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Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Sprouted Spelt Flour Bread with Montrachet Wine Yeast (and a terrific BreadStorm update)

As you may recall, a few months ago I switched all my formulas to BreadStorm format. BreadStorm is a bread formulation software that takes all the boring (to me) work out of baking bread (well, short of washing bowls and pans, for which I wish there were a program too).
It is the brainchild of two passionate home bakers and software programmers, Dado and Jacqueline Colussi, who like nothing better than making bakers' lives a bit easier. No more calculations, no more head-scratching over Excel formulas, and now, thanks to a stunning new update, a much more convenient way to bake from the web. If you go back to one of my recent posts, for instance The Prairie Loaf, and scroll down, you'll see that I posted the formula in the usual static form and made it available in BreadStorm proprietary format for BreadStorm users, including users of the free version. Those of you who didn't use a Mac or weren't interested in downloading BreadStorm were out of luck: they still had to do all the calculations themselves in case they wanted to scale the formula up or down. Not so anymore! From now on you will be able to toggle a formula between percentages and weights AND to scale it directly without any further calculation or downloading on your part. If you are a BreadStorm user,  of course you can still import it. Please note that this update is still in beta, which means that at the moment, only beta testers can create interactive formulas and only on Mac.
The picture above shows a 50% sprouted spelt flour bread I have been working on, using a Montrachet wine yeast instead of a bread yeast. I was curious to see if it would rise properly because from what I had read on the web, wine yeast can behave very differently from bread yeast. That wasn't my experience.
In the first iteration of the formula I only used .1% yeast and put it all in the poolish. The bread raised well but the taste was curiously bland.
In the second version, I used a total of 1.17 % yeast, split between the poolish and the final dough, and the taste was surprisingly complex. I only had a little bit of yeast and have now run out, and since wine yeast is quite expensive compared to regular yeast, there is a good chance I won't be making this bread again but if you do have access to wine yeast and want to give it a shot, I would encourage you to try using sprouted spelt or another wholegrain flour depending on what you have on hand. You may be pleasantly surprised. The sprouted spelt flour I used was a lovely present from my friend breadsong who brought it to me from British Columbia. Thanks, breadsong!

Here is the formula in the new interactive BreadStorm format:
Please let me know how you like this new feature. Dado and Jacqueline will be following the comments and they are keenly interested in your feedback as I am.

Baking notes
  • The poolish fermented for 12 hours at 74°F/23°C
  • The dough was autolysed for 30 minutes and hand-mixed
  • Dough temperature: 75°F/24°C
  • Bulk fermentation: 3 hours at room temperature (74°F/23°C) then 12 hours in refrigerator
  • Shaped cold
  • Proofed for 2:30 hours
  • Baked for 40 minutes with steam the first five minutes
  • Total time: 15 minutes at 450°F/232°C, 25 minutes at 400°F/204°C (tented with foil to prevent burning since sprouted grain flour breads tend to burn easily)
  • If I made the bread again, I would try using more yeast to open up the crumb some.

15 comments:

  1. Cara MC, per quanto mi riguarda trovo il tuo post ed il tuo pane molto, ma molto interessante.
    Il pane ha uno straordinario colore ed una piacevole alveolatura. Sarei curiosa di provare quella tipologia di lievito che hai utulizzato, cercherò di procurarmelo per metterlo alla prova.
    Come sempre il tuo pane decorato è strabiliante, brava!
    Un abbraccio, Anna

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    1. Thank you, Anna, and please let me know how it goes if you ever find wine yeast where you live. Best of luck!

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  2. MC, I too recently received some sprouted spelt flour. It really makes nice bread! I used 1:3 ratio of sprouted spelt flour to Fairhaven organic unbleached white, and used my whole wheat starter (100%). With an overnight proof in the fridge, it's so yummy! Trying to get Granite Mill Farms sprouted grain flours from Montana into Puget Sound. Will let you know if I succeed. Gail NK, GoodFood World

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    1. Please do! It would be a great resource for Washington bakers.

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  3. New BreadStorm feature is very cool. I have a Mac, but I mostly use my iPad, so I hadn't bothered to download the software.

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    1. Hello Alison, the iPad version (fully functioning) is currently in beta. I am testing it as well and I like it a lot for bread-creating on the go...

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  4. Another gorgeous bread, I actually think the crumb is perfect - I tend to enjoy looking at a bread with a more open crumb more than I enjoy eating it... you know what I mean? Maybe it looks more appealing, but to slather a little butter and really savor it, I prefer a slightly tighter crumb, just like this one

    I noticed that you shaped the bread cold - that's something I find very hard to do, I need to somehow incorporate this type of skill... comes in handy ;-)

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    1. There is something to be said for jam not dripping to your lap as you eat your breakfast "tartine." Thank you, Sally, you make be feel better about this crumb!
      Re: shaping cold. I actually find it easier than shaping at room temp for doughs which tend to be a bit soft... Give it another try and let me know!

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    2. Will try it again. You know what my problem has been with shaping it cold? I find large pockets of air in the center, as if when I shape the dough the internal region doesn't "glue" properly. Gosh, I cannot quite express my thoughts. I might need more caffeine. It's Friday. Long week... you know.. ;-)

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    3. Maybe if you used a misting spray of water instead of a dusting of flour on the counter when doing the shaping?

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    4. Could work better indeed. I normally skip the flour on the counter when I shaped it cold because I found that the dough never sticks when formed from the fridge - but the water mist could make a ton of difference... thank you!

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  5. A very beautiful bread! I prefere to eat bread with a not so open crumb, too (honey...).
    I like to use wine yeast for bread baking. Last autumn I baked some breads using only flour, salt and young, still fermenting wine (which is called Federweißer in Germany) and was very happy with the result.

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    Replies
    1. Wow! I would have to loved to taste that bread...

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  6. WHAT EFFECT WILL USING THE MONTRACHET WINE YEAST HAVE ON THE STRUCTURE AND FLAVOR OF A STANDARD LOAF OF BREAD ???

    TONY

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    1. Hi Tony, to answer your question properly I would need to experiment further with this yeast. You could start with the posted formula as a basis and maybe up the percentage of yeast a little bit and see what happens. As I wrote in my post, it yielded a very bland bread when I used .1% but the second time I used 1% and the flavor combination with the sprouted spelt flour was an especially happy one. I would go with 1.5% total yeast and see what happens. Please keep me posted if you do try it...

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