mongrel spelt, mega stout & a video

ok, so, this post is about: a 25 hour(!) final fermentation, increased hydration in relation to achieving ridiculous ears, and scoring. lots of people have been emailing me about how to score the spiral -  remember in my last post, i declared that one must hold the razor blade horizontal to the loaf, and i always score deeply, going over the slash twice with the razor blade. well, i decided to try my hand  at making a video of my spiral scoring... of course, you all know how i love superfluity, so i ended up making two...

some of you have sent in pictures of your spirals, hooray! i've made a scrapbook of them below. thank you for sharing, it always makes my day.

so, my guinea pigs for this enhanced hydration/extended final ferment were a stout dough using all stout, no water. i realize that i'm flogging a stout horse here, given my last stout bread, but i wanted to share what a full stout loaf was like, in case you wanted to dump a whole can of guinness in your next bread. and a dough using a mongrel assortment of spelt flours - 167g white spelt, 83g light spelt and 250g KA bread flour - because i had a few grams of this and a few grams of that...

i firmly believe that whilst pleasurable, sure, baking must also be a thrifty pursuit. you can shell out some serious dough for flour, and i don't know about you, but i bake bread because it's economical. i can't afford to spend six or seven bucks for a loaf of bread from a great bakery. just so you can see how cheap it is to make your own bread, i did some math and calculated that a loaf of my 'city bread, in rye' (which i make most often here), which uses 90g BRM organic rye flour and 410g of KA bread flour comes out to $1.40 a loaf! and the loaves that we make at home are MUCH larger than the loaves that you buy from a bakery.

so, if you have a little of this and a little of that, why not make a mongrel bread rather than letting the flour go stale?

mongrel bread, in spelt

increased hydration does not allow for the same intense ears of my other loaves, as you can see. just a comparison, the hydration in the stout bread is 80.3% and the mongrel bread is about 77.8%; and my breads usually weigh in at about 72% hydration. so, the small increase in hydration does affect your scoring. but, i'm not complaining.

mega stout

the thing that i noticed about using beer in place of water is that it seems to tighten the dough. it makes sense, since beer is obviously more viscous than water, so i think that your breads will call for a higher hydration in view of this. i must say, the last demi-stout that i experimented with was pretty awesome, but if you're going to make a beer bread, you may as well make one that tastes fully of beer, unless you are using a very bitter IPA and want to temper its bite. i would say, after this experiment, that you can safely replace all of the water with beer in your bread, especially if you are using sweeter brews. have a look at my friend bernd's beer post over at bernd's bakery. if you don't already know his blog, you definitely should. he makes some of the finest loaves on the net with instructions in english and german to boot!

without further delay, here is your mongrel spelt, your mega stout, and your superfluous videos.

MEGA STOUT

mega stout with toasted hazelnuts

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE DOUGH

Make your levain:

50g 100% rye, 100% hydration starter
100g BRM dark rye
100g cold stout

mix the above and let ferment. mine fermented for 8 hours.

DOUGH DAY

250g levain
377g stout, i used 'boatswain' chocolate stout, you might try guinness or another brand
90g BRM dark rye flour
410g KA organic bread flour
12g kosher salt
150g toasted hazelnuts

mix all of the ingredients above MINUS the salt and the hazelnuts, until you reach a shaggy mass. autolyse for one hour.

after the autolyse, add the 12g of salt. squish the salt and water into the dough until fully amalgamated. now fold in the hazelnuts.

over the next 4 hours, your bulk fermentation takes place. for the first two hours of the bulk fermentation, perform a series of turns every half hour for a total of four series of turns. refrigerate the dough for the last two hours, unmolested.

after the bulk ferment, turn the dough out onto a workspace that has been dusted with organic brown rice flour. i use BRM. rest the dough for 15 minutes, then flip it over onto a CLEAN part of the workspace and form into a boule (the clean workspace creates friction under the dough, helping to make a nice, tight boule).

pop the dough into a linen-lined bowl that has been dusted with brown rice flour. cover, and refrigerate for 25 hours...

MONGREL SPELT

mongrel spelt

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE DOUGH

Make your levain:

50g 100% rye, 100% hydration starter

100g BRM dark rye

100g cold filtered h2o

mix the above and let ferment. mine fermented for 8 hours.

DOUGH DAY

250g levain

360g cold filtered h20

167g vitaspelt organic white spelt flour

83g BRM light spelt flour

250g KA organic bread flour

12g kosher salt

mix all of the ingredients above MINUS the salt until you reach a shaggy mass. autolyse for one hour.

after the autolyse, add the 12g of salt. squish the salt and water into the dough until fully amalgamated.

over the next 4 hours, your bulk fermentation takes place. for the first two hours of the bulk fermentation, perform a series of turns every half hour for a total of four series of turns. refrigerate the dough for the last two hours, unmolested.

after the bulk ferment, turn the dough out onto a workspace that has been dusted with organic brown rice flour. i use BRM. rest the dough for 15 minutes, then flip it over onto a CLEAN part of the workspace and form into a boule (the clean workspace creates friction under the dough, helping to make a nice, tight boule).

pop the dough into a linen-lined bowl that has been dusted with brown rice flour. cover, and refrigerate for 25 hours...

BAKE DAY

one hour before you plan to bake, preheat the oven to 550 degrees outfitted with both halves of 2 cast iron combo cookers and a baking stone.

after the FULL hour of preheating, pull the dough out of the fridge, fit a piece of parchment over the mouth of it, place a peel on top, and flip the bowl over so that the dough lands on the parchment over the peel. score the dough in some unique fashion, making sure to go over it twice with the razor, and deeply to boot. check out the video on how i make the spiral:

TAKE ONE...