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Friday, October 28, 2011

Rye and wholewheat sourdough

Rye bread

    The starter hibernating in the fridge has begun to produce hooch, a yeast alcohol. It is a sign that food for the residing yeast is running low. And so a 4 day process began because it's feeding time for my starter and there's always excess after feeding. Without fail, the excess fed starter would become food for us instead.

    A forage at PH caused me to cart back 2 packs of rye flour, which will go with the fed starter. Hubby and girl2 love rye and it would be the most natural thing to bake them a rye loaf, in 4 days' time.

    Here goes :
    Ingredients :

    Water
    234g
    Sourdough starterq
    136 g
    Malt syrup
    3g
    Bread flour
    241g
    Rye flour
    54g
    Whole wheat flour
    54g
    Salt
    5g

    Day 1 :
    Bring the starter to room temperature, overnight.

    Day 2 :
    Feed the starter : 1 part sour, 2 parts water, 3 parts bread flour. Stir well.
    Cover. Leave to let yeast grow overnight.

    Day 3:
    Combine day 2's starter, water and malt. Mix to break up starter. 3 minutes.

    Add flours. Knead on low speed, 2 minutes. Dough is sticky but you should see gluten formation. Rest dough for 15 minutes.

    Add salt. Knead to incorporate salt. 2 minutes.

    Transfer dough to oiled bowl , cover and let ferment. Dough should almost double in bulk and springs back halfway with poked.  60 minutes.

    Transfer dough to floured worktop. Fold dough to thirds, like a letter. Rest 10 minutes.

    Flour well a cotton cloth. Transfer rested dough to cloth.

    Lift dough into a bread tray. Drape cloth over floured dough.

    Proof 60 minutes.

    Transfer dough to fridge, still in tray and cloth. Leave it overnight.

    Day 4 :
    Bring dough back to room temperature. 60 minutes.

    20 minutes before baking, transfer risen dough to baking tray. Remove cloth and proofing tin.

    Preheat oven to 250C, with a tray of water.

    Mist spray dough. Rest 5 minutes.

    With a very, very sharp knife, make a deep score on the dough. Mist spray again.

    Transfer to oven. Bake on 230C for 12 minutes.

    Remove water tray. Bake on 230 C for 18 minutes.

    Cool sourdough well before serving.

    Adapted from Eric Kastel's "Artisan Breads at Home" with the Culinary Inst. Of America

9 comments:

  1. All your breads look amazing! I enjoy reading your bread posts a lot. I used to have a starter but I kinda left it to die in the fridge - am still plucking my courage to start another one soon! Just a q though - is the malt syrup you refer to the same as diastatic malt? where can i get the malt syrup? thanks :D

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  2. Hi Janine, you right - it's diastatic malt. You can get from Phoon Huat for $1.20 or any old fashioned provision shops. If you wish, I can give you some of my starter. just give me a couple of days to warm and feed it ;-)

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  3. oh great thanks for the tip :D and wow thanks for the generosity!! i'm actually quite busy with exams now but I'd definitely love to have the starter in december when I've time to feed and take care of it. can i take you up on your offer then? :)

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  4. no problem at all. Offer's open. I'll be away from mid Dec. If you wish, you can get it from me anytime before I leave. Cheers!

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  5. This looks so good but sounds so difficult. I don't even know where to begin! Help!

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  6. Hi EVC,

    First of all, you have to grow some starter-takes about 10 days to do so.Resources such as wildyeastblog.com comes with pictures so you know what to expect.

    Sourdough starters can be cultivated with just flour+water but some kick start with culture living on raisins. Most people uses 100% hydration starter, which is equal parts of starter, flour for feeding,water.

    I use 1 part starter:2 parts water :3 parts flour - as described by Eric Kastel in his book.

    If it all seems tedious to you, I can spare you 10g of my own starter,which you can grow from there. All you need is lots of time to feed the tamaguchi and wait for them to grow/multiply.

    Let me know if you are interested. I can give you a short lesson on how to manage it - which is very easy - because this organisms are very very resilient.

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  7. Yes, they sound tedious and difficult for an extra virgin chef to kick start! I'm also away mid Dec onwards, off to Europe with the family.

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  8. Hi Experimental Cook,

    Do you know which specific Phoon Huat outlet or provision store sells malt syrup/barley malt syrup/diastatic malt powder? It is required for one of Reinhart's recipes.

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  9. I have seen it sold at the Bencoolen St and Clementi Branch. You can also get the same thing at old fashioned provision shop, medical hall and Shop N Save for almost the same price.

    ReplyDelete