Sourdough Discard Pup Loaves in Reinhart Style

 Pup Loaves in Reinhart Style

Made with Sourdough Discard

This was a 'proof of concept' loaf.  I had an idea I wanted to test.

What idea?

First, some background, so you can know my train of thought.

I continue to experiment with my sourdough discards, trying to make something worthwhile out of them, rather than throwing them away. 

According to the Tartine Bread book, the mix of wild yeasts and lactobacilli is going to be quite different in a culture that is refreshed daily at room temperature, as opposed to that which is refreshed infrequently and kept in the refrigerator.  I have wanted to see this for myself, and after using the starters for the last couple of months, I tend to agree.  I have been refreshing my starters daily (oh, I might have missed a couple of days here and there), and comparing them to my refrigerated starters, and I like the one that never sees the cold.  But this means frequent refreshes and frequent discards.  So I have been experimenting with the discard.  Despite the number of experiments I try, I still end up throwing out some sourdough every 2-3 days.

I believe that this is a fairly common problem among home bread bakers like myself.  And it is frustrating that the authors who write these bread recipe books don't fully appreciate that fact.  Some of these authors have bakeries and refresh their sourdoughs daily or more frequently and use up all that they have because they are baking in high quantity; other authors perhaps use their cultures in an educational setting and also don't have the discard problem.  And it is frustrating when those who write cookbooks for home bakers don't get it: authors write instructions, home bakers follow them, but because home bakers only bake a loaf of bread every few days, they toss away some sourdough during the refreshing periods.  The ones who write the cookbooks don't seem to have the same problems.

For example, have a look at what Peter Reinhart said to baker Pamela, when she asked for some ideas on what to do with all her sourdough discards.  Arggh!  Clearly, he just doesn't get it!  Obviously, Reinhart does not fully appreciate that those who follow his tips and recipes faithfully end up with waste from refreshing their sourdough starters.  This means that he is not having these problems himself, or that he has miscommunicated something, or else the methodology is wrong to begin with.  Somewhere along the line, there is a problem.  And so far, the home baker is the one that is bearing the cost.



What I've been doing with my discards lately
I had been experimenting making overlarge muffins with discards, using some ovenproof soup bowls, but the results have been unsatisfactory.  One day at work, one of my co-workers saw me eating one of these bran muffins, and asked if it was a bread.  They thought that a small pumpernickel bread of that size might be perfect for eating with a spinach dip. 

And right about that time I was thinking to myself how much I like bread and yet I don't care for the taste of muffins.  Well, my muffins, at any rate.  I just don't like the chemical taste of baking powder.

muffin baked in ovenproof soup bowl

Since then, I've been experimenting with making tiny pup loaves: loaves, not muffins, that are small enough to be made in an ovenproof soup bowl.  That is bigger than a bun, but smaller than a loaf.  A 'brunch size' loaf, an in-between sized loaf.

Most breads with a too-heavy starter quantity will suffer from under-proofing
and give you this weird hamburger bun type separation effect.

Even rye breads will suffer this fate

Unfortunately, I haven't had all that much success with turning my sourdough discards into decent bread. A lot of trials, a lot of errors.

Then it occurred to me that I might be able to make a bread from Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads directly from my sourdough discards.  Only, I'd need to figure out the ratios of ingredients, to determine what quantities to use. 

One night I sat down with Reinhart's Master Recipe and crunched some numbers to reverse-engineer the ratios.

Reverse Engineering Reinhart's Master Recipe
In a nutshell:  I discovered Reinhart's bread is made of approximately 16 parts.  The Final Dough is made of 1 part (or optionally 1 1/2 parts, if you consider adding both some sweetener and some oil); the soaker is made up of 7 1/2 parts, and the starter is made up of 7 parts.  The percentages of each element can then be determined via the weights. 

What this means is, you can go from a weight of your discard -- whatever it might be -- and build a Reinhart style miniloaf, or pup loaf, around that given weight.

Now you know the idea, it is time for an example. 

Example
Let us say you start with 70g of sourdough discard that you would have otherwise thrown away when you refresh your starter.

The Discard

Here I have a couple of starters I want to refresh

I scoop out my 'discards' and leave about 20% (this is Robertson's Tartine method, not Reinhart's method)

I refresh the starter with fresh water and flour and stir it with a finger

Some of the 'discard' I am going to weigh and elaborate into a starter for Reinhart's bread.

