Taming the wild yeast

I've got a new creature in the kitchen that I'm caring for these days. It's a sourdough that I cultivated from the naturally occurring yeasts which are found on organic wheat berries. I've tried a few different starters over the years, but they either failed to start or I neglected them beyond all recovery. Not long ago, I found an article about starting a wild yeast sourdough using pineapple juice. It just so happened that in the fridge I had a jar of pineapple juice from a can of pineapple pieces I'd used for something else and of course, I always have fresh-ground organic hard wheat available (thanks to this). Apparently, the acidity of the juice causes the pH to be just right for the wild yeasts to grow without being overrun by bacteria. It works.

Since my sourdough is only a baby yet, I've been making bread with unbleached flour. My starter is 100% whole wheat so the loaves are 25% whole wheat/75% white. I use a recipe I found here, and it is wonderful. It is a no-knead/ dutch oven recipe and it has an interesting twist to the dutch oven technique. Instead of preheating the pot and then putting the proofed dough in, it suggests proofing the dough in the pot and placing it in a cold oven with no preheating. The next time I try that (when I recover from the clean-up of my first attempt) I will use shortening and cornmeal, rather than just some flour as I have always done. Meanwhile, until I acquire some Crisco (I never thought I'd ever say that) I will continue braving the hot oven and pot technique that has always worked so well. 

When I work up the courage, I will try baking Desem bread, from the Laurel's Bread Book, which I  attempted a long time ago and hadn't thought I'd try again, until I read this post. First though, I'm going to let my sourdough grow up.

Not your run-of-the-mill mill

I'm really excited about my new KoMo Fidibus Medium grain mill.  KoMo is a German/Austrian company which manufactures synthetic  stone mills and flakers. This mill is obviously designed to last for decades. Not only does it grind stuff really well, but it's a very handsome object.

I used a Family Grain Mill attachment for my KitchenAid mixer for years, which certainly does a decent job, but makes a lot of noise and a certain amount of mess in the process. Also, it wreaks havoc on mixer gears, which makes it kind of pricey to operate over time.

But back to the Fidubus... I've had it for almost a week now and I've milled quite a lot of wheat and some oats. The mill is capable of grinding from a very fine to very coarse texture. I baked muffins, bread and cornbread, and cooked cracked oat porridge. Everything turned out wonderfully except for my easiest, tastiest, 100% whole wheat, no knead bread ever recipe. Several loaves of that came out as complete bricks. I made some basic whole wheat bread from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book to check that my wheat wasn't the problem and it turned out perfectly. I did observe that the dough made from freshly ground wheat seemed to ferment way more than the commercial flour did. It was more like a sourdough starter than bread dough. My theory is that the flour from the mill is so fresh and contains all of the germ and bran as well as no additional conditioners, so it is just a little too lively to let to its own devices overnight. The resulting loaves were tasty but dense (I think I detected a small gravitational pull from one). I am not blaming the Fidibus, nor have I completely given up experimenting with the recipe.

Here it is in action:

Slow Rise Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread (easiest, tastiest, 100% whole wheat, no knead bread ever)

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You really shouldn't cut into the bread when it is still warm and eat it with jam and butter. That's what I tell my family, anyway.

For some reason, I haven't blogged much on bread, even though I am quite a bread nerd. I grind my own flour, though not so much recently, as I have ground through two sets of gears on my Kitchen Aid stand mixer and I decided to stop before I did the same to my mother's. I am currently waiting by the mailbox for my brand new German Komo Fidibus Medium grain mill, which I have every expectation will outlast me, but more on the new mill later.

As you may have figured out, I love whole wheat bread. And by whole wheat, I mean 100% whole wheat, no white flour and no added gluten flour. I have practically memorized The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, and have made hundreds of loaves following her recipes. I've mostly had great success by paying attention to the dough: temperature, texture, proofing, kneading and shaping as she describes. For a treat, I also like baking the white New York Times No Knead Bread in a dutch oven. It makes the best crusty loaf you'll find anywhere - and it's pretty simple.

I didn't think it was possible to make a simple, no knead 100% whole wheat bread. I was wrong, and it's even simpler than the NYT bread. I have to give inspiration credit to Real Whole Wheat Bread by Mark Bittman in The Food Matters Cookbook, but in a 4 ingredient recipe, when you change 3 quantities and the baking instructions, I think you can claim a bit of credit for yourself. I've been baking this with commercial whole wheat flour (Canadian, which I believe is made from harder wheat on average than American. I think you're ok if you use whole wheat bread flour in the US, but what do I know - Mark Bittman doesn't specify in his recipe) and the results are very good. I can't wait to try it out with my home ground organic hard wheat. This loaf is not a super-light high wonderbread-wannabe, but it has a moist, not too dense crumb and chewy crust, which is perfect for substantial sandwiches and toast. The long rise gives it a great depth of flavour that not even my Laurel's Kitchen loaves match.

Slow Rise Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

3 cups (450 grams) whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups water

1. Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add water and stir. Dough should resemble a muffin batter: add more water if necessary.

2. Cover bowl and let sit for 12 - 18 hours. This is pretty flexible. You should see some bubbles on the surface and these will appear earlier if the room is warmer, later if the room is colder.

The loaf, ready to bake.

3. Oil an 8 x 4 loaf pan and scoop the dough in with a spatula. Smooth the top. Cover with a damp tea towel and let rise for 1 - 2 hours until the dough almost reaches the top of the pan.

4. About half an hour before the dough is completely risen, preheat the oven to 375F.

5. Bake the loaf for 50 minutes, or until it sounds hollow when thumped. Remove from pan and cool on a rack.

Notes: This differs from Mark Bittman's version in that I use less yeast and salt, but I haven't found any difference in the dough development. His calls for 2 teaspoons of salt, which is way more than most bread recipes. I use a bit more water than he calls for, though the consistency of the dough is batter-like as he describes. Mark Bittman calls for a 9 x 5 loaf pan but I use the smaller 8 x 4. I've always used the smaller loaf pan for whole wheat bread. I bake mine at a slightly higher temperature and for 5 minutes longer than he does, maybe because I've got more water, but at the internal temperature he recommends (200F), it wasn't baked enough.

Dough!

It may come as a shock that I am not a hand bread kneader. I rely on my 10 year old stand mixer, which also drives my grain grinder and flaker. A month ago, the mixer started making crunchy noises and shortly after quit altogether. I brought it to the appliance repair shop where it was diagnosed with bad gears. I happily had the repair done given the alternative of chucking it in the garbage. Yesterday was the big day when I somewhat less happily paid the hundred and fifty bucks to retrieve the mixer. Last night I cracked some oats for porridge and I was thrilled to have the mixer back. This morning, while trying to grind some wheat for bread, I got 10 seconds of joy until the mixer made a horrible noise and stopped grinding....gears obviously gone bad.

Sigh. The good news is that there's a 90 day parts and labour warranty on the repair. And hand kneading isn't so bad.

Bread labour

A confession: I'm a bread nerd. I grind my own organic flour and bake bread. But I don't do it nearly often enough, and I haven't figured out how to bake it in the wood cookstove. I have an outdoor bread oven fantasy fuelled by books like Build Your Own Earth Oven and The Bread Builders. I'm putting it on the list, but we may not get to it for a while.