Restocking The Wheat Berries

Rogue de Bordeaux recently came back into stock, so it was time for another order of wheat berries from Breadtopia. I ordered two bags of that variety because it has a wonderful rich smell and taste, a five pound bag wouldn’t last long.

Delivering a heavy package from Iowa to the Pacific Northwest — freight isn’t cheap. I used that as excuse to splurge on some of the not-inexpensive varieties such as the Kamut and the Durum. I’ve been meaning to bake this Whole Spelt Sourdough Bread from the Breadtopia site so Spelt went into the shopping cart as well.

Rounding out the order was a bag of Rye, a bag of Red Fife, and a bag of Yecora Rojo. All of that will join the Turkey Red, Sonora White, and other smaller quantities of berries already in the pantry. The weekly sandwich loaves are usually one of Red Fife / Yecora Rojo / Turkey Red / Rogue de Bordeaux, with the Yecora Rojo delivering the most consistently good results for a tightly crumbed and elastic slice of bread.

I’d love to be able to buy these closer to home, but the relatively local places don’t sell many varieties of berries, they mostly just sell flours. I’m little surprised they don’t also bag and distribute the berries, I’m assuming it’s a value-add thing for the mill.

This is the first post with the new laptop. This blog and the previous title (CheapSeatEats) have now seen at least two other laptops come and go, maybe three. There were a few new things to learn with handling and resizing photos but it’s really nice not having to wait for things to spin up so that I can get on with the writing. I’ll be interested to see what the photos look like when viewed from the web. I cropped to the same size as usual and it looks grainy in the preview, so that may need some attention later on.

I’ve also read that Kamut is super hard and may initially cause the Mockmill 200 to discharge some millstone into the flour. We’ll see how that goes.

Now to figure out where it’s all going to live in the pantry.

50/50 Pullman Loaf, A Recipe I’m Happy With

I’ve now reached a point with the weekly sandwich bread bake that I’m basically happy with it. I’m sure I’ll continue to fiddle with it to see how it reacts, but here’s where I’ve settled as a base recipe:

Ingredients

100g starter discard or overnight poolish (either of these are optional but they seem to improve the mouthfeel of the finished bread). The starter discard is 50g bread flour and 50g water. If using a poolish it will be 50g bread flour, 50g water, and a tiny tiny pinch of yeast.

200g Bread flour and 250g fresh-milled whole wheat flour (Red Fife, Turkey Red, or Rogue de Bordeaux berries), (In total it is 500g flour weight total including the starter/poolish).

325g cool water (with the 50 grams from the starter/poolish the total water is 375 total grams. 75% dough hydration).

15g honey (3% of flour weight)

15g olive oil (3% of flour weight)

10g kosher salt (2% of the flour weight)

1.5 tsp instant (not rapid-rise) yeast.

Process

Start by adding the 325 grams of cool water to the bowl of the stand mixer.

Scoop 100 grams of starter discard into the water.

Grind the wheat directly into the water/starter mixture. I feel like this helps keep the milled wheat temperature lower than it would be if I just milled it into an empty container. At the very least, it can’t hurt.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix for one minute to combine. Cover and let rest 20 minutes, up to an hour. Uncover and mix another 6 minutes.

Spray a pullman pan lightly with Baker’s Joy. (I’ve tried more than a few ways of attempting to prevent the baked loaf from sticking to the pan. Baker’s Joy has been by far the easiest and most consistent solution. If overused Baker’s Joy with give the crust a vaguely weird and sticky quality, so don’t go overboard with it.)

Transfer the dough to a pullman pan and spread out the dough with wet fingers. Cover, and let rise until 1/2″ to 1″ from the top of the pan. Preheat oven to 350F when the dough is getting close to ready.

Bake, covered for 30 minutes then remove the cover and bake for another 25 minutes or until the loaf reaches 195-205F.

I had been using powdered milk in the recipe, but it didn’t seem to be adding flavor. I thought it might also be contributing to the finished loaf being a little crumbly, since when used in moderation the powdered milk is supposed to help with loft. Simpler might be better here.

This recipe still technically functions as a same-day loaf, given I always have a starter in the refrigerator. The weekly sandwich bake then doubles as an opportunity to remember to refresh the starter. Win-win.

Happy baking

Pullman Pan 50/50 Sandwich Loaf, Sticking To The Side Of The Pan With Conviction

The last few loaves have wanted to stick to the sides of the loaf pan a little bit. This one took the sticking thing a little more seriously:

The pans themselves are no longer super duper new, and I haven’t been crazy fastidious about soaking the pans and cleaning out the old residue, so I probably deserved one that failed to release from the side. I did lightly oil the interior of the pan, but it may also need more oil than I’ve been using.

Another thing that might have contributed is the Red Fife flour combined with a longer bulk proof than usual — I let the bulk proof go a full two hours, followed by 45 minutes to an hour in the pan and the Red Fife might have started breaking down somewhat after that much time — I’ve read that Red Fife is prone to weakened gluten structure when given long proofing times. The crumb was more open than usual as well, which may be a sign of something, even if it’s just a looser crumb.

I’ve been experimenting with sometimes using Bread flour rather than AP flour and I’m leaning towards always using Bread flour going forward:

250g Bread flour and 250g fresh-milled whole wheat flour (Red Fife or Rogue de Bordeaux berries), (500g flour weight total). 375g water (75% hydration). 15g honey (3%), 15g olive oil (3%), and 15g (3%) powdered milk. 12g kosher salt (2.4% of the flour weight), 1.5 tsp instant (not rapid-rise) yeast.