  

Since the discard is equivalent to the 16% motherstarter in  your starter, and the starter is about 7/16 (44%) of the whole loaf, then you can easily calculate the full size of the loaf: Your discard weight is going to be 16% of 44% of the total bread weight, or 7%.  To find the total weight of the bread (not the baker's percentage of the flour), simply divide the discard weight by 0.07.  So:

70g / 0.07 = 1000g

(Please note that the 0.07 is a 'magic number' and it has nothing to do with the 70g we started with.  The number is 0.07 no matter what amount of sourdough discard you begin with.  So if you are throwing away 86g of starter, it would be 86g / 0.07 = 1229g.  The pictures show me using 86g of sourdough to elaborate into starter.)

Now that we know the ultimate size of our pup bread (for our example, 1000g), the rest of the ingredients are simple percentages of it.

(Note that these are not baker's percentages.  We are still talking here of a percentage of the total weight of the finished bread, not a baker's percentage of the total flour.)

The Starter

To your discard, add 16% of the total bread in water, and 21% of the total bread in flour.  So

16% of 1000 = 160g water
21% of 1000 = 210g wwflour

For 86g of starter, add 197g of water...

...and 258g of flour, to build a starter

The starter sits out for 12-24 hours

You must now set this starter aside until the next day.

The Soaker

Now make the soaker.  It consists of 25% flour, 22% milk and 1/2% of salt:

25% of 1000 = 250g wwflour
22% of 1000 = 220g milk
0.5% of 1000 = 5g salt

Now build a soaker: milk, 270g

Salt, 6g.  That's 1/2% of the total bread weight.

The soaker.  I left this at room temp for 24 hours, but it should have been refrigerated.

If you are using water instead of milk, use the appropriate percentage for the water, as given in Reinhart's recipe.

This should be refrigerated for at least 12 hours, but bring it out 2 hours before you want to make the bread.  For this proof of concept loaf, I didn't refrigerate it but kept it at room temperature.  That works too, but my dough got a little stinky, and I think that is because I used milk.  The final bread was still okay, though.

Final dough

This is 6% flour, and optionally, 3% of sweetener plus oils (e.g. honey and butter):

6% of 1000 = 60g flour
1.5% of sweetener = 15g honey
1.5% of oil = 15g butter

You can measure the ingredients for the Final Dough too.  Here, I add only 74g of flour, no optional ingred.

Here I am, making the dough:

For these test loaves, I am not adding any extra yeast in the final dough.  You can, though, in small amounts, say, of less than 1% of the total weight of the bread.


Okay, I get it.  Just give me the Simplified Method.

• On the first day, refresh your motherstarter, and measure your discard.  Dividing by the magic number, you get the weight of the total loaf.
• With that discard, set aside a starter, adding the appropriate amount of flour and water (See below: alternatively you might want to use the discard straight away).
• Beside it, make a soaker, with the appropriate amount of flour, milk, and salt.
• Let the starter and soaker refrigerate or sit out for a day.
• On the second day, mix the starter, soaker, and the final dough ingredients, and knead it all together.  Let it sit for 5 minutes and knead it again.  Then let it bulk rise a couple of hours.
• Fold it and form it into a boule, and set it to rise in a buttered ovenproof soup bowl (or if it is larger, in a basket as you would make a bread).  Let it proof for an hour, then bake it at 450 degrees for 30-40 minutes.  You might want a tent of aluminum for the first 20 minutes of the baking of the ovenproof loaf.

Voila!  You have a discard pup loaf based on Reinhart's enzymatic techniques, and you can play with this to your heart's content.


Show me again:

I tried this again with a smaller amount of discarded sourdough, but this time I used the entire discard as my 'starter'.   This time I had 57g of starter that was going to be tossed on the compost heap if I didn't use it.  This does NOT get divided by the magic number of 0.07 because it is already the full amount of starter for the bread, or 44% of the weight of the entire 'loaf'.

Make a soaker:

Final dough ingredients:

Mis en place:

starter, soaker and final dough for the tiny loaflet

My discard is wet, not 75% hydration; but Reinhart's starter gets 'divided into 12 pieces' and rolled in flour.  I just add flour.

Even when the pieces of soaker are rolled in flour and added with the final dough flour, it still is wet.

Such a tiny amount to work with!  Knead, rest, knead...

final knead before a bulk ferment...

...unfortunately I had to go out at this time, so I retarded it in the 'fridge.

Later, I removed it from the fridge and shaped it for the ovenproof bowl.

I butter the soup bowl and proof the dough.

Baked it.  This one I took out after 30 minutes or so, 'cause it was small.

