Loaf 20

Now that I have a fairly reliable baseline I’m interested in cutting back on the white flour and increasing the spelt, or wholemeal. For this one the plan is to swap the spelt for wholemeal.

premix

• 85g starter
• 85g strong white flour (M&S organic)
• 85g water

This is the actual order I added them as I find the starter can be a bit unpredictable for weighing and I don’t want to actually have to concentrate too much. It’s easier to match the flour and water to whatever jumps out of the starter jar.

1653

Menu 32 and let it run for a while. While it’s doing that refresh the starter. I’m fairly relaxed and unscientific about this. Sometimes I even use scales. As long as it looks and smells good. Nudge the proportions if it looks too thick or runny.

• 50g rye wholemeal (Doves Organic)
• 40g water (tap warm)

Stir the starter and leave it while menu 32 completes.

1743

The pizza program has finished and I’m not sure what to think. There seems to be a fair bit of unmixed white flour around the sides. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t usually happen. I’ll need to see if it shows in the older photos. What could cause this? Well I’ve changed two things: 1. I used the 45 minutes pizza dough program (menu 32) instead of 1 hour on the rustic sourdough program (menu 29) and 2. I changed the order I added the premix ingredients. Starter first as it’s thick and sometimes slurps out and gives an untidy weight.

I’d planned at this point to put it on menu30 for a couple of hours, but instead to give it some more kneading. So I put it on menu 29 to see if it mixed in any more of the flour.

1857

Just under an hour on menu 29 and no noticeable sign of anything looking much different. Hopefully it’s not overworked the mix. Next, on to menu 30 for a couple of hours.

Around 9’ish pm

• 200g wholemeal flour (Marriage’s organic stoneground – first time I’ve used this)
• 200g strong white flour (M&S organic)
• 250g water
• 4g salt
• 20g extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)

20 minutes on menu 32 (actually 18 minutes seems to be how much kneading before the middle rise phase). After 20 minutes no sign of any flour round the sides, but lots more ingredients in the pan so not sure that means a lot.

Overnight the timer on menu 10.

Result

I was nearly 2 hours late tipping this one out so the base was a little damp, but it will dry out fine.