For starters… I didn’t use the ratio I planned. This is a frequent occurrence and comes from thinking about the last bake over the ensuing week. And this week’s Sunday Bake got finished on Monday.
The levain looked possibly past its best Saturday morning so I stirred it and added 20 ml water at 90ºF and 20g rye flour and let it work while I prepared and autolyzed the flours.
I used 245g all purpose flour, 90 g stoneground rye, and 115g stoneground whole wheat flour. 300g of 80º F water, with 20g of wildflower honey mixed in, went into the flour mix. No gluten powder used this time either, just experimenting with letting the autolyze go longer (4 hours Saturday) before pinching and folding in 94g of levain, then 9g fine salt. Left out the extra 45g of water that would go in with the levain and salt, based on the wetness of the dough from last week. When the levain and salt went in the dough was wet and sticky but not to the degree it was last week.
I folded the dough 40 minutes apart 5 times, then prefolded and shaped the loaf and set it in the banneton (much lighter flouring this time, in fact I simply shook out the excess rice flour from the previous bake)
The first bake to use the new Lodge combo cooker, too!
The dough took longer to bulk ferment. It stayed out on the counter for the day and was showing little in the way of a rise, so I put it in the fridge overnight… and on Sunday it still wasn’t ready. So its bulk ferment was about…48 hours!
It had risen a little (with nearly half whole grain flour I didn’t expect a lot of large bubbles on the surface, which was the case) so I pulled it out of the fridge and prepared the oven by preheating it to 500ºF until it the temperature on the in-oven thermometer set just below the cast iron pans was at a steady 500º.
The combo cooker is quite easy to use with a little less wrangling to get the dough on the shallow griddle side, sliding it in on a round of parchment cut a little bigger all around than the dough. However in my rush to get it ready I neglected to put the foil and extra round of parchment under it, so I let it bake, turning down the heat to 475º when I shut the door. After 25 minutes I removed the deep top and let it cook another 10 at 475º.
The loaf looked like this out of the oven, and after cooling and slicing:
The bottom did over bake a little, due to my little omission and I also forgot cornmeal which would likely have kept it from getting as browned… but the bread itself is a very hearty and rustic brown bread with a little tang from the sourdough. I cut it while it was still warm enough for the butter to soften. It’s not “gummy” and the whole grain flavor is very good. The long bulk ferment did its job! Next time… I won’t forget to line the cooker!
Rust (truly) Never Sleeps 