Souring the Rye, again

 After my success with the no-knead white bread recipe, I wanted to try to get more sour flavor from my rye recipe. 

Rye Bread by weight
Water	3 oz.
Milk	3 oz.
Salt	1 tsp
Caraway seeds	1 Tbl
Oil	2 Tbl
Vital gluten	2 tsp
Rye flour	9 oz.
White bread flour	6.5 oz.
Sponge

I had been using the whole-wheat program on my bread machine. That built-in program goes like this:

• Knead 22 minutes
• First Rise 30 minutes
• Punch down and second rise 20 minutes
• Punch down and second rise 25 minutes
• Bake 65 minutes

My theory on the improved taste to the no-knead white bread recipe was that the extra rise time gave the yeast more time to ferment, giving more of a sour flavor. I used the user-program mode of my machine to modify the cycles to the following:

• Knead 22 minutes
• First Rise 60 minutes
• Punch down and second rise 60 minutes
• Punch down and second rise 120 minutes
• Bake 65 minutes

The result was successful, but it appears that the last rise was too long, allowing the rise to fall. The final product has a caved-in look to the top. Here it is at the end of the baking while still in the pan.

Here it is on the cooling rack.

It was somewhat denser than my usual rye bread, but its taste was enhanced by the longer rises. Next time, I'll scale back the last rise to  one hour. I'll also try to remember to get some pictures of the whole process.

Really White Bread

 I wanted to try King Arthur's No-Knead sourdough bread in my bread machine. There will be some modifications. The ingredients are exactly the same:

• 1 cup (227g) ripe (fed) sourdough starter
• 1 3/4 cups (397g) lukewarm water
• 5 cups (602g) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour 
• 1 tablespoon (18g) salt

There is an optional ingredient of "diastatic malt powder". I don't even know what that is. I left it out, both in this batch and my previous batch using the manual method.

Naturally, my machine cannot do the lift-and-fold technique, and it can't automatically put the dough in the fridge. I was in the mood to experiment, though.

My bread machine has user-programmable bread-making courses. I'd never tried them, before. I've been satisfied with the built-in white bread and whole wheat cycles. Now is the time to try them out. The by-hand method has a mixing step, followed by three one-hour fold-and-rise steps. I adapted those to my bread machine as follows:

Step 1: Knead for 5 minutes (the minimum time)

Step 2: Rise 1 hour, includes a punch-down operation that is going to take the place of the folding-by-hand step.

Step 3: Repeat the punch and rise for an hour.

Step 4: Punch down and rise for two hours.

The manual method would have folded the dough and let it rise for an hour, followed by refrigerating it for 8-48 hours. I could have taken the baking pan out of the bread maker at this point and put it in the fridge, but I wanted to try a one-and-done approach.

The next step in the manual method involved taking the dough out of the fridge, shaping it, and letting it rest and rise for 2-1/2 to 3 hours. I could have extended step 4 for a few more hours if I wanted to, but didn't.

For baking, I really need to deviate from the recipe. The recipe has me warming the oven to 500º F, then lowering the temperature to 450ºF for baking. My bread machine does not have a programmable baking temperature. It bakes at "about 248ºF to 302ºF." That's quite a difference. The baking time is programmable, though. I decided to try 1 hour with the intention of checking the internal temperature of the loaf at that point, and baking longer if necessary.

OK, on to the results:

After the first mixing cycle, my dough looks like this:

One hour later after the punch down, it looks like this:

After the second rise and punch down, it looks like this:

I didn't get a photo after the third rise, but once it started baking it had filled the pan, as viewed through the window of the bread machine. Again, no photo.

After baking, I had this really white loaf.

I was afraid that it wasn't done, but its internal temperature had reached 200ºF. That was the goal. It yielded a very tall loaf, and let me reiterate--really white.

It didn't tastes as San-Francisco sour as the hand-made loaf. I think that comes from the extra fermentation time in the refrigerator step and the long rest time after taking it out of the fridge. It was not as dense, either. It is rather light and airy. It still tasted good, though. It will make good sandwiches.

It appears that the San-Francisco flavor that I have been striving for comes from the extended fermentation. I think my next experiment will be to try to get my rye recipe to have a more sour flavor. My intention is to use the settings from the built-in whole-wheat cycle, but significantly extend the last rise before baking.

