Experienced Bakers: Your Thought Here?

[Skip]

Thanks for the interesting posts. Fun to read for a early stage learner like me! Now to find some cracked wheat at our local Food Coop.

[Breadhead]

Skip ... if I were you I would make a few loaves of sourdough bread to learn the basic bread making techniques first. You can experiment with other types of bread like this later.👍

[Willy]

I'll let you know how it comes out in a few hours. BTW, the CW I found was sold as "hot cereal" (Bob's Red Mill) and it does not look "fine" to me, probably medium, maybe even coarse. I plowed ahead anyway. LOL Fools tread where...

[Skip]

I've been baking a couple times a week all winter long and have just recently started with sourdough. My starter is 2 weeks old now. I have baked with it 3-4 times now. Working well. I think bread baking is a fun challenge. Lots of things to read and learn. Dough is wonderful.

[Willy]

@Breadhead: I did pre-hydrate the CW (as I said I would in my last post above). I want to have an "exact" formula, which is why I am counting and measuring the CW hydration water. The ingredient amounts are guesses, but are based on the nutrition info on the bag, which lists ingredients by order of weight. The VWG is included because it is listed as an ingredient (well, "gluten" is listed). I'm guessing it helps hold the loaf together because of all the seeds and CW possibly interfering with gluten structure.

The loaf is autolysing--we shall see what happens. or or .

Also today, a loaf of SD on the BGE.

[Breadhead]

Willy ...

I agree maybe the VWG will strength the gluten structure. It will be an interesting loaf of bread. I can't wait to see how you like baking your bread in your BGE.

Here's a few pictures of my setup and the mixing bowl I use to capture the steam for the first half of the baking time. Remember top cap off.

[Willy]

SD in autolyse. Copycat loaf rising (pretty darned quickly). Time to fire up the Egg. I'd rather be early than late!

[MBMorgan]

Willy - how many grams of each CW, WW, and BF are you using today? Also, what is the acidity of your vinegar (I've been assuming 5%).

FWIW, your "Mad Scientist" experimental formula for DKBread seems to have triggered a hitherto unseen bug in the latest version of the Baker's Toolkit spreadsheet that I'm currently trying to find and fix.

EDIT: No Bug! ... the problem is in the formula's %CW, WWF, and BF (they add up to 150% which is impossible because you can never have any more or less than 100% "flour(s)" in a formula). If the CW is prehydrated, then it must be considered a neutral "adjunct" ingredient (not a flour) that does not contribute to dough hydration ... and any water remaining after pre-hydration must be poured off and either discarded or weighed if it is to be used in the dough. The actual amount of water used to calculate hydration is the total water weight minus however much is "lost" when pre-hydrating the CW.

Willy , when you've got a moment, could you let me know the exact weights of each ingredient and I'll plug them into the spreadsheet.

[Willy]

FWIW, I did make sure the flours summed to 100%, so the CW is 50% of the flour, not "1/3". I pre-hydrated it in half the water (250 g). I did end up adding 50 g more water to the dough--300 g total.

[MBMorgan]

Willy - so you prehydrated the CW, discarded any water that wasn't absorbed, then added a total of 300g of water to the dough mixture?

[MBMorgan]

Willy - also, did you weigh the seeds?

[Willy]

MBMorgan I dumped in all of the water that I used to pre-hydrate (PH) the CW--it was basically all absorbed by the CW anyway, then added the remaining 250 g of water to the entire mixture. It looked "dry" (stiff) after a few minutes of KitchenAid kneading, so I added 50 more grams of water. Next time, I will likely PH with only 200 g and add 300 g to the dough. I purposely omitted the seeds this time, the CW made it look "seedy" enough. LOL.

It is done. The loaf looks fine (baked in a 9 X 5 bread pan), the crumb looks good for a WW bread, but the interior is a tad gummy (also still warm). Taste is very good. I started (per Reinhart for another WW bread)) at 425°F, then immediately down to 350°F (again per Reinhart), did 20 minutes covered, rotated and did 20 more uncovered. The top was not too brown, but I took it out anyway. It did "thump" nicely. Next time, I'd give it five more minutes and delete the extra 50 g of H2O (from the PH, not the final dough--500 g total). My CW is clearly MUCH coarser than the DKB.

Pics later.

[MBMorgan]

Willy - I did my best to represent what you did today in the Baker's Toolkit Spreadsheet:



Based on what you said you want to change (and on how I think that pesky pre-hydrated CW should be dealt with), here's the spreadsheet view of the next run:





All in all, I'd say your first attempt was pretty darn successful. I'll probably make an attempt of my own one of these days soon!

[Willy]

As promised, pics (plus first loaf off BGE)




:

[MBMorgan]

Someone had a good day ... congrats on both!

[Willy]

More comments:

I barely escaped by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin on the BGE SD loaf. I started the fire too early (being new to this and not wanting an over-proofed loaf while waiting for the Egg to come to temp) and, apparently, JUST at the time the SD loaf went on, the lump ran out. Luckily the heat stayed high enough, dropping slowly all the time) to finish the loaf, but barely.

I definitely didn't cook the copycat loaf long enough, but it turned out OK. Next time a five minute longer bake (maybe even more) AND 50 grams less of total water. I'd search out finely ground CW, maybe reduced to 40%, and add the seed mix-maybe 1/3 cup. By volume, the sugar looked to be about 2 T and the molasses, 1 T and it wasn't too sweet.

Overall, I am pleased, especially since the copycat recipe was "invented" from scratch.

I am Wom..., er, Baker (sorry @Huskee), hear me roar!

[RonB]

Congrats on a successful bake Willy. The bread looks great with a nice crumb. Since it didn't get dark, you can easily add more time.

