Bittman vs W&T's Whole Wheat Breads in the No-Knead style

Bittman vs W&T's Whole Wheat Breads 

in the No-Knead style

I guess this is my fifth attempt at the Wolter & Teubner Whole Wheat Bread.  This time I made a pan loaf.  Here's why.


Blind Stumbling around for Info on Hydrating Whole Wheat Breads

With my recent flurry of attempts to make Wolter & Teubner's Whole Wheat, Wheat Germ Bread, I have been thinking a lot about what hydration a 100% whole wheat bread should have, or can have.  This morning when I awoke, I just glanced through some of my recipe books and made some notes -- a quick poll of what others have done with their 100% whole wheat bread hydrations.

Some books, like Jeffrey Hamelman's 'Bread' were useless to me, since they contain absolutely no 100% whole wheat bread recipes, and I haven't played with these recipes enough to see if they would work with 100% whole wheat.  Other books, like Jim Lahey's 'My Bread' might have been similarly useless, since they contain no 100% whole wheat bread recipes, but they still do provide me with some ideas, since I've at least done some trials with the recipes, substituting whole wheat for bread flour.  Still other books, like Ojakanga's "Great Whole Grain Breads" do contain some 100% whole wheat recipes, but they use volumetric measurements, and I have not yet tried them.  I haven't weighed the ingredients, so I can't report on the baker's percentages: therefore, they too are N/A, or Not Applicable.

Regarding Baker's Percentages, I admit to being in the dark as to how to calculate overall hydration.  Should all the liquid ingredients be included in the tally?  Do you count the oil, the liquid honey?  Do you count the milk as equal to water?

I tend make these calculations differently at different times, depending on what I'm looking at, and depending on what I've been reading recently.  This morning, over my cup of tea, while a late winter storm blew in, I made a list of some of the hydration levels of some whole wheat breads -- but I didn't include the hydration from oils or liquid sweeteners.  I did, however, include the water content of milk (if the recipe used it), at the rate of 88% of the weight of the milk. ( I got this value from a book I have been looking at recently to find some answers, Figoni's 'How Baking Works')

Backyard Chicken Coop under a late March snow

Here are the results of the poll I made:

    •    Hamelman - N/A
    •    Ojakangas - N/A
    •    Lahey's (p61, modified for 100% whole wheat, no bread flour) - 75%
    •    Laurel's "Loaf for Learning" - 55%, but has yogurt, which might make it as high as 69%
    •    Beard's Wm M. Childs - 56%, but with milk percentage, might make it as high as 61%
    •    Beard's Myrtle Allen No Knead - 82%
    •    Artisan Breads in 5 Min/Day (p.76) - about 70%
    •    Healthy Breads in 5 Min/Day (p. 81) - 88%; or 84%, if Vital Wheat Gluten is added to total flour
    •    Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice Whole Wheat Bread (p. 270) - 77%
    •    Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads Sandwich Bread (p. 95) - 67%
    •    Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads Hearth Bread (p. 153) - 70.5%


The higher hydration doughs are basically no-knead, and to prevent the sagging that would occur on a stone with a free-form loaf, techniques like Lahey's (bake it in a hot enclosed container) have been been used; Hertzberg & Francois tend to use cold dough to shape their freeform loaves, but I've had a lot of sag with their whole grain loaves too. Otherwise, most high-hydration no-knead breads are made in pans.  The lower hydration doughs require a fair amount of kneading to develop the gluten.

While fumbling in the dark trying to get my head around the hydration concept, I came across this article: Better Bread with Less Kneading, from the New York Times Feb 23, 2010.  For those who can't be bothered to follow the link, take this much from it: “Water doesn’t give you any flavor or structure, so enough to hold the flour together is enough."  And the final advice: don't go over 75%, and 68% is better.