A Taste of San Francisco

 When I started making sourdough bread more than 20 years ago, I wanted to make bread like I used to buy in San Francisco. I have never come close to that taste...until now. I tried this recipe for No-Knead Sourdough bread from King Arthur flour. The taste is just what I had hoped for 20 years ago. I had attributed the difference in taste to the difference in strains of wild yeast where I live. I guess that's not the case. Let's get cooking.

The first step is to mix, but not knead all the dough ingredients. We end up with this sticky mess:

That gets set to "rise" for one hour, and results in a one-hour older sticky mess. Now, we go about stretching and folding the dough and set it aside to rise for another hour. I found the instructions in this companion blog from King Arthur to be very helpful. The wet-hands technique works well.

This process gets repeated every hour for a total of 3 hours. Each time, the dough gets a little smoother.

After the first hour:

After the second hour:

After the third hour:

Now, this is the best part. We cover the dough and put it in the refrigerator for at least 8 but up to 48 hours. That gives us a lot of flexibility for when we want to bake the bread. I finished the three stretch-fold cycles around noon. Then, I left the dough in the fridge until the next morning. It looks smooth.

This dough ball that is still rather sticky gets turned out onto a floured surface and allowed to warm to room temperature for about 15 minutes.

King Arthur tells me that I can shape the dough into a log to bake in a 13" pain de mie pan, put the cover on and let it rise for 2-1/2 to 3 hours. They did say that the dough would not rise vertically, but relax laterally. I was a little worried. This is a lot of dough for that small pan.

but it fits

and it didn't rise much vertically after 2-1/2 hours.

The instructions from King Arthur say to heat the over to 500°F one hour before baking. I thought that was a bit wasteful. My oven tells me when it has reached temperature, so I just waited until it got to 500.

Next, we lower the temperature to 450 and bake for 45-50 minutes. The instructions say to leave the lid off of a pain de mie pan, but use the lid if cooking a boule shape in a Dutch oven. Then, we are to remove the lid from the Dutch oven if we are using that (I didn't), and it is up to the baker to figure out what to do if using a pain de mie pan. We are instructed to bake for another 10-15 minutes, until the center of the loaf reaches 210°F. My loaf center never got past 200 degrees, but it appeared to be burning. I don't even think the last 10 minutes is necessary.

To my surprise, it appears that I made a popover!

There wasn't much rising going on during the dough preparation, but it sure poofed up in the oven. 

The upper crust is difficult to cut into and a little burnt. Other than that, the bread tastes great!

Next time, I think I will bake it for a little bit less time, and skip the extra 10-15 minutes. I'd like to see if I can adapt this recipe to use with my bread machine. I'm using the Zojirushi BB-PAC20. It has programmable modes that I've never attempted. Maybe this is the time to explore that feature.

Before I go, I'd like to explore why this bread tastes so much different from other sourdough recipes I've used. It could be the kneading. Maybe it is the proportion of starter to other ingredients. This recipe doesn't use my formula of creating a sponge from the starter. The sponge is just like a starter refresh, so how does that compare?

This recipe uses 227g of ripe starter. My sponge uses (all ounces are by weight) 4 oz. of starter, 4 oz. of flour, and 4 oz. of water. That's 12 ounces or 340 grams. Well, that's interesting. I'm using more starter and getting less sour flavor.

How is it in proportion to flour? This recipe uses 602 grams (or 21.2 ounces) of flour. My rye and whole wheat recipes use a total of 15.5 ounces of flour. So, I guess I am not using too little starter. Maybe it is the rise and rest times. It looks like I have some experimenting to do.

The Whole Shebang

I've been tinkering around with my starter refresh and my recipes, lately. This post brings the whole work flow into one spot. All ounce measurements refer to weights.

Refreshing the Starter

I've developed a process for refreshing the starter that provides a nicely active culture with zero waste. Start with 2 oz. of old starter from the fridge. Add 2 oz. of water and 2 oz. of white bread flour. Mix it vigorously and put it in a warm (70+ degrees F.) place for 8-10 hours. It should double in size and look bubbly.

Prepare the Sponge

All my recipes use the same sponge. Take 4 oz. of newly refreshed starter. Add 4 oz. of water and 4 oz. of white bread flour. Mix it vigorously. It starts off looking like this.

Place it in a warm spot for 8-10 hours. It should double in size and look bubbly, like this.

