Bread Number 73: Beer Bread Ferments Oh So Slowly and Wins Taste Race

A pre-Passover enjoyment of soon-to-be forbidden tastes of bread and beer, though just for the week of the holiday. Somehow correct that the making of this beer bread coincided with reading the fermentation section, indeed both the bread and beer chapters, of Cooked. Felt like Michael Pollan himself should have visited my kitchen, though he is definitely a creature of the West Coast and I am decidedly East Coast, if not more specifically the exiled New Yorker.

A four-day, ever so lethargic rise, that finally arrived at the stage of finishing a bulk fermentation. Not sure whether that was the beer or the relatively small amount of starter, taken right from the fridge and not exactly ripe. Still, I like a good sour taste and a slightly burnt crust, even if it was not to the liking of a significant other.

Day 1

Autolyse
350g beer - Snake Dog IPA
42g cornmeal
16g arrowroot flour
243g whole wheat flour
200g bread flour

Mixed well and covered. I let the autolyse sit for 35 minutes. 

Dough
autolyse plus - 
70g starter
10g salt
30g water

Mixed the autolyse and the other dough ingredients, including extra water for adequately hydrating the 60 percent whole grain dough.

I did three stretch and folds over the course of an hour and a half, the first at 20 minutes, the second 30 minutes later, and the third another 30 minutes later. Then I let the dough sit in various places due to temperature.

Evening of day 1 - day 4
I kept the dough in cool places for almost 24 hours. Overnight the dough was in the kitchen. During the entire workday, it sat in the basement. Back to the kitchen again, from day two to three, overnight. On day three, I decided that dough needed some warmth. I let it enjoy a full day in a warm kitchen, then at a proper boring bedtime of 9 p.m., I put it in the fridge. It was puffy, though not exuberant. There it was awakened on the morning of day four.

Day 4
Early in the morning, I took the dough out of the fridge and went into pre-baking mode. Since this dough had done so much time in cold environs, I decided it deserved a warm final rise. First a stretch and fold with a 15-minute rest afterward.

Preheated the oblong la cloche in the oven at a toasty 500 degrees. 

I shaped the dough into an untrained oblong shape (the untrained entity being me, not the dough), shorter and fatter than a baguette, though nowhere approaching roundness. I let the dough sit, covered, for an hour. Due to fear of dreadful burns, I let the shaped dough sit on parchment paper and took the dough, on the parchment paper, directly into the now-burning hot oblong la cloche.

Maybe I got carried away with the timing
Immediately reduced oven temperature to 475 degrees and baked for about 48 minutes. (I tried to keep track, but I had to recalculate the timing due to a few minutes of forgetfulness.) The ends and the bottom were a bit burnt, but the bread had a proud, deep brown color, and a cragginess (not a word, really) that made it rustically attractive. And very respectable oven spring, indeed, especially for a dough that had never risen in an expected way.

Yummy! Loved it. Another opinion, however, was voiced in the household, so quite possible I will play around with ingredients and starter ripeness the next time I pour a bottle of beer into a dough bowl.

Bread Number 66: Wonderful Melange of Flavors

Update below!
So important: No tragedy resulted from a violation of my personal no-bread-making-activity-before-5-a.m. rule. 

Flaxseed, whole wheat and arrowroot with sponge, soaker and long preferment - sounds much more difficult than it is. Basically, there's 20 minutes of weighing and mixing one day and either the next day or that evening another 10 to 15 minutes; then maybe a total of another minute prior to baking. This might be a bit of an exaggeration. Still ... Easy, but impressive, delicious and beautiful. [Photos are of my hometown of Brooklyn, NY and bread #66.]

I mixed up the soaker and the sponge for an overnight rest. The next day, mix the two, add a few more ingredients, do some stretching and folding, and put in the fridge if you have an actual life to attend to. When you decide to bake, once the oven is preheated and the dough is shaped, you are done. A dough that leaves plenty of time to go out to the diner with the spouse, and even say yes when he presses to go shopping for those kitchen cabinets you said you would find, because the whole kitchen project seems to have embedded different time lines and senses of priority in our brains.

I made this bread twice as my digital scale is acting peevish, making me wonder if it is either having hiccups or preparing itself for permanent retirement.

