Not-so-simple bread (alternative grains)

[Octave]

Alright bread people of VSalon, who is baking with anything other than standard wheat?

We've recently started replacing 5% at a time of our standard sourdough loaf with spelt flour and it's been excellent. The loaf baked this morning was 20% spelt (T130) with 80% wheat (T110) and it hasn't seemed to impact the density or crumb much but has imbued a heck of a lot of flavor.

I know there are two schools of thought on this, health and flavor. Traditionally, alternative and whole grains have been added by health-people with the approach of: how much can I stick in here before it becomes a brick? Then, you've got Chad Robertson et al who've been far more interested in flavor/texture than health, so the quantities added tend to be smaller and the techniques more varied (see porridge breads and toasted/sprouted grains for more on that). Personally I don't eat bread because it's healthy, I eat it because it's delicious (and a convenient vehicle for other delicious things).

So what else have y'all played with?

[dgaddis]

Alright bread people of VSalon, who is baking with anything other than standard wheat?

We've recently started replacing 5% at a time of our standard sourdough loaf with spelt flour and it's been excellent. The loaf baked this morning was 20% spelt (T130) with 80% wheat (T110) and it hasn't seemed to impact the density or crumb much but has imbued a heck of a lot of flavor.

I know there are two schools of thought on this, health and flavor. Traditionally, alternative and whole grains have been added by health-people with the approach of: how much can I stick in here before it becomes a brick? Then, you've got Chad Robertson et al who've been far more interested in flavor/texture than health, so the quantities added tend to be smaller and the techniques more varied (see porridge breads and toasted/sprouted grains for more on that). Personally I don't eat bread because it's healthy, I eat it because it's delicious (and a convenient vehicle for other delicious things).

So what else have y'all played with?

I've not tried spelt yet, but I know it's popular. I need to try it, I'm all about flavor!

About as adventurous as I've gotten so far is walnut cranberry bread.

[Octave]

That walnut/cranberry bread looks great! Care to share the recipe?

Spelt is excellent. It also makes for a really nice crust. Since it's glutenous it doesn't seem to change the bake too much. For what it's worth, we're using "petite épeautre" (literally, little spelt) and it's very unrefined (T130). Not sure what is available around you but here they differentiate between "grande épeautre" and "petite." We recently picked up some spelt berries too, and are going to try soaking/sprouting them to add to the next bake. I'll let you know how it goes. Since it's a type of wheat it appears that our standard wheat sourdough levain works just fine (it gets fed with T110 whole wheat). One curiosity I have is whether or not we would need to adjust our levain/starter if we moved to a loaf that uses primarily non-wheat.

[dgaddis]

That walnut/cranberry bread looks great! Care to share the recipe?

Spelt is excellent. It also makes for a really nice crust. Since it's glutenous it doesn't seem to change the bake too much. For what it's worth, we're using "petite épeautre" (literally, little spelt) and it's very unrefined (T130). Not sure what is available around you but here they differentiate between "grande épeautre" and "petite." We recently picked up some spelt berries too, and are going to try soaking/sprouting them to add to the next bake. I'll let you know how it goes. Since it's a type of wheat it appears that our standard wheat sourdough levain works just fine (it gets fed with T110 whole wheat). One curiosity I have is whether or not we would need to adjust our levain/starter if we moved to a loaf that uses primarily non-wheat.

It's a simple sourdough with just walnuts and dried cranberries added to the mix. Specifically ::

700g total flour, 65% hydration, 65g of chopped walnuts, 65g of dried cranberries. ~8hrs bulk rise, overnight (or two or three) retard in the fridge. Baked in a bread tin simply for the shape and easier to make more consistent slices....adjust size to meet your tin size.

EDIT to add - baked uncovered, but with a pot of boiling water in the oven the first 20mins of the bake. Wet the top of the dough right before you put it in the oven to get the little bubbles on the top ::

[Octave]

A brief update:

1. Slowly upping the spelt content we've settled on 50/50 T65 wheat and T160 (truly whole grain) spelt. Above that with the T160 and you have a very dense crumb.

2. We switched to a proper cloth-lined proofing basket a touch over a month ago (for reference we bake twice per week, so that's about 10 loaves in it) and a) we love it and b) have been dusting it with wheat germ and flour rather than just straight flour. The wheat germ adds a really nice, nutty taste and makes for a great crust.

3. We've also been adding whole spelt berries in increasing proportions until it weighed down the loaf too much. For our standard loaf (500g total flour, to give you a size idea) we settled on 30g (dry weight) berries which go on the hob for 30min at a low simmer. Cool them off spread out on a silpat before adding to the initial mix. Great texture addition and makes for a very satisfying slice of bread in the morning.

[guido]

No pictures, it didn't happen... :-)

[Octave]

Well, excuse the awful quality of my phone camera..

Here's a crumb shot from the above 50/50 wheat T65 and spelt T160. You can see some spelt berries in there and the crust, the most important part, is nicely browned with a light germ dusting. Just about the crumb I'd expect from such heavy flours and the cooked whole grains
IMG_20190321_054712.jpg

Then here is a fresh out of the oven shot of last night's rye. Now using 60/40 T130 rye and T85 wheat, this is about 50g of malt syrup for the attempt at latvian black bread but still not there. Nice solid rye though. 6g caraway and 4g fenouil seeds per loaf. 22hr cold ferment.

IMG_20190327_203042.jpg

PS this moule a pain (loaf-tin) is amazing. a sliding top that can be removed easily mid-bake, makes a damn even cook.

[guido]

Fine looking loaves! I'll bet they makes great toast...

[Cookietruck]

PS this moule a pain (loaf-tin) is amazing. a sliding top that can be removed easily mid-bake, makes a damn even cook.

oh la la, that's exactly what i need..

[Octave]

Here's the one we have. No idea if this shop ships outside of Europe but at least it's a lead.

The upside is that it perfectly traps the steam to make a really nice, even cook. My only complaint is that the material (exoglass, which feels somewhere between tin and plastic in the hand but can be put in >250C ovens..) doesn't hold heat very well so the whole pre-heating the vessel thing doesn't work. Honestly it's cool to the touch about 2min out of a 220C oven.