This actually flies in the face of something else I read, elsewhere, the last couple of days (was it Figoni's text?), that advises us to "maximize" our water content to ensure the gluten has the ability to form.  Whole wheat flour is going to require even more water, since the bran soaks up more moisture.  So therein lies the entire challenge of whole wheat bread baking: the more water you add, the less it holds its shape; the less water you add, the denser it becomes.  Add even more substances that soak up moisture, like the extra wheat germ of the Wolter and Teubner loaf I've been playing with, and you want to add even more water, but it doesn't pull the gluten together and your loaves end up sagging.  The less hydration, the more you have to knead, and the more you knead, the less airy the crumb.

A few links later, I came across Bittman's "Fast No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread" and I thought to myself, "Hmm.  I wonder why I've never tried this before?"  This loaf isn't entirely wheat, there is some rye and some corn meal in it; and when I measured out the ingredients for it, I found that it is 77% hydrated -- and Bittman says it must be baked in a pan.  I assume he means it is too wet to make a good free-form loaf.

Anyway, despite the warnings I got from my wife not to bake any more bread ("because we have enough, it is such a waste, and you make such a mess, and I have to clean because we have visitors this weekend…blah blah"), I began making the Bittman loaf (once she left the kitchen).  And of course, for comparison purposes, I also made another Wolter & Teubner Wheat Germ loaf, side by side with it, to see how a no-knead technique like Bittman's would fare with their ingredients.

As I say, I calculate these baker's percentages differently for different requirements.  For the following recipe, which I've scaled back to a single loaf approximately the same size as Bittman's, I haven't included the wheat germ with the flour, but rather as a percentage of the flour.  Again, I don't know what is the 'right' way to do this, but this is simply the way I've done things this time.

A consequence of considering the Wheat Germ an additive rather than part of the flour, is that this dough feels dry, i.e. it feels a LOT less hydrated than the Bittman dough.  If you include the wheat germ with the flour, this version of the W&T loaf is only 69% hydrated, which wouldn't qualify it as a no-knead, high-hydrated sort of dough.  That low of a hydration might be more acceptable for the free-formed loaf.  Perhaps I should have used 413g of water, to bring it up to the 77% hydration that Bittman uses in his loaf.  Well, I have to save something to try next time.

Another thing to try: leave out the oil.  Figoni says "Liquid oil…contains no water at all, and it does not contribute to gluten development.  In fact, oil, being a tenderizer, interferes with gluten development."  So it is in W&T's recipe to tenderize the loaf.  But if it is interfering with the gluten development, perhaps it is just better to leave it out.

Ingredients

Here are the ingredients of the Bittman loaf, with the weights I found (your mileage may vary.  Get the volumetric measures from the link to his recipe):

    •    321g Whole Wheat Flour
    •    63g Rye Flour
    •    82g Cornmeal
    •    3g Yeast
    •    9g Salt
    •    361g Water

Here are the scaled ingredients of the Wolter & Teubner Wheat Germ Bread, after I reduced the whole wheat flour to the same amount of flour as the Bittman loaf:

    •    466g Whole Wheat Flour

    •    70g Wheat Germ

    •    3g Yeast

    •    6g Salt

    •    19g Oil

    •    47g Honey

    •    359g Water

I have backed off slightly on the yeast, to keep it in line with Bittman's recipe.  But I have't used as much salt as him.

Method

Bittman said to leave his dough to rise for 4 hours before moving it to a pan.  I decided I'd try the same technique with the W&T loaf, i.e. press it into an oiled pan, right to the edges, leave it for an hour, and then bake it at 350 degrees F.

Front yard evergreen blasted with wet heavy March snowfall.

After shoveling the driveway and feeding the chickens I checked the doughs.  Both had risen to approximately double.  Despite the drier consistency of the W&T dough, it probably sustained its neck-and-neck rise because of the honey that the yeast was eating.  But would that also develop the gluten in the bread?

