Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it

Few lies carry the inventor's mark; and the most prostitute enemy to truth may spread a thousand without being known for the author.  Besides, as the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his believers; and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it.  Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late, the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect:  like a man who has thought of a good repartee, when the discourse is changed, or the company parted:  or, like a physician who has found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.

Jonathan Swift
Contributions to "The Examiner.", Number 15
From Thursday November 2, to Thursday November 9, 1710

Snow

Excellent whole wheat

I made that Peter Reinhart whole wheat again today, and it's amazing.  This has to be one of my all-time favorite breads, and I'm definitely going to keep my freezer stocked with it.  I have yet to come across a 100% whole grain bread that has the light crumb of this loaf.

I wonder how easy it is to convert to a sourdough?  Hmm... research time.

Sourdough Bread

From BreadExperience.com.

1 cup ( 9 ounces) "fed" sourdough starter
1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) lukewarm water
5 to 6 cups (21 1/4 to 25 1/2 ounces) All-Purpose Flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar (optional)

The evening before making the dough, prepare the preferment.  Pour the cup of starter into a large mixing bowl. Add the warm water and about 3 cups of flour. Beat vigorously. Cover this sponge with plastic wrap and put it aside to work for four hours.  Put in the refrigerator overnight.

Remove from the refrigerator and let sit for one hour.  Blend in the salt, sugar, and remaining 2 cups of flour. Mix until the dough comes together, then knead, using your hands, an electric mixer, or a bread machine set on the dough cycle, until the dough is smooth and elastic. Add only enough extra flour to keep the dough from sticking. Place the dough in the bowl, cover, and let it rise until doubled, about 2 hours.

Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into an oval loaf, and place on a lightly greased, cornmeal-sprinkled baking sheet. Cover, and let rise until doubled (this can take up to 2 hours). Remove the cover, slash the tops, and bake in a preheated 450°F oven for approximately 20 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven, and cool on rack.

Fermentation times all took awhile, but not so long the bread turned, like happened to me last week.  The bread has a nice sourness to it that isn't too overpowering.

I've heard of people having trouble getting a good crust with color on their sourdough, but mine are coming out with a thin, crisp crust with nice brown highlights.  I do put a dish in the oven with about 1/4 inch of water in it to provide some moisture... maybe that helps.

Whole Wheat Bread

It's a good day for bread.  Both this and the sourdough I made came out perfectly.  This is my first time making this bread, and it's definitely the best bread I've made.  It's 100% whole wheat, it's light, has a good crust and has a lot of flavor.

Adapted from Peter Reinhart's 'The Bread Baker's Apprentice'.

On the evening before you plan to bake, make the soaker and poolish.

Soaker
1 cup Bob's Red Mill 5 Grain Rolled Cereal
3/4 cup water

Mix and cover.  Let sit overnight at room temperature.

Poolish
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon instant dry yeast
3/4 cup water at room temperature

Mix and cover.  Let sit for 2-4 hours, or until it just starts bubbling.  Put in the refrigerator overnight.

Dough
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/3 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon instant dry yeast
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 egg

One hour before making dough, remove poolish from the refrigerator.  Stir together dry ingredients.  Add the poolish and soaker and the rest of the ingredients.  Knead 10 to 15 minutes.  The dough should be tacky but not sticky.  Roll in lightly oiled bowl, cover and let rise for two hours, or until dough doubles in volume.

Divide in two, shape and pan.  Mist tops of loaves with oil and loosely cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise for 90 minutes, or until doubled.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350.  Makes two loaves.

Whitey McWhite Bread

I actually made this last Sunday after the sourdough whole wheat failed.  Gotta have bread.  This recipe is fast and easy and produces a soft, cakey bread that's great for toast and sandwiches.

From Mother Earth News.

2 teaspoons instant dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar *
1/4 cup warm water
3 tablespoons sugar *
1 tablespoon salt
1 3/4 cups milk, room temperature *
3 tablespoons butter, melted *
6 to 6 1/2 cups unbleached or bread flour *

* organic

In large mixing bowl, stir yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar into water until dissolved. Add remaining sugar, salt, milk, butter and 1 1/2 cups flour. Mix well. Stir in enough remaining flour to make a workable dough, adding flour by quarter cupfuls toward the end. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface, and knead 10 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Place in greased bowl, turning once to coat. Cover and let rise in warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Divide in half and shape into loaves. Place in 2 greased 8" X 4" loaf pans. Let rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes to an hour.

Bake in preheated 375°F oven 35-40 minutes, or until done. Makes 2 loaves.

Today's bread

Today it's whole wheat sourdough.  Thanks to Jeffrey for the idea.  Unfortunately, it didn't work out.  I wrote most of this post on Saturday, and am going back and adding notes now, on Sunday.


I've been making two sourdough starters since the 18th; one whole wheat and the other white flour.  They're both ready to go, but I'll wait a bit to do the white version... I'm very curious to see how the whole wheat version comes out.
I'm starting with this recipe, which I've modified to make two loaves.  Here's the way I'm doing it:

1 1/2 cups active whole wheat starter

1 1/2 cups water

2 1/2 tsp salt

3 tbsp honey

4 2/3 tbsp oil

5 1/3 cup whole wheat flour

Pour starter into mixing bowl.  Add the water, salt, honey and oil.  Whisk together.

Add flour one cup at a time and stir.  Knead for five minutes, let rest for five, then continue kneading until dough passes the windowpane test.  Form into a ball, coat with oil, cover and let rise for 90 minutes.

When the dough has doubled in size, gently deflate the dough by pressing your fist into the ball, then fold over the sides of the ball to form it into a new ball, and put back into the mixing bowl.  Cover and let rise 45 minutes.

Again, gently deflate the bread, and form a loaf, and put the loaf into a greased 4 x 8" bread pan.  Let rise 30 minutes, or until dough is 1" over top of pan.

Slice, then bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

When first making the dough, it came out very dry, which may be due to the flour I'm using, which is a little roughly milled.  I had to rehydrate it some during kneading, a sprinkle at a time, adding about 1/4 to 1/3 cup total.  I also had about 1/3 to 1/2 cup flour left over.  So next time I'll have to tweak the recipe.

After the dough rested during kneading, and I continued kneading, it took a very long time to get the glutens to activate... maybe 20 minutes.  It did eventually get a nice consistency, but it took a lot of work.  This may also have been due to the dough being too dry.


Rising took a long time, too.  First rise took 3 hours 15 minutes, instead of 90 minutes.


In fact, all the rises took way too long.  Unfortunately, with sourdough, long rising times give the bacteria time to create way too much lactic and acetic acid, swinging the flavor way past tart and sour into vinegar.  So the end result was bread that hadn't risen nearly enough and tasted like vinegar.


Why?  I think either the starter was yeast light and bacteria heavy, or not active enough.  Or the dough was too dry, making it too difficult to rise.  I know I'll come back and try it again at some point, so I could try

• getting the starter to be more active
• tweaking the recipe to be more moist
• cut the recipe with some white flour

At least, that's my guess.