Combine all ingredients. Knead on low speed for 8 minutes. (A prior hydration step is a potential and obvious improvement here.)

Cover and let rest one hour (two hours this time) for the dough to hydrate and proof.

Lightly oil the Pullman pan, pan lid, and a rubber spatula. Move the dough to the Pullman pan and spread it out with wet fingers or the spatula. Cover and let rise until 1/2″ from the top of the pan.

Bake at 350F, covered for 30 minutes then remove the cover and bake for another 25 minutes or until the loaf reaches 195-200F.

More edible mistakes. Happy Baking

Pullman Pan 50/50 Sandwich Loaf, the right grains make a big difference

I own Flour Lab by Adam Leonti. On page 71 he presents his Yeasted Loaf recipe, where he suggests a wheat variety: “I like Red Fife”.

At the start of this process I didn’t consult the book, I just picked a Hard Red Winter Wheat from the pantry (Turkey Red) and then adjusted the ratios of the ingredients bake by bake looking for the most suitable bread for sandwiches. No matter what adjustments I made the bread was still vaguely crumbly and lacked the gluten structure and springiness to be a good sandwich bread.

So I got what I deserved. It’s always the better idea to Stand On The Shoulders Of Giants, then riff from there. And I know that, usually.

The bread above is made with Red Fife. It works great as a sandwich bread, and it has a more interesting taste profile than Turkey Red. Rouge de Bordeaux works great too, and to my taste it’s even more intensely flavored, aromatic, and interesting than the Red Fife. Both the Red Fife and the Rouge de Bordeaux taste even better after a couple of days after baking, which may be true for all whole wheat breads. Leonti specifically states in a few places to let the finished bread rest until the next day prior to cutting into it.

The recipe this time is intended to be as quick and easy as possible. I’m sure it can be improved but I was initially curious to see what Red Fife would do with no other steps than would be used with a quick same-day loaf:

250g AP flour and 250g fresh-milled whole wheat flour (Red Fife or Rogue de Bordeaux berries), (500g flour weight total). 375g water (75% hydration). 15g honey (3%), 15g olive oil (3%), and 15g (3%) powdered milk. 12g kosher salt (2.4% of the flour weight), 1.5 tsp instant (not rapid-rise) yeast.

Combine all ingredients. Knead on low speed for 8 minutes. (A prior hydration step is a potential and obvious improvement here.)

Cover and let rest one hour for the dough to hydrate and proof.

Bake at 350F, covered for 30 minutes then remove the cover and bake for another 25 minutes or until the loaf reaches 195-200F.

Having poked around some bread forums, it seems I’m not alone in my experience that “Turkey Red Is Sort Of Crumbly And Maybe Not The Best Variety For Bread”. I’m not sure if I’m going to re-purchase it when I run out. For a Hard Red Winter Wheat it’s relatively neutral tasting, and I didn’t love the gluten structure. It may still be useful in situations where strong gluten or an assertive flavor is not desirable, so I’ll focus on using it other places before I make a final decision.

Happy baking

A “Sampler” Heirloom Wheat Loaf

We had company over last night for board games. I baked a loaf of heirloom wheats so that everyone could try and compare the varieties side by side:

(L-R) Red Fife, Rogue de Bordeaux, Turkey Red, Sonora White

I decided on a combination loaf because I thought that would be easy to bake into a reasonably good and consistent result and it would eliminate variables that could happen if I baked all four little breads individually. The sections tasted distinctive, which was my one concern going in.

I started by milling 150 grams of each wheat berry. (Each process repeats four times, once for each variety.) I then combined in a tupperware 100 grams of a flour variety with 100 grams of cold water and a faint pinch of yeast as a poolish. I put the “extra” 50 grams of flour into another tupperware. I refrigerated both overnight then pulled them out in the morning to warm up.

In the morning I added the reserved 50 grams of flour to the poolish along with 3 grams of kosher salt (2% salt as a percentage of flour weight) and 1/2 teaspoon of Instant (not Rapid-Rise) yeast. Mix all to combine thoroughly, cover, and let sit one hour. Form the doughs into oblong disks so that all four will fit side-by-side in a 9″ x 5″ baking pan. Cover. Let rise another 90 minutes, then bake at 450F for 30-35 minutes.

They were definitely distinctive. The Rougue de Bordeaux tastes of cinnamon and spices. The Red Fife is less spicy but also sweeter. The Turkey Red was described as “meaty” or “bold”. The Sonora White is mild by comparison and it’s really intended more for tortillas, but it was a good contrast to the other red wheats.

It was fun introducing people to bread like they’d never experienced. I think next time it’ll be four (or just two) full-sized loaves — two loaves would be way less fiddly and people could literally stick their nose in to smell the aromas.

Four New (Old) Heirloom Wheat Berries. And a Boule.

In April I purchased four varieties of heirloom wheat berries from Breadtopia: Turkey Red, Rouge de Bordeaux, Sonora White, and Red Fife. UPS caused a bit of a hang-up when they delivered to the wrong address, but the customer service at Breadtopia was top-notch in sorting it out. I’m a happy customer.

I’ve read through both of the books I purchased (Leonti’s Bread Lab and Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads), and I’ve baked a little bit out of both. I’m at the point now that I want to try things that aren’t huge departures from how I’ve been baking to see how the finished products compare. With that in mind, a boule with 50% fresh milled Rouge de Bordeaux and 50% King Arthur Bread Flour:

Another added variable is the new Le Crueset Bread Oven. I’ll likely do a review after a few more bakes but so far I think it’s going to get a lot of use in the future. It was a very thoughtful gift.

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