At the four hour mark, the W&T dough was a bit higher than the Bittman dough.  The yeast, having gorged on honey, was now working on the starch in the flour.  I pressed both doughs down into their respective oiled pans, and oiled the surface.  Scoring Bittman's dough made drag-marks in the surface, it was definitely wetter and gooier.

After an hour

Bittman's loaf is to bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes, whereas the W&T loaf, as a free-form bread, bakes at 400 degrees F for 50 minutes.  I stuck with Bittman's temperature and times for the pan-version of the W&T loaf, but I was prepared to leave it in a bit longer, if necessary.  I didn't.

I was disappointed that the breads didn't come out of the pan on their own, without a bit of prying.  That may be an indication that they are a trifle under-baked.  I'll have to wait until tomorrow before I crack into them to see the crumb.


Next morning, we awoke to newspaper coverage of the devastating quake in Japan.  Our troubles, like the fact that the cat is disgusted with the weather here, and sits on the kitchen table dreaming of the yard, seem so small in comparison.

Never more grateful to have bread to eat and a warm, dry place to eat it, I found the W&T Wheat Germ loaf to taste much better than the Bittman No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread.  Both of them could have used a bit more time in the final proofing, although the Bittman loaf looks like it might develop an airier crumb sooner than the the W&T.  I can taste the extra salt in the Bittman loaf.  I can taste the oil in the W&T loaf -- this dough has really soaked up the oil that was used to line the pan.

I prefer the W&T loaves when they are made free-form.  I'll try this hydration again in the free-form style, adding some sunflower seeds, and I'll even try it with no oil next.  Maybe a side-by-side comparison with oil vs no oil -- the next time I need bread.

Notes to Myself

• Try the W&T Wheat Germ Bread with no oil to see if the gluten develops better.
• Try this hydration on a free-form loaf after a 4-hour rise.
• Add some sunflower seeds to the W&T Wheat Germ Bread.
• If making this in a pan again, next time use 413g of water to bring it up to 77% hydration. 
• Bittman's loaf has oil painted on the surface before baking.  Here, you have painted it on at the beginning of the final 30-minute proof, and that might have inhibited the rise.  Consider painting it on right before baking, or consider leaving it off altogether, and just letting it rise with steam in the oven. 
  
  Especially for the W&T loaf, don't oil the surface -- you aren't getting the 'official' W&T crust that way, and this dough soaks up the oil and it doesn't seem to improve it.

Variations on Firtig's Caraway Rye

A Quick Rye based on Firtig's Caraway Rye

Scheduling Bread

I find I tend to gravitate toward no-knead breads, for convenience, when I only have a couple of days off work: the first day off, I am often physically and emotionally exhausted, and just need to catch up on my sleep and other bad habits.  I simply don't have the energy to mix up ingredients.  The next day, I can bake bread: but by then, it is generally too late to build a sourdough or let a biga soak, etc., before I have to return again to work.  And that means, making a Reinhart style bread in those two days I'm off, is not going to work.  There are times when I have 3 days off in a row, and making those (better) breads is going to work; but if I only have 2 days off, I have trouble fitting his recipes in with my schedule.

I think that today, in addition to this no-knead loaf, I will also try setting aside the ingredients for one of his loaves that will not get made for several more days: I will try to bake it on my next "first day off" from ingredients I put together today (my "last day off before working again").


Today's No-Knead Bread

But for today, so I am certain I'll have some bread to take with me to work this weekend, I'll bake a no-knead bread.  The base ingredients and methods for this rye bread came from Judith Fertig's book, "200 Fast and Easy Artisan Breads", a book that I have had for a long time but haven't used much.  The recipes in this book are all mostly just variations on a theme, and all of them have unbleached bread flour, none of them are (completely) whole grain.


Ingredients are slightly altered

For this recipe, I have just swapped out the bread flour for some whole wheat flour, not doing any further adjustments in how much liquid I add.  Let's see how the recipe performs without tweaking it any further than that.

