Just having fun baking sourdough

Summer’s trying to come to an end… I never REALLY got a Summer though. I think we had a total of maybe four or five days of weather that went above 80 degrees and most of that was during the week I was gone. Anyway, I am really excited! My hubby brought me home a box full of grains from the brewery. Malted and flaked grains and roasted too! So I have a box full of possibilities. I also purchased more flour grains. I got some winter hard red wheat berries, Spring hard red wheat berries(should be higher in protein than the winter variety),white hard wheat berries(the white berries look cool) and some more rye berries, they are all organic. I ground up some of all of them and have them sitting until needed. The hard white wheat berries are like the red berries but they have a white(really a tan color) color to the outer layer instead of a reddish color. I wonder if they can fool the reluctant whole wheat eaters into thinking there is more white flour than there really is. I have already used some of the Rye flakes in my Rye breads and they have really kept the bread moist for much longer. I poured boiling water over them and then used them as part of the preferment to bring out the flavor and break down the fiber.

Well for all that I made more basic white sourdough for my last bake two days ago and have another batch ready to go for tomorrow. I have been using the  Electrolux mixer I bought and have found out that it does well if you know exactly how much flour to put in before autolyse( If you add more after it wont mix in). 

The mixer is pretty gentle on the dough and doesn’t seem to knead it as well as the Blendtec/K-tec mixer which is still my preferred mixer( Blendtec mixer ). I don’t have a Bosch to compare to but I wish I had one just to do the comparison as it has driven me nuts that no one out there will give a side by side comparison and reviews for the different home market mixers , especially someone who has experience with bread dough, especially sourdough (Not just a vendor who runs the motor and watches it spin with nothing in the bowl!).

I am planning to purchase a new Blendtec mixer, I have two older K-tec mixers and I have an Electrolux mixer, which might work better for my needs if I got a dough hook for it istead of just the blade and turner which it has now. Hey Blendtec and Bosch… you want to donate one for the cause?? He he he he! I would be happy to do reviews!

Anyway to the important stuff… sourdough. Here are my loaves from two days ago (basic white):

Here is the boule:

Closeup of the crust top:

This one had a one slash down the middle, but it wanted to break out all over!

The dough was wonderful. It acted like the dough usually does when I make sure I feed the starter consistently but not too much. It was a slow riser. This kind of feeding seems to slow down the dough for a better sour but it also really “pops” in the oven. The last proofing is not spectacular and you would wonder if you should put it into the oven yet, but you should and POP goes the dough , which fills it full of holes!