Everything in grams

INGREDIENTS	SPONGE	SOAKER	DOUGH	TOTALS
Water	100	224	48	372
Starter	100			100
Bread flour	100		80	180
Whole Wheat flour		174		174
Flaxseed meal		47		47
Salt		5	5	10
Arrowroot flour			69	69

Is that not a gorgeous table? So neat, so clear about which ingredient was added and when. Such a visual representation. How sad, it was not saved with its cheery orange lines. That's what made it gorgeous. In case the table is not one's preferred format, the ingredients are listed at the end of this post.

Actual information
Okay, that's an 80 percent hydration dough. The table does not include the unweighed sprinkling of sesame seeds on top just before baking. I should also say that I used the same Danish whisk, uncleaned in between sponge and soaker, so that the soaker would get a wee head start on fermentation, which it did. Not much as there was salt in the soaker.


Always remember to cover the bowl. I used shower caps to cover the bowls of soaker, sponge and the dough. The shower caps can be cleaned and are reusable.

4 a.m. and no mishaps
The soaker and sponge were made at 4 a.m. I put the heat up in the kitchen early so that they would be ready to be mixed into a dough about mid-day. Yes, I could have mixed up the soaker and sponge the night before, but I got lazy in the evening and we had a nice gathering until late with the spouse's colleagues from the office.

The only difference between the first and second tries of this bread was in the amount of starter, which I accounted for in adjusting slightly the bread flour and water amounts. The activity of the dough and the eventual bread all turned out the same.

Resting, mixing, and so on
9.75 hours for the soaker and sponge to rest. Mixed up the dough and did three stretch and folds, plus a couple of minutes of kneading, every 15 minutes. Let rest for thereafter for 3.5 hours. I admit I started out with only 40 grams of bread flour to add to the final dough, but added more right away, then 20 grams with each stretch and fold, because the dough was so sticky. About what I did the first time before the digital scale had a tantrum and would not permit further weighing. Fortunately, it came back to life with the next bread.

At the end of 3.5 hours, my brain turned off due to the 4 a.m. wake up. I could not decide what to do with the sticky dough that had risen nicely. Shape and put on a floured towel in a bowl? Put in an oiled bowl? A loaf pan? I procrastinated. Just shoved the dough bowl, with its shower cap cover, into the fridge. 

I only left the dough in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. My husband asked if we were going to have fresh bread for Monday morning and I suddenly remembered - OMG, time to get ready to bake before the brain shuts off for the evening. A 4 a.m. wake up does not bode well for nighttime thinking.[Photo of the door to Mile End Deli. Great chopped liver and I'm a vegetarian. Still, could not resist when it was made with schmatlz.]

Baking
Preheat oven for one hour at 470 degrees with dutch oven inside.

I removed the dough bowl from the fridge and lightly, perhaps not so lightly, sprinkled flour on top and underneath all around the dough, to prevent utter stickiness. I shaped the dough quickly, sprinkled on sesame seeds and did three slashes on top. I put my floured hands underneath the dough and pretty much dropped it into the dutch oven. I remembered to put back on the oven mitts before placing the lid on the dutch oven for baking.  

Try not to be nervous, but rather achieve a sense of calm, when removing the top of the dutch oven prior to placing the dough inside, and then when plopping the dough in the dutch oven. I use oven mitts and a kitchen towel. Super hot.

Total baking time of 45 minutes; I removed the top of the dutch oven at 30 minutes. Kudos to my thermometer for telling me when the bread was actually fully baked as it looked lovely way too early to be taken out of the oven. Beautiful brown bread and so, so good. This is why I learned to make bread. Yum-mmmmm-y.  


Here's the promised list of ingredients

Totals for all ingredients
Water - 372g
Bread flour - 180g
Starter - 100g (82g on the first try, with adjustments elsewhere)
Whole wheat flour - 174g
Flaxseed Meal - 47g
Arrowroot flour - 69g
Salt - 10g

Ingredients listed in order of appearance for each phase.

Sponge
100g starter
100g water
100g bread flour

Soaker
174g whole wheat flour
47g flaxseed meal
224g water
5g salt (Don't sweat this. The last time I mistakenly added 6g and then only 4g to the final dough. That goes for almost any ingredient and life in general.)

Dough
Soaker
Sponge
69g arrowroot flour
80g bread flour (Added 40g initially, and 20g each at points thereafter in an effort to reduce stickiness - or, for those accustomed to more technical terms, hydration.) 
5g salt 

Update - Made this one again, a little differently
I took out the arrowroot flour, substituted cornmeal and increased the whole wheat flour share just a bit. Also added sesame seeds on top. At 475 degrees, the bread took 40 minutes to bake in the dutch oven. Totally great. 