Curiously, the measurements are all cups and millilitres: it seems rather strange to be measuring flour and other ingredients by volume rather than weight, but that is what Fertig does.  Here, I have ignored the volume measures and have used the cup measurements, weighing ingredients as I went.  Here is what I got (your mileage may vary).

  •    697g Whole Wheat flour
    •    257g Rye flour
    •    22g Yeast
    •    15g Caraway Seeds
    •    15g Kosher salt
    •    115g Molasses
    •    723g Lukewarm water

The other innovation I made on the recip: I added

    •    1 cup of rye kernels (181g dry weight),

that were pressure cooked for 25 minutes (the whole process, with our blasted whirlpool stove, took 50 minutes).  I should have measured the cooked kernels before adding them to the mixture, but I didn't think of it.

The recipe uses Caraway Seeds, which my wife hates, so I guess this bread is going to be for me alone.  She has actually been buying bread lately, so I'm not going to worry about her tastes too much anymore.  Every time she buys bread to eat, it is a commentary on how inedible she finds my loaves.  It is only when I bake with all-purpose flour that she likes it.  But she knows I'm trying to find a different way: I so very rarely use all-purpose flour any more in my breads.  This has to be a conscious effort, and it is always an uphill battle, because breads are so much easier and nicer looking with bread flour and all-purpose flours.  You really have to insist on whole grain if you believe in it (and for me, the jury is still out), or it just ain't gonna happen.

Method is Slightly Altered

As per the instructions, I mixed the dry ingredients, warmed the wet ingredients, and when my rye kernels were fresh from the pressure cooker, I mixed them into the water mixtures and added it all to the dry flour mixture.  When this mixture is fully moistened, I was supposed to move it to a bowl and do about 40 stretch and folds.

At this point, my mother phoned: I had only done about 5 stretch and folds.  After talking with her for a couple of minutes, I asked her to wait, did a couple more stretch and folds, and set it back into a container for its 2 hour rise by the hearth.  Then I picked up the conversation with my mom.  So I didn't give it as many stretch and folds as I might have otherwise.

before bulk fermentation

Results

30 minutes

60 minutes

The dough rose nicely and rapidly.  So rapidly, in fact, that after 1 hour (rather than the 2 specified), I decided to try and set it in a basket for the final proofing.  I lined a basket with a cloth and some flour, and tried my best to stretch and fold this goo before setting it to rest.  This is extremely moist dough, and probably would have been better off in a tin than to try and make a free-form loaf from it.

end of bulk fermentation

It is at this point that I decided to figure out the percentages: how hydrated is this dough, anyway?  And what percentage of rye is the loaf?  These are things that Fertig should have told us.  Why is it such a big secret?

    •    total flour weight: 954g
    •    total ratio of rye to whole wheat by percentage: 27% : 73%
    •    total water by percentage:  76%
    •    total molasses by percentage: 12%
    •    total ratio of all hydration to all flour: 88% : 100%

So this (nearly) 1/3 rye is (almost) 90% hydrated.  No wonder I had some trouble gathering up the dough to put it into a basket. 

Likely it will be a very flat, free-form loaf.

A loaf only a crusty baker could love.

very moist dough, pretty tricky to stretch and fold: extravagant gooeyness.

basketed for the final proofing

Problems

Thirty minutes into the proofing, and I was in trouble.  For one thing, the dough was climbing out of the basket.  I did scrape some dough off, which probably negatively affected the bread, but it couldn't be helped.  I set that smaller amount in another smaller basket to proof.  It was either that, or scrape it up off the floor.

dough climbing out of basket on the hearth

turned into 2 loaves.

More importantly, my mom & dad were now coming for lunch, and my wife needed the oven just when I thought I might require it.  This dough had to sit longer than I thought it might require.  I decided that I would retard it in the refrigerator (or rather, because our fridge is currently full, I would put it out into our very cold garage).  That might slow things down until I could use it.  It might also help firm up the dough, so it would retain its shape while it baked on a hot stone.