[Willy]

Yeah. I just have no experience with WW breads or with loaves cooked in a pan, so I went with time (which was a SWAG anyway) instead of appearance.

[Breadhead]

Willy ... if you're not sure if your bread is done in the middle of the crumb yet, use your Thermapen. You want your bread to be at least 200° or up to 205°.

[Willy]

MBMorgan Checking out the spreadsheet, I'd say it's all good except for (maybe my fault/lack of understanding) the cracked wheat and water parts. The CW was hydrated 100% (250 g each of CW and water, so the weight is 500 g of "adjunct") and all of that water went to hydration--none of it was left in the bowl. It seems important to me to note the weight of the hydrating water. Also, the 300 g addition of water was 250 g plus 50 extra (so, 120%--goofy, I know), which I wouldn't do again. I'd just PH the CW at 80%, or 200 g) and go back to 250 g of water instead of 250+50 when making the dough--so then water is at 100%. As you indicated, the vinegar and seeds were omitted and I would use both next time. I'll provide a weight or volume for the seeds when I do that.

[MBMorgan]

Thanks, Willy ... I've put the spreadsheet to bed for the night ... I'll have another look tomorrow.

[Breadhead]

Willy ... nice first Bread cook in your BGE.👍 It looks like your boule got a nice rise. Your knock off loaf looks good too.

I always start with a full firebox on every cook. When I bake lots of bread or pizza I keep my heat deflector handle nearby incase I need to add more lump.

[Willy]

I was surprised the lump- was gone--I did start with a full load--but I guess 3.5 or so hours at 500°F will do that. LOL

[Breadhead]

Yes... that's about the limit at 500°. Wait until you do Neapolitan Pizza at 800°.🙈 Good thing it only takes about 90 seconds to bake pizza at that temperature.👍

[MBMorgan]

MBMorgan Checking out the spreadsheet, I'd say it's all good except for (maybe my fault/lack of understanding) the cracked wheat and water parts. The CW was hydrated 100% (250 g each of CW and water, so the weight is 500 g of "adjunct") and all of that water went to hydration--none of it was left in the bowl. It seems important to me to note the weight of the hydrating water. Also, the 300 g addition of water was 250 g plus 50 extra (so, 120%--goofy, I know), which I wouldn't do again. I'd just PH the CW at 80%, or 200 g) and go back to 250 g of water instead of 250+50 when making the dough--so then water is at 100%. As you indicated, the vinegar and seeds were omitted and I would use both next time. I'll provide a weight or volume for the seeds when I do that.

Hey, Willy ... I've corrected the spreadsheet to account for the weight of water absorbed by the CW (thanks for pointing that out):



I've also done a bit of thinking about how to tweak things for a next attempt. Bottom line is that I found that CW and WWF are exactly the same thing ... just milled to different sizes. The following spreadsheet has all the details of simply treating CW as a normal dry flour ingredient. Check the Notes for specifics:

[Willy]

I'm doing another loaf today--I'll let you know what happens.

[Willy]

Here’s my second crack at the Dave’s Killer Bread Good Seed copycat:

Cracked Wheat 250 g (I sent it for a whirl in a FP, but it didn’t get much finer)
Whole Wheat Flour 250 g
Water 500 g
Bread Flour 250 g
Mixed Seeds 60 g (flax, ground flax, sesame, sunflower)
Sugar 30 g
VWG 20 g
Molasses 20 g
Instant yeast 1 pkt
Salt 1 tablespoon (fine sea salt)
Vinegar 5 g

Soak the CW overnight in 200 g water. Autolyse the following: hydrated CW, WWF, BF, and remaining 300 g water for about 20 minutes (shaggy mass). During autolyze, also soak VWG, sugar, yeast, and molasses in a separate container (maybe unnecessary—could be in the flour). Add this to autolyzed flours with the vinegar and salt and mix until well combined. I used the KA mixer, but this will NOT work for kneading. Knead by hand for several minutes. The dough is tacky and quite stiff, but not at all sticky. The coarseness of the mixture will not allow an indication of passing the window pane test, so knead (basically stretch and folds) until it "resists" stretching a "lot", maybe 5 minutes. To test this, I roll it into a log about 2.5” in diameter and "stretch" the log. If the log retracts due to gluten "pull", it seems that is adequate. (It’s a touchy-feely thing”—lol). Allow to rise (covered) until about 175% of its original bulk—not quite doubled. Form into a rectangle that will fit a 5” X 9” loaf pan. The dough should fill the pan to roughly ¾ of its height. Cover and let rise until the top exceeds to pan by about 1.5 inches.

Bake in a preheated oven set to 425°F. I sprayed the top of the loaf with water, placed the pan on a preheated stone and put a cover over the pan. Immediately reduce heat to 350°F. After 20 minutes, remove cover, rotate loaf and bake for about another 50 minutes until IT is about 200°F. Remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack.

This loaf was much better than trial one (hey, it baked for 30 minutes longer). In a side by side visual and taste test with Dave’s Killer Bread, several things jump out. First, Dave’s doesn’t have as much molasses (lighter crumb color). Second, Dave’s is MUCH sweeter—no wonder it tastes so good!—lol. Third, Dave’s has a bit looser of a crumb.

I LIKE my version (great toast, too), though it still needs tweaking. I will not be attempting to sweeten it anymore and I am disappointed to realize how much sugar Dave’s must contain. I hope some of you will try this and improve on it.

[RonB]

Congrats on figuring it out. I am very happy for you. If you want to bump the sweetness a bit, try adding some honey. That will and some sweetness as well as another flavor. Or cut back on the molasses for a lighter color and add some honey for sweetness.