (that I use for cakes by the way, because its protein content is 10%) with this one. I have not noticed that the picture on the package showed some grains. Neither I read the title...
But well, I arrived home with 5kg of multigrain bread flour. When I try a new flour, I always test it first at 70% hydration: that is not too wet not too stiff, perfect hydration to compare. The protein of this flour was 13%, but not to be tricked... this was the protein content of flour + grains, so the flour should have had about 10-11%.

Would I buy this flour again intentionally? Probably not. I do not like the mix of seeds in the flour, I prefer to be able to select what seeds I put in my bread and in what quantity. More, I usually add the seeds in the lamination so this flour does not fit my process and starting to sift the seeds out of the flour does not seem efficient to me.

However, the dough behaved well, but with this new flour I wanted to take as much measurements with my new toy, the PH meter. Sometimes, I measure before the steps and after to understand the changes. You can find the numbers in the directions section for each step.

Conclusions of the measurements experience:
  1. the dough heats up slowly after the mix with a standing mixer
  2. every manipulation of the dough outside the bread proofer affects the dough temperature (like when put on the board, shaped etc)
  3. putting the bread into the fridge when the ph was 4.18 was a good decision
  4. my fridge had a higher temperature than the set (5ºC) as the dough before scoring got a temperature of 9ºC. This variance needs to be considered in order to avoid over proofing the dough in the fridge!


Ingredients: (1795g, 70% hydration)

  • 190g sourdough starter (100% hydration)
  • 950g multigrain flour 
  • 636g water
  • 19g salt 

Directions:

  1. [Day 1, Saturday, 8:00] Scaling. Start by scaling your ingredients using a balance and put them on the table to ensure that nothing is forgotten.
  2. Mix water + flours. Mix only the flours with water until well combined. Do not knead at this stage, just ensure there is no unincorporated dry flour resting in the bowl and that's it. I used warm water heated in the microwave for 1½ minutes. [PH 5.99, DT 14ºC]
    The exact temperature of the dough is not that important because, during the autolyse, it will slowly rise. For this recipe, the dough needs to stay during the resting periods at 27ºC. 
  3. [Day 1 Saturday, 9:00] Sourdough starter. Add the preferment over the dough and mix by hand or with a standing mixer for 10 minutes. Before the addition of I took the measurements: dough [PH 5.98, DT 16.4ºC], starter [PH 4, DT 20ºC], and after mixing [PH 5.58, DT 19.3ºC]
    After mixing, let the dough relax for 1½ hours.
  4. [Day 1 Saturday, 10:30] Salt. Add the salt and mix again for 5 minutes. Before the addition of salt, [PH 5.55, DT 20ºC], after the mix of salt [PH 5.46, DT 21ºC].
    Then, let the dough relax again for  1 hour.
  5. [Day 1, Saturday, 11:30] Divide and Stretch and Fold. Take the dough out of the bowl put it on the slightly wet table board and divide it into 2. Stretch and fold each piece on the board and place them in squared glass bowls. Let them sit covered for 1 hour. Before the divide, [PH 5.36, DT 22ºC], after [PH 5.27, DT 21.9ºC].
  6. [Day 1, Saturday, 12:30] Lamination. Take each piece out of the bowl and do the lamination. After lamination [PH 5.04, DT 22.6ºC]. Let the dough rests covered for  1 hour. 
  7. [Day 1, Saturday, 13:30] Coil fold 1. Start now a set of 3 coil folds performed straight in the bowls. [PH 4.87, DT 22.8ºC]. Do the first coil fold set in each glass bowl and let them sit for 1 hour.
  8. [Day 1, Saturday, 14:30] Coil fold 2.  Do a second set of coil folds in the glass bowls and let them sit for 1 hour. [PH 4.60, DT 23.7ºC]
  9. [Day 1, Saturday, 15:30] Coil fold 3. Do a third set of coil folds for each dough and let them sit for 1½ hours. [PH 4.37, DT 25.5ºC]
  10. [Day 1, Saturday, 17:00] Shape the loaves on the lightly floured board. Place the dough face down into well-floured bannetons. Repeat the process for the second piece of dough. Place in the fridge overnight. [PH 4.18, DT 20ºC]
  11. [Day 2, Sunday, 12:30] Score. Before scoring, you need to preheat the oven and the baking stone at 260ºC. 
    Take the dough out from the fridge and reverse the banneton on baking paper. Score and decorate the bread as you like.  Immediately after, slide the loaves over the hot stone and create steam. [PH 4.03, DT 9ºC].
  12. Bake at 260ºC for 20 minutes then reduce the oven temperature to 220ºC and continue to bake  for 20 minutes. 
  13. [Day 2, Sunday, 13:10] Cool. The bread needs to cool for at least 2 hours until it reaches room temperature. The cooking process continues slowly even after taking the bread out of the oven, so this is why it is important to not skip this step and to resist cutting it too early. If you can, of course...
  14. [Day 2, Sunday, 15:10] Cut. Now is the big moment to enjoy a slice of bread... 

2 comments:

Karla said...

Hello from California, U.S. I was wondering what you mean by multigrain. Here it means that the whole wheat can have a little barley or oats or something. Just wondering. And thank you!

HungryShots said...

Dear Karla, the flour I bought in a package and contained the following: Wheat flour, barley flour, oat flour, wheat flakes, corn flour, durum wheat semolina, brown flax seeds, sesame seeds, millet seeds

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