Hi all
I've been making some pretty decent bread recently using..
- a basic masterstock style starter
- white flour at 12% protein / 2% salt / 60% hydration
- an overnight sponge
- basically no kneading and an all day ferment
- shaping/proof for a few hours
- a good bake on a pizza stone in my Kamado oven (my secret weapon).
My bread has had an excellent crust, wonderful spring, fanatastic crumb strucutre etc.. and my routine has worked out so that I basically put about 5 mins of effort into each dough (sponge, mix, rise, shape, bake, eat).
So I got confident and bought a new grain mill (a curiosity that has been niggling at me). It's not the best grian mill, in fact I think it's quite low end. It's burr, but stainless, and it's hand operated. My first attempt at whole wheat hand-milled flour was.. HOPELESS.
Here's what I discovered:
- Thirsty flour. 60% hydration was just not enough. My next bake I'm going to increase it to at least 70%. I'll aim for 75%. How should I respond with my salt percentage? Time will tell.
- Humbling myself.. I expected the taste to be out of this world.. taste was good but everything else (structure, height, crust, chewing texture) was hopeless. Also, whilst I was prepared to mill flour for each bake and do 100% whole wheat.. the combination of effort involved and poor gluten means that I might resort to using my fresh milled flour as a percentage of my purchased flour. Time will tell..
- Rye. I also bought some rye grains.. well, that's an experiement that is going to have to wait.
Anyway, I think it's clear that I'm now out of my comfort zone but I've got some confidence beacuse some of my previous bakes have been spot on.
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