The Mile High City

After a chaotic spring and early summer, I'm back in Denver.  I'm still settling in, but I've got my kitchen mostly sorted out, and I'm back to bread baking!

The first bread I baked in my new kitchen was just a basic white bread out of The Joy of Cooking.  At that point, I hadn't yet gotten a sourdough starter going, and I didn't have a pizza stone to attempt anything tricky that needs a more stable oven temperature.  I was just craving something delicious and homemade, and even something easy and basic can scratch the itch in a pinch.

The first loaf of bread I baked in my new home

Eventually, I got my kitchen sorted out, including replacing my pizza stone and getting my new, Denver-native starter all bubbly and smelly.  I've just gotten to the sourdough section in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, so the first new bake I tried once I got my setup back together was Reinhardt's recipe for a simple, white sourdough.

The recipe calls for a pre-ferment stage, taking the starter from a very loose barm to a much firmer traditional starter stage before chilling overnight.  If you look closely, you might notice that the starter ball doesn't look like a pure white bread.  That's because the barm stage is made from a combination of rye and whole wheat flours.  The bran present in the whole wheat and dark rye flours provide an injection of natural yeasts (combined with whatever yeasts are present naturally in the environment) to get the starter going.  Natural yeasts are especially fond of rye flour, so I like to add some to my starter periodically (assuming I have any around).

The firm, traditional starter before its overnight chill

You can still see a hint of the whole grain flour in the dough in the photo of the dough in the banneton prior to turning out (below, left).  

The dough after turning out and immediately before
going into the oven.

Finished dough after rise and just prior to turning
out

I elected not to score the boule before it went into the oven to preserve the spiral pattern from the banneton.  I expected that there might be a crack, but the loaf rose a lot more in the oven that I had expected, so I ended up with more of a series of tears than a crack.  It looks artesian and authentic, which I do like, but I think in the future, I'll have to skip the spiral pattern and do a proper scoring.

And for sure I'll be making this recipe again.  It was a delicious loaf, and the sourdough flavor was tangy and delicious, despite the newness of the starter.  I'm curious how it'll taste with a more mature starter after the lactobacilli have had a little more time to multiply.

The crumb on the finished sourdough

In any case, I ended up with a crunchy exterior and a soft, open crumb.  It wasn't quite as aerated as a professional sourdough you might find from your local bakery.  I think I may have underworked the dough, so the gluten wasn't quite developed enough to form the long strands that give professional sourdough its internal structure.  While the dough passed the windowpane test, I'll have to remember that it needs more robust gluten when I try it again.

I've also taken my first crack at my usual 100% whole wheat sourdough that I've been making for years.  Working in the high desert requires more water in the dough due to the low humidity in the air, so my recipe has been re-balanced compared to how I used to make it in Brooklyn.  The higher water content tends to make it sticky and a little more difficult to knead during the initial preparation, but it also rises a little more readily because the dough is more slack.

My first attempt at my usual 100% whole wheat
sourdough in my new kitchen.

I've also found that kneading the dough at the time of first preparation and then letting the complete loaf ferment in the refrigerator overnight yields a tastier loaf than the original preparation, which called for an additional infusion of flour—followed by kneading—on the second morning.  By letting the finished dough ferment overnight, I can retain more of the fermentation gases in the dough when I reshape it prior to placing it in the proving basket.

You'll note the un-interrupted spiral pattern on the exterior of the finished sourdough.  Because the natural yeasts do not create as vigorous of a rise, the loaf is much less apt to split in the oven, so scoring the dough tends to be more artistic than essential for proper baking.  This may mean that I can let the dough rise more before placing it in the oven, and I confess that I often lose patience before the loaf has completely risen to fill the proving basket, which the sourdough did quickly.

I suspect that I can probably allow the loaf to rise longer, and I'll have to try getting up early one morning and seeing how far I can push the dough.  One reason that I always hesitate to let it go too far is prior experience with whole wheat loafs that have collapsed in the oven due to over-proving.

In any case, I think I've found my next project: How far can I push the whole wheat sourdough before it collapses in the oven?

Until next time, I remain your intrepid bread lover.  Ciao!

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