There must have been a wild bee party on the sedums last night! They are sprawled out sound asleep on every blossom!
🐝💤💤💤

#Bees #BloomScrolling

Levain is looking good. Nice and airy!

Buckwheat sourdough starter is strange.

If left in the fridge for longer than three days it separates into two layers. I assume the white lower layer is the AP flour and the buckwheat endosperm. The purple-brown layer is likely the ground buckwheat seed coat and hull.

Stir and feed and all is good.

First image shows the layers before stirring.

Second image is 12 hours after feeding.

15g AP, 5g buckwheat; 5g starter; 15g water.

#Sourdough #Bread

That's one nice looking loaf. I'm really curious what the crumb will be like.

I'll try to get a more aggressive score into the second loaf. I was worried about the first loaf deflating on me but it seems to be a non-problem.

570g and about 8" long.

#Bread

Yoik! 👀

That's one big loaf! And it's **not** overproofed. Thankfully it just dropped out of the banetton. This is looking good! 😋

#Bread

Interesting. This levain is definitely layered. Lots of very fine small bubbles in the top and lots of larger bubbles in the bottom.

Who knows what the heck this may affect? Not me! 🤷♂️
😂

Buckwheat sourdough experiment part 2

Buckwheat levain. The levain for today's loaves was buckwheat starter mixed with All Purpose and Whole Wheat flour. This levain is buckwheat starter with All Purpose and Buckwheat flour.

First pic is last night's levain and the second is the levain made today. They are both about 6.5 hrs into a 7-9 hour ferment.

Yesterday's didn't rise as much today's and was much 'craggier' in comparison. More buckwheat -> faster fermentation apparently.

#Bread

There we go. That's more than acceptable! 😋

It's 540g but larger in volume than the 570g first loaf.

It's slightly flat on the bottom because I spilled some boiling water intended for the steam tray directly on the baking steel. Not a good move. 🤦♂️

Buckwheat sourdough experiment part 1 completed. ✅👍👍

#Bread

I love it when hobbies intersect. 😂

Have addressed the flattened loaf issue by applying techniques from the excellent article by @rahix on functional 3D printing.

More perimeter (toughened outer dough), less infill (score exposed interior dough). Two smaller lame scores keeping a perimeter bridge across the middle of the loaf. Much rounder loaf as a result! 👍👍

Nearly the same weight. The first loaf was 525g, the second was 550g.

#Bread

Not bad. It was a very sticky, slack dough so made a slightly flat loaf. You can see how slack the dough was by the huge bulge in the middle where the score cut gaped widest.

I really noticed the buckwheat smell when I took this out of the oven. Much more distinct than the loaves yesterday.

#Bread

At minimum I'll block the fridge vent into the cupboard but that won't be an all summer solution.

Wonder if I can force cold air up from the basement somehow? It may be easier to set up a second cupboard in the basement instead.

I thought I had conclusively proven that the buckwheat doughs fermented faster than my regular ones.

Decided to check the proofing cupboard temperature record. The faster ferment is because the cupboard is now much warmer than dead of winter, not requiring the heater at all. The temperature was well over my usual 21°C all night without heater assist.

The peaks are likely from the fridge running (air is vented from back of fridge into the cupboard).

I'm going to have to think about this. 🤔

First levain from the starter. Looks nice and active after 8 hours. Another hour and it goes into the final dough.

Looks like I have good starter!

#bread

Looking pretty good if I do say so myself. And I do! 😂

Three hours after mixing the final dough. Four folds, three in the first hour, one just a couple of minutes ago.

Then it's back in the proofing cupboard overnight with dividing and shaping between 8 and 9 tomorrow morning.

It's supposed to triple the original size of the dough and it's already about 1½ times. This may be a very big dough ball despite scaling it down by 20%.

I may be looking at three loaves here.

I remember this dough recipe. 🤦♂️

For some unknown reason it makes something like four times the amount of levain than is needed for the final dough.

I just tossed three quarters of the levain because it's useless.
😡😤

Good thing I'm taking notes this time around.

I'm going to divide and shape at 8am rather than 9am even though my kitchen in the winter generally tends to the high end of FWSY time estimates.

Time to get everything ready.

Blort!

Sweet Petunias! That looks like a *lot* of dough! 👀

Two weeks ago.

I was really proud of these at the time! They are 800g rather than my current 600g loaf.

And about half the size with a crust an armadillo would be envious of!

It's been a long trip in a short period of time!

Second loaf is even better! 626g vs 616g for the first loaf but a little larger as the lame cuts allowed the dough to expand even more.

I also think it's safe to drop the oven temp to 425°. There's some very light charring on the sides (tasty stuff that, actually) and the bottom is just a little blackened.

Eagerly awaiting the conclusion from the crumb! 🤪

#bread

I think there's a remote chance that I'm actually starting to understand what I'm doing now! Rather than just blindly following the recipe.
👍👍

<pats self on back>

[immediately starts writhing in agony cuz I'm too old to do things like that without consequences]

🤪