Results

The bread is just a Reinhart style bread, approximately equivalent to his Master Recipe.  It spread a bit, probably because at the moment I was going to bake it, I had to leave for a couple of hours and had to retard the dough, so it was a bit overproofed.  The one I baked in the soup bowl is much more sour (and I had some difficulties getting it out of the soup bowl).  I think that this is because it had more old sourdough in it to begin with.

The bread seems to taste a bit bitter, and I have suggested to my wife that this might be because I left the soaker, which contained milk, out for 24 hours.  I suspect that because of this, the bread will spoil rapidly.

This is one for the chickens.  But at least I have demonstrated to myself the proof of concept.

Notes to Myself

• If your discard is already in the ratio of 75% hydration (the one I've been experimenting with these days isn't), you can use it directly instead of elaborating a new starter.  But in this case, you do not have to divide by the magic number 0.07.  Instead, the total weight of your discard is the entire starter, or 44%.  So to get the weight of the entire loaf, you divide by 0.44 -- once you have the weight of the final loaf, you can find the amounts for the soaker and final dough. Just remember that if you are doing this, your finished loaf is going to be a bit more sour.   In this case you may want to add the optional sweetener (honey, agave, etc.)
• So what is the correct amount of sourdough discard that you use as starter in order to build a bread of a size that will bake in an ovenproof soup bowl?  I don't know yet.  57g is slightly too little, so perhaps about 65-70g might be ideal.
• If you are refreshing every day, and you know how much of your starter is going to be discarded, you can make up a batch of soaker to be used over three days, and just keep it refrigerated to use as required.  But you really have to know how much you are discarding, or else you will end up discarding the soaker (which defeats the purpose of the enterprise...).
  

Everyday Bread #55 - Camp Bread in a Dutch Oven: Brenda's Loaf

Camp Bread #6: 

A Spent Sourdough Rye, Multigrain and All Purpose Bread Baked in a Dutch Oven by Brenda

"You've spoiled me for bread," Brenda said, reading the ingredients of Sudbury's Golden Grain Bakery's Light Rye Loaf.  Leah's mom and dad left the remainder of the loaf they brought with them in our camp, and we were using it up for breakfast.

We are told that this is the loaf that the Golden Grain Bakery's reputation was built on (although we read raves of their garlic cheese bread and their chocolate croissant online too).  Indeed, the Golden Grain Bakery's light rye is a good loaf.  You can tell it is a light-rye meteil; they obviously use a lot of all purpose or bread flour.  But the only other ingredients are rye culture (I take that to mean a kind of rye preferment, perhaps not a true sourdough), yeast and water.  We both agreed that it was very good bread, meaning it had no artificial ingredients like dough extenders or preservatives.  But it was, now, to us, very flat tasting.  It is not an artisan bread, and it is not a whole grain loaf.  Despite what some reviewers online have said, no, it does not taste like home baked bread.

Brenda followed Paul's recipe except she doubled up on the yeast and used only 1/2 the amount of sourdough starter (it worked out to be about 1/4 c).  This starter was even more spent than the one Paul used (way more sour, something Brenda doesn't usually like).

Method:

This loaf was set to rise for 24 hours.  It was a humid day, and damp, but it rained on and off all night and most of the day.

This made the lighting of the fire problematic, and the timing of the coals was extra difficult.  The pot went in early, probably before the coals were properly established.  This threw off the timing of the dough, so that the preheating was done before the dough had sat even an hour after folding.

Brenda put it into the hot Dutch Oven anyway.

She did not check on the loaf until 30 minutes had passed (there was some dispute over time, but I didn't get into it, as I wasn't wearing a watch).  By then, it was golden brown but because it sat directly on the hot coals for that entire time, it was slightly burnt on the bottom (though certainly not as bad as my first loaf).  But her bread even stuck to the bottom of the Dutch Oven when being turned out -- something that has never happened before.  She dug it out with a paring knife.

Brenda opted to keep the bread in the cooling Dutch Oven for another 20 minutes or so before taking it out again and letting it cool on a rack.

She was disappointed that it didn't rise more.  Probably the trouble was in her folding, which tore the dough, and a certain amount of over-handling of it while forming the dough (she was listening to my instructions, and I probably was a bit long-winded, so I must take some of the blame for that).  A longer proofing while the oven preheated another 30 minutes would also have helped. 

We toasted this bread on the Coleman Stove using the Camp Toaster, and it was good.  Brenda didn't care for it for jam, but she ate it with honey -- it was good with Board's Honey, locally produced in Restoule, and a family treat each year.  We usually stock up on the Basswood Honey when we visit the area, but the Buckwheat is also usually extra flavourful, and we always take home some of that too.  These breads require one of these extra flavourful honeys, I think.