Rye Bread Recipe

Add the ingredients to the bread pan in the order shown in the recipe. It's not that critical, but the liquids and spoonfuls go on the bottom. The rye flour goes on top of those. The white flour goes on top of the rye, and the sponge goes on top of the white.

Rye Bread by weight
Water	3 oz.
Milk	3 oz.
Salt	1 tsp
Caraway seeds	1 Tbl
Oil	2 Tbl
Vital gluten	2 tsp
Rye flour	9 oz.
White bread flour	6.5 oz.
Sponge

Set the bread machine for the whole wheat cycle and press start.

The top can look a little ragged. I call this the Pompadour hair style. I thought I had that fixed, once. Maybe not.

Whole Wheat Recipe

As with the rye recipe, add the liquids and spoonfuls on the bottom followed by the whole wheat flour, then the white flour, then the sponge.

Whole Wheat by weight
Water	3 oz.
Milk	3 oz.
Salt	1 tsp
Oil	2 Tbl
Whole wheat flour	10.5 oz.
White bread flour	5 oz.
Sponge

Set the bread machine for the whole wheat cycle and press start.

I don't have a recent picture of a completed whole wheat loaf. It sometimes sports the Pompadour hair style. These loaves tend to rise rather high, yielding a tall loaf of bread. I might try swapping some of the white flour for whole wheat in the future.

Optimizing the Starter Refresh

I posted a few weeks ago about trouble with trying to reduce the amount of waste when refreshing my starter. I found that the ratio of new ingredients to old starter was important.

I would still like to reduce the amount of waste, so I have continued to experiment with ratios of old starter to new ingredients. I determined in the old post that 4 oz. of old starter added to 4 oz. of flour and 4 oz. of water (all measurements by weight) produced an energetically refreshed starter, but I only need 4 oz. for a new loaf of bread, leaving 4 oz. of waste in the next refresh.

I decided to try keeping the ratio of old starter:flour:water at 1:1:1, but using smaller amounts. My first reduced-waste experiment used 3 oz. quantities of each component. The start of the refresh looks like this:

Ten hours later it has grown to this:

It is a nice, healthy starter that went on to make a nice, healthy loaf of bread.

The following week, I took this experiment one step further by using 2 oz. of each ingredient. I don't have side views, but this experiment was also successful. At the start of the refresh, I had this:

That turned into this in 7-1/2 hours

That starter also produced a nice loaf of bread.

Now, I have a waste-free process. The 2+2+2 refresh leaves 6 oz. of starter, and I use 4 oz. for my bread. That leaves 2 oz. for my next refresh.

Whole Wheat Revisited

My whole wheat recipe had been giving me some disappointing results. Part of that was due to my sluggish starter. I also think that the amount of water that I was using was a little skimpy. My old recipe was

Whole Wheat, Take 6
Prepare sponge.  When it is ready, put these ingredients in the bread machine with the white flour going in last.  Add the sponge on top.
Water	4 oz.
Whole wheat flour	2 ¼ cups
White flour	1  cup
Vital Gluten	none
Salt	1 tsp
Oil	2 Tbl
Honey	¼ cup

My next attempt added 2 oz. more of water. I used the 4+4+4 starter refresh. That is take 4 oz. (all measurements by weight) of the old starter, add 4 oz. of white flour, and 4 oz. of water. I let that mature for 10-12 hours. I use the same formula to create the sponge, except that it uses 4 oz. of the newly refreshed starter. My sponge starts looking like this:

That was a 9PM. The next morning at 6AM the sponge has expanded nicely.

For my recipe, I've decided to measure my flour by weight for more consistent results. The recipe is now

Whole Wheat, Take 7
Prepare sponge.  When it is ready, put these ingredients in the bread machine with the white flour going in last.  Add the sponge on top.
Water	4 oz.
Whole wheat flour	10.5 oz.
White flour	5 oz.
Vital Gluten	none
Salt	1 tsp
Oil	2 Tbl
Honey	¼ cup

This mixture made a nice looking dough ball in the bread machine.

The completed loaf rose better than any whole wheat sourdough loaf to date. What can't be seen here is that the pompadour hair style that my rye loaves used to  exhibit has shown up in the whole wheat bread. I'll add some milk in place of some of the water next time.

As a bonus, it was delicious.