WHOLE-WHEAT LEVAIN

 

I bought the book 'BREAD' by jeffrey hamelman. I already have the bread book 'The Bread Baker's Apprentice' by peter reinhart. It's a great book but I needed more deep explanation about scoring, folding, shaping something like these. Searching Amazon for the most useful, awesome book, I found 'Bread'. Although this book doesn't contain many photos, the explanation is detailed and lots of recipes are in here.

 

Whole-wheat Levain is one of the recipes in this book. It has liquid levain made like poolish. The levain I had was 70% hydration. I just used this instead of the liquid culture(It was not that much amount.). In fact, my levain was in the refrigerator for 1 week not feeded. It was totally out of my mind. It was not in the good state but it was okay. I feeded a little bit spoiled levain and waited. Yeasts were activating in the levain and I made the dough.

 

 

When my levain and dough was standed on the counter to be proofed, the temperature was above 30℃. After 1 hour of bulk fermentation, when I folded, the dough smelled quite strange. It smelled stale a little bit but I wasn't sure it was. It can be the smell of whole-wheat flour or sourdough. I just continued making the bread. When it was out of the refrigerator, the smell was reduced so I baked it.

 

I didn't want to wait until the dough warms up to room temperature. I thought it could be overproofed. I regretted doing that after 15minutes of baking. The cut just spreaded slightly and the dough soared up. If I waited until the dough took off a chill, the crust would have been fabulous. Anyway, the important thing is that it tastes fantastic. The sour flavor is palatable to me and it goes well with the whole-wheat flour. Spread butter on a slice of this bread, you will have one more slice in a few minutes.

 

 

WHOLE-WHEAT LEVAIN

 

yields 1 loaf

 

 

Ingredients

 

for liquid-levain

 

whole-wheat flour 60g

water 60g

liquid culture(Instead, I used the same amount of 70% hydration white levain) 12g

 

for final dough

 

whole-wheat flour 140g

bread flour 200g

water 216g

salt 6g

levain 120g

 

 

Instructions

 

Mix all the ingredients for liquid-levain until well combined, cover with plastic and let it stand on the counter until small bubbles are all around the surface like well-proofed poolish. Add all the ingredients to the levain and knead for about 5 minutes. Cover with plastic and let if proof for 50 minutes. After 50 minutes, fold the dough in four directions and proof for another 50 minutes. Fold once more and proof for 50 minutes more. Shape oblong and give the dough final proofing for about 2 hours in the room temperature or 18 hours in the refrigerator. Preheat the oven to 240℃ with a baking pan. Bake the dough for 30 minutes until nicely brown. Cool at least 1 hour before slicing. Enjoy with butter or by itself.