Toasting Camp Bread

I loved this bread.

Notes to Myself

• These Cast Iron Dutch Ovens should be kept from the rain. As soon as the rain began to contact the metal, rust began to appear. I think that I will have to temper the pot again with oil now.
• I think we now have a pretty good idea of how to bake bread with the cast iron Dutch Oven over a wood fire. In short, these are the steps:
• Get the fire started while you proof your bread.  
• Expect about 2 hrs for the proofing, during which time you must let the fire burn down to hot coals, and preheat your pot for a minimum of 30 minutes.
• Put lots of coals on the top of the Dutch Oven to heat the entire pot.  You might want even to place some on the lid in the middle of the baking process: plan for this.
• The dough should be well hydrated, so that steam from the dough will bake the crust when the lid traps it there during the initial bake.  Getting the lid on fast once you put the dough in, is important.
• The initial bake should be the hottest: 10-15 minutes minimum on the direct coals.  You can lift the pot from direct contact with the coals after that (setting it up on a nearby grate, for example, or just up on some unburned logs near the coals), but do not open the lid for 20-25 minutes.
• At that point, decide whether or not your loaf can tolerate being put in direct contact with the coals.  You may have to turn it out to have a look at the bottom to know this.  You can stick a thermometer in it at this point to make sure that the interior of the loaf is 210 degrees F. (we didn't have one with us), or knock on the loaf to determine if it is done.

Everyday Bread #54 - Camp Bread in a Dutch Oven: Paul's Loaf

Camp Bread #5: 

A Spent Sourdough Rye, Multigrain and All Purpose Bread Baked in a Dutch Oven by Paul

Dough: 

• 1/2 c rye flour
• 2 1/2 c multigrain flour
• 1 1/2 c all purpose flour
• 1 tsp yeast
• 1/2-3/4 c old sourdough starter
• 1 1/2 c potato water (+1/4 c + 1/4 c added during mixing)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt

Method:

At about 4 p.m. my son Paul mixed up this dough.  He had smelled some of my leftover sourdough bread, comparing it to the all purpose loaf of the day before, and he said he found the sourdough version smelled more interesting.  For that reason, he decided to use a similar recipe for his bread.  Once again we followed the outline of the Sourdough Discard Bread Recipe.  This time we were using real sourdough discard, unrefreshed; it would be more sour, but that was okay, we didn't have quite as much.  We had some potato water to use up, and I personally think that he put in lots of salt, although he didn't think so.  We still don't have measuring spoons to arbitrate discussions.

I told him that the longer the dough rose, the more flavour it would have, and he decided to not bake it that night.  It sat in the car, the coolness of the summer evening the equivalent of retarding the dough in the refrigerator.  In the morning it was removed and placed in a prominent spot out of the way of critters and people, and it appeared to have tripled.  Around noon, when we were all around having lunch, a fire was started.  

Paul removed the dough from the container and folded it once, envelope style.  It seemed to have good elastic properties.  Then he lifted it with wet hands and formed a boule, making the gluten sheath nice and tight, at the same time not overhandling it.  He placed it on the couche with rye flour dusted on it, and the dough was covered to rise while the fire burned down.

Once we had some coals, we preheated the Dutch Oven 30 minutes and the dough was placed in the pot.

After 25 minutes the pot was still in the coals but rotated once, the lid was removed for a peak at the top.  It was a nice, honey-coloured crust already, the scent was of a strong sourdough that Paul identified as "nutty".

He elected to remove the Oven from the direct heat, but to keep the loaf in the pot and place more coals on the top lid.  After 5 minutes he looked again, and his mother advised him to bake it as long as possible.  He left it another 10 minutes, and then turned it out onto a grill to cool.

There was one darkened, burnt area on the bottom, but overall Paul was pleased with the way his bread looks.

I thought it tasted great. Others who tried it said they liked it too. A few people were skeptical about the scent of the sourdough, but it didn't taste all that sour to me.

Notes to Myself

• Paul's loaf is the best loaf baked, by far: the coals were hot, and retained a lot of heat throughout the preheating and baking stages. Paul used a lot of coals for the top lid, a very good idea.
• Better would have been fresher sourdough starter, so the bread would have tasted a little less sour. Not everyone liked it because it is sour.
• It might be impossible to work out accurately the precise hydration of this loaf, but I suspect that the reason Paul's loaf was nicely browned on its crust was due to its higher hydration. The extra 1/2 c of potato water really helped, as did sprinkling some water on the top of the loaf when it first is put into the oven.