Bread #65: Arrowroot, Cornmeal and Barley Combine for Delicious White Bread

This bread is made mostly with white bread flour, but one quarter of the flour has a surprisingly tasty variety of flavors. Arrowroot flour, barley flour and cornmeal contribute to a not-at-all boring white bread that is topped with oats and caraway seeds. 

Lovely crumb and delicious.

Ingredients

Sponge
95g water
62g starter
52g arrowroot flour
47g bread flour
20g barley flour 
Mix and leave out covered all day or overnight. 

Soaker
18g cornmeal
200g water
Mix and let rest for 15 minutes.

Autolyse
10g cornmeal
277g bread flour
Either split the water between the soaker and the autolyse, to do both phases at the same time. Or do the soaker first and add it to the autolyse mixture.
Mix, cover and let rest for 20 minutes to a half hour.

Dough
Sponge
Soaker
Autolyse
10g salt 
Add everything, plus the bit of salt called for, and mix thoroughly.

Sponge overnight - but check the heat in the kitchen
Combine the sponge ingredients and leave covered on the kitchen counter either all day or overnight. Good thing I woke up before dawn while on a winter-break from work because someone inadvertently left on the heat all night (no accusations or crying over spilled milk as the kitchen was deliciously warm). In the warm kitchen, the sponge took 10.3 hours to get to a nice bubbly ripe state. I had expected the sponge to be ready somewhere in the vicinity of 9 to 11 a.m., but a peek before 7 a.m. revealed a weirdly warm kitchen for a winter morning and a sponge that was practically shouting I am ready to become part of a wonderful dough. Hurry up already!

I stayed awake to make the dough - promising myself a nice nap as reward. Vacation time at home is a precious and enjoyable treat. So nice to sneak a nap into the middle of a winter day, especially a nap with the dog.

Soaker and autolyse at the same time
Tell the sponge to hold its horses and prepare the soaker and the autolyse, preferably so that they are resting at the same time. I did not do that.

The soaker will need to rest for 15 minutes and only takes a minute to prepare. No cover is necessary. The autolyse should sit for 20 to 30 minutes and will require a few minutes of mixing to fully blend the flour and water. I did the soaker first and added it to the autolyse mixture. My autolyse did not incorporate all of the flour; it was very dry, but it still had some nice gluten development. I resisted the urge to add more water because the eventual mixing into the sponge possibly would supply all needed moisture. Cover and let autolyse rest for 20 minutes. 

Dough gathers everything 
To make the dough, put together the sponge, autolyse and the soaker. Sprinkle the salt on top and then mix thoroughly. This will take some effort; get those hands - wet first - in the dough. Do three stretch and folds over the course of 60 to 90 minutes. I did mine at 30-minute intervals. The dough developed nice strength. I covered it and let rise on the counter for two and a half hours. 

Went to the farmers market, ate breakfast, read, and needed to cash in on that nap. I looked at the dough and it looked at me. It had risen well. We decided it needed to be shaped and take a hiatus in the fridge. This would take all anxiety out of the nap. I floured a cutting board, gathered the corners of the dough, and shaped it into a boule. I took out my handy round small wicker basket and lined it with a well-floured kitchen towel. On the flour, I dumped a nice sprinkling (no measure taken) of caraway seeds and oats. I put the top of the dough onto the lined bottom of the basket, covered, and placed the dough basket in the fridge for an uncertain period.

I left the dough basket in the fridge for several hours later - 6.7 to be exact.

Oven and dough preparation
Preheat oven and top of la cloche for one hour at 470 degrees. After the hour preheat, I took the dough almost straight from the fridge to the oven. Just a set of slashes on top and putting the dough on some parchment paper that was waiting on a baking peel. 

I removed the parchment paper after 30 minutes, but kept the bread covered with the top of the la cloche for the whole time. The bread only took 39 minutes, not much for a boule at 470 degrees.

Yummy
Beautiful, loud crinkly sounds emanated from the freshly baked bread. It was gorgeous as well with respectable oven spring. The bread made a delicious breakfast the next morning. Great, great taste. And though the bread looked all white, it had some decent whole grain participation.

 
It was so good that I did not take the time to shoot some photos of its lovely, truly impressive, crumb. I just wanted to keep eating.