Innovation

My wife gave me another idea.  I knew that this loaf was going to spread sideways as soon as it hit the hot stone in the oven.  I thought I might use something to shore up the sides, and I was looking at a plastic ring that she uses for cold cake flans.  With alarm, she told me I couldn't use that -- surely it would melt in oven temperatures -- but that I might try some foil instead. 

Hmmm.  A Foil Dam (patent pending).  That just might work  I would have to make a foil dam (patent pending) just larger than the basket, and hope that it would contain my high hydrated dough just long enough for the interior to set.  Worth a try.

I made myself a foil dam (patent pending) by wrapping it around a similarly sized basket.  I baked the first loaf for 30 minutes with this home-made foil dam (patent pending) at 450 degrees F., and another 15 minutes at 400 degrees F.

foil dam, patent pending

The second loaf got about 30 minutes at 400 degrees F.  As predicted, the loaf did not rise well; but the foil dam (patent pending) did seem to contain the loaf from spreading sideways.  Clever girl.

the dough on the hot stone, surrounded by foil dam (patent pending)

I can smell the caraway in the freshly baked bread.  I'll crack into this loaf tomorrow when I'm making a lunch to take with me for work.  When it cools, I'll knock some of that extra flour off, outside in the snow.

I sliced up part of the small loaf, the next morning.  It is baked evenly, and it has a scent and flavouring of caraway.  Without that spice, it probably would be fairly tasteless.  I had an end piece with a bit of havarti cheese, and a larger middle slice with some native chokecherry jam.  I found the bread complemented each nicely.  Because of the caraway, I doubt if my wife will eat this.  Too bad: she might otherwise like it.

Crumb of the bread made in a foil dam

Notes to Myself

• No, there is no real "patent pending" on the foil dam idea.  It's a joke.
• No doubt the flavour of this loaf would improve if you were to refrigerate it; or better yet, use sourdough to raise it, not the commercialized yeast.  But this is a FAST loaf.
• I think I would try 30 minutes for a whole grain like rye in a pressure cooker, at the quantities I used (1 cup of grain to 3 cups of water).
• I kept the boiled rye water for use in the next bread.  Probably contains some vitamins and minerals and flavours that would be hard to get any other way: I'll plop it in my next rye bread.

Sourdough Discard No-Knead Rye and Whole Wheat Breads

Long winter shadows cast by my bread, cooling by the window.

 Here we go again with a bread that I've made several times.  It is a way to use up some of my old sourdough starters.  I generally keep my discards, and then when I haven't anything else pending, I'll use them up in a bread.  This is based on the CIA bread that I once tried.  But every time I try it, I tweak something.  This time, I thought I'd add some rye kernels.

The reasoning behind this bread is that a starter discard has already developed lots of flavour, similar to a sourdough build or a biga that you might otherwise make for a bread.  Sure, it might be a little more sour than most people like, but there is certainly going to be some interesting character in the taste.  You may not be able to count on the yeast in it to raise the dough, so you add some.

The method is easy, even if every time I do it I have a different amount of starter discard.  First, I measure the sourdough starter.

The Rye
The rye starter I had was only 327g.  Consider that to be 92.7% of the total flour weight.  You can thus figure out how much flour you'll add by using this formula:

Total flour = n00 / 92.7

In this case, n=327.  So 32700 / 92.7 =  353g.
My total flour will be 353g.

Now I have in the past used 70 percent rye, 30 percent whole wheat here; but often enough I've just made a 100% rye with it, and that's what I wanted today too.

Once you have figured out the weight of the total flour, you can easily find the rest of the ingredients:

    •    Yeast is 0.8% of the total flour: 3g
    •    Salt is 2% of the total flour: 7g
    •    Water is 85.4% of the total flour 301g
    •    You can also add bread spice, about 5g for every 1000g of flour.  I used 4g here.

And in this case, I decided to add some boiled rye kernels. 

