10 Grain Sourdough Bread

This is so exciting….I’ve been grinding the whole grain flour I use in my bread making for 2 years using my Krups coffee grinder.  Lucy, my 4 legged baking apprentice and I actually burned one up….. and the 2nd one was on its last leg.  Then a miracle happened and I received a Wonder Mill for the Grain Mill Challenge.

We love this mill.   It grinds whole grain berries in to flour perfectly.  I’ve used it for;  breads, pie crusts, pastries, calzone dough,  pancakes, cookies, cakes….so far it has been a dream come true and perfect for anyone who loves to bake, use freshly ground and whole grain flour in their baking.

Our first test for the mill was a 10 grain bread that was 50% whole grains,  The Whole grains used were; Romona Pima Club, Hayden Mills Farro (Emmer), spelt, rye, barley, oat, Kamut, einkorn, Hayden Mills Desert Durum. amd Ramona White Sonoran.  We had a lot of Ancient grains and those recently saved from extinction that were used for our German Bread  Olympics entry for – Plotzaide 2.  The mill buzzed right through then  – no worries and when we sifted to get the hard bits out to feed to the starter to make the SD levain – we got a perfect 85% extraction for the dough flour and 15% hard bits or the levain.

The 3 stage SD levain build was begun on Wednesday and it was refrigerated for 24 hours after the 3rd stage had risen 25%.  On Thursday late, we mixed up the dough flour and water and allowed it to autolyse for 2 hours before adding the warmed up levain and salt to the mix.  After 3 sets of slap and folds and 3 stets for stretch and folds all done on 20 minute intervals we then let it bulk ferment in the the fridge overnight for 12 hours.

We then let the dough warm up on the counter for 2 hours before we  preshaped and then final shaped the dough into a boule and put it in a bran floured basket to final proof on teh counter for 2 hours.  The levain was less than 10% of the total flour and water amounts and the hydration ended up at 78% – not too high for this much whole grain in the mix.   It proved to 90 % and was ready for the oven.

We baked it at 525 F on the bottom of two baking stones with steam supplied by 2 of Sylvia’s steams pans half full of water with a rolled up kitchen towel inside and another pan half full of water and the bottom covered in lava rocks.   We love the Mega Steam this produces.  After 2 minutes we turned the oven down to 475 F and at the 15 minute mark the steam came out.  The oven was then turned down to 425 F convection this time to dry out and brown the bread.  In another 12 minutes the bread hit 205 F on the inside when we turned off the heat and left the bread on the stone with the oven door ajar for another 5 minutes – to really crisp up the skin.

Despite our efforts, the crust did go soft as it cooled and the crumb wasn’t as open as we would have liked but the best pat of this bread is the taste.  It is complex, full grain flavored, earthy and medium sour  It made a fine bread for luch surrounding pate maison forthe filling.  Here is the formula.

Happy Milling and Baking