10% Barley Loaf

10% Barley Loaf

The last time I tried a barley loaf, I went way too heavy on the barley, and ended up with a brick.  During my research following that disaster, I discovered that some experts who have studied loaves and how they are perceived advise no more than 10% barley flour in a bread.

So here, I'm trying a barley loaf again, this time only using 10% barley (100g).  The question for me here is: is that enough to make a noticeable difference in the taste/formation/healthiness of my bread?

My barley flour was set overnight in 100g of water, so it is basically extra leaven for the loaf (or if you like, you can consider it a pre-ferment).  I did not cut back on the amount of whole wheat starter, so the total of starter for this loaf was 400g.

I did, however, cut back on the amount of hydration I used, the next morning when I was mixing my dough.  Here, I used only 600g in the beginning, and an extra 50g when adding the salt.  So the total hydration, including what was in the barley leaven, remains at 75% (and as usual, we aren't including the water from the whole wheat starter in that amount, as per the Tartine method).

two starters

ready to proof

my loaves taking a backseat to my wife's apple crumble cake

To be clear, here is the list of ingredients for this loaf:

    •    Whole wheat sourdough or wild yeast starter at 100% hydration: 200g
    •    Whole wheat flour: 900g
    •    Whole barley sourdough or wild yeast starter at 100% hydration: 200g
    •    Salt: 20g
    •    Water: 600g + 50g
    •    Whole barley seed, freshly ground into flour/cracked barley for sprinkling: 1/4 cup

The dough felt good when folding it in the bowl, the barley didn't seem to affect the gluten formation.  It baked nicely, and had a nice spring to it in the dutch oven.  The dough was not so sloppy that it did not retain its shape.

As usual, I gave away one of these breads.

Results
The crust was not thick, but more tender than the typical 100% whole wheat sourdough I have been baking. 

The taste was milder than 100% whole wheat, with less bitterness, perhaps because slightly less wheat got roasted.  The cracked barley on top of the loaf mostly falls off when you slice the loaf, but it may have protected the outer crust when baking so that there are less bitter notes.  Some survives during chewing, and gives the crust a nutty texture without much extra taste.

The interior crumb is slightly irregular, as many sourdough loaves can be.  The taste is different enough from whole wheat to make a marked change, even at 10%.  It is as if the barley has tempered the whole wheat slightly.  In short, this whole-wheat barley-bread "alloy" is certainly worth making, even at such a low rate of inclusion.

Notes to Myself

• What if you pre-ferment the cracked barley and include it in the dough?
• Would you have achieved as nice a loaf if the barley flour wasn't pre-fermented?

How is that Spelt?

Spelt Loaves

I like the subtle taste of bread made with spelt, but I have a lot of questions about how to make a good spelt bread.

Here I made a couple of mostly spelt loaves, to use up the wholegrain spelt flour I had on hand.  I had 679g of spelt, so added 321g of ww to bring the total to 1000g.  With my ww sourdough starter of 200g, I began making this bread in the Tartine style, with a 75% hydration.  I found that the large amount of spelt in the dough caused it to rip while stretching, even though the dough seemed overly sloppy and wet.

There is gluten in spelt, an ancient grain that is some consider one of the ancestors of wheat, but spelt flour is different in feel to wheat flour.  The bonds of the gluten are not as strong, so the dough cannot be mixed or handled the same way.  Some confusion exists, because spelt has higher protein, but less gluten (which is also protein), than our typical bread wheat.

While Germany grows quite a lot of spelt (dinkel or Triticum spelt) for human consumption, the rest of the world does not.  And this is partly because spelt's kernels are harder to clean: they do not fall out of their husk as easily as wheat.  I can find spelt here in Canada, and it is becoming a bit more popular, but it remains expensive (I suppose because it must be cleaned well, and demand for it isn't yet large).  And we have to admit that wheat is more versatile due to its stronger gluten.  Still, we find some people who cannot tolerate wheat can tolerate spelt, and this alone is increasing spelt's popularity.

As for baking with spelt, some books (e.g. Nils Schöner's "Brot") will say that spelt soaks up more water, so you had better hydrate it more;

"Make a wet dough. Because spelt has high water retention, it is recommended to use hydrations greater than 70%."  

Other books (e.g. Paula Figoni's "How Baking Works") say just the opposite:  

"Spelt has a lower water absorption value than wheat, so less water is needed when forming batters and doughs."  

My (small) experience here with a spelt and ww mixture and a ww sourdough starter, is that Figoni is right; but Nils also suggests that some fat be added to a spelt dough (either butter or lard), and that trick might allow for a greater hydration, which he claims is necessary for spelt because it bakes to a dry crumb.

A CT Scan of this bread would reveal a vast sulcus or fistula
where the dough flopped over on itself and the outside became the inside.

yuck

I had trouble with this loaf at this hydration.  First of all, I used the wrong flour in my banneton, all-purpose flour is not good for this purpose, but I used it because it was at hand.  The overly sticky dough stuck to the banneton when it was time to go into the dutch oven, and so the boule flipped over on itself.  It is supposed to be a boule, but turned out to be more of a fat batard.  There was external flour on the inside of the loaf, therefore, and the bread turned out unsatisfactory.  I couldn't give this ugly loaf away, and was forced to eat both of them myself.

Tasted fine, though.  And I like the way it toasts.  Although it did stale rather quickly.  Chickens got some of these loaves.

Notes to Myself

• Next: Try a spelt sourdough starter.
• Start off with less than 70% hydration (try 60-65%) in doughs with large amounts of spelt.
• Add add some fat in the form of butter or oil. In one of Nils recipes containing some spelt ("Spelt-Einkorn bread with coriander") he uses some oil in a ratio that looks like 2.67-3.26% (depending on whether or not you include the coarse starter in the flour total, and I'm not sure that you should). For another recipe with spelt ("Dinkelvollkornbrot"), he does not include any fat.
• Spelt should not be eaten by those with clinically diagnosed celiac disease.
• Just to confuse matters further, Spelt is grown in Italy, but Italians will call Einkorn, Emmer and Spelt all by the same name "Farro")

Whole Wheat Sourdough with Buttermilk Hydration

I have been curious about buttermilk as a hydrating liquid for a whole wheat bread for a while now.  Some yeasted whole wheat breads have buttermilk as an ingredient instead of water (e.g. Mildred Orton's recipe).  I just wanted to try it in my sourdough bread to see what it would do to the crumb.

The extra fat in the liquid certainly does have an effect.  I think that it made the interior a bit more soft and tender, the holes smaller and more uniform.  It probably also gave it some more sweetness.  It may have caused the crust to be a bit thicker, though.

I had 760g of buttermilk to use, but it didn't seem to be hydrated enough, so I added another 45g of water to the dough.  Then it was workable.  One might measure this as 80.5% of hydration, but the whole weight of the buttermilk shouldn't be counted as hydration probably.

Notes to Myself

• Curious that milk should be scalded before using in a bread, but buttermilk doesn't need to? Why is that?
• I'm starting to go by "feel" of the dough now, rather than slavishly sticking to recipes.  Sometimes.