    •    One cup of rye kernels weighed 190g before boiling

The last time I boiled some rye kernels, I kept them at a rolling boil for 45 minutes.  My wife suggested that it would be more energy efficient, quicker, and less bother if I used a pressure cooker.  She showed me how to use it.  I tossed in 1 cup of rye kernels with 3 cups of water, and set the pressure cooker on medium heat.

Now, I've said in the past that our whirlpool stove and oven is one of the worst appliances we have ever owned, and the company's record in servicing and standing behind the product is crap.  We have never had good luck with this stove.  The elements turn on and off for no apparent reason, and a pot of water won't boil quickly.  A pot of tea can take forever.  So this pressure cooker, although it only took 20 minutes to cook the rye kernels, took at least 20 minutes to get the steam up to its cooking pressure.  At that point, you turn it down to low, and the 20 minutes of actual cooking is done at the lowest energy setting.  But I had no great belief that the elements, which turned on and off like a traffic light, were keeping the pressure up. 

I think that the kernels were a little undercooked, but I thought that I was now wasting time, so I just tossed them in the dough.  They wouldn't be as good as the ones that are soaked overnight in apple juice anyway.  I just needed something rye to fill out my rye dough, which was a little skimpy.

The Whole Wheat
I also made a 100% whole wheat bread with some starter, too.  Here, I used:

    •    632g whole wheat sourdough
    •    682g whole wheat flour
    •    5g yeast
    •    14g salt
    •    582g water
    •    4g bread spice

I added no extra boiled grains to this whole wheat dough.

Both doughs were put in my long thin pans, and set in a warm place on the mantel under a box for an hour. 

The rye is ready to be baked when it develops some surface cracks.  Perhaps I waited a bit too long.

I mixed a few spoonfuls of plain yogurt and some poppy seeds, and just before baking, I brushed the mixture on the top.  I was going to be baking these breads for a long time at a high temperature, and I didn't want the tops to burn.  Just before placing the tins in the oven, I docked the loaves deeply with a thin poker in several places.

Then they were placed in the oven at 450 degrees F.  I intended to keep them there for 65 minutes, and perhaps 15 minutes more out of the tin in a cooling oven. 

And I left to walk the dog.  My wife had careful instructions to remove the tins, if we were for some reason delayed.

When I returned an hour later, I could smell the sourdough and yogurt tops of the loaves burning.  I opted to take them from the oven at 60 minutes, and to forget about any further baking.  The tops, with the poppy seeds, looked dark and interesting, but I felt the loaves had been baked enough.

I waited until the next morning to cut into the loaves.  The whole wheat is crusty, but holds together for thin slicing.  Curiously, the crust does not taste at all burnt.  Unfortunately, the loaf is rather tasteless over all.  I was hoping for a bit of sourdough taste here, but it really is not that pronounced.

The rye loaf is still a bit gummy in the interior.  Rye dough retains its moisture far longer than wheat will.  It could be that the gumminess comes chiefly from the boiled rye kernels which are still largely intact in the crumb.  But I feel that the rye loaf could have withstood an extra bit of time in the oven, too.  Still, the top crust has had enough time in the oven.  Despite the yogurt on top, any extra time might have just have burned it beyond using.  The poppy seeds have been exposed to the high heat at this point, and the burning smells I encountered when I returned from my walk were probably caused from them more than from the loaf.

Notes to Myself

• Try this next time with some cooked rice that has been soaked in tomato juice.  That idea has been kicking around the back of your mind long enough.
• The poppy seed and yogurt gives an interesting texture to the top, but it reminds me of cake more than bread.   
• Try adding some boiling water to some grain that will release its gums -- e.g some cracked rye or cracked wheat, or even some boiled oats -- a combination of grains that when it meets boiled water, will form a paste that can be brushed on.
• The whole wheat bread is done at 60 minutes; the rye bread could use an extra 10-20 minutes at least: but cover the top with foil so it doesn't burn during the final 15 minutes.