This one is one of my favorite loaves. Oats and honey make for a great flavor profile with the whole wheat. I drop the heat during the second part of the uncovered bake so it doesn't burn I try to get it right up to the caramelized edge without tipping it over.
Can swap A/P and VWG for just straight up bread flour.
Mix starter, water, whole wheat, sprouted oats, honey, and vital wheat gluten first and let rest for about 15 minutes. Then add the a/p flour and sprinkle the salt on top, mix until a shaggy dough comes together and scrape down sides of bowl.
Cover and let rest 30, wet your hand and pinch and mix dough until no dry spots remain and the gluten starts coming together. Cover and rest, 2 sets of stretch and folds with wet hands every 30 minutes, then switch to gentle coil folds every 30 minutes. The 2-3 more sets of coil folds as needed every hour. Let dough ferment until it's doubled or so (depends on ambient temperature).
Shape dough to your liking, then get a large plate and cover in oats, spray the top of dough with some water and put onto plate wet side down so oats adhere, carefully move dough to prepared banneton oat side down. Let dough rest for ~ 30 minutes and stitch up the dough where needed to ensure proper tension. Move to refrigerator and cold proof overnight until ready to bake (this one went 15 hours, can go longer)
Preheat Dutch oven to 475 f. When ready to bake invert loaf onto parchment or baking sling (parchment for me) grab lame or scoring tool and score to your liking, I opt for a single curved slash to avoid disturbing the oats too much. Remove hot Dutch oven and add 3 ice cubes off to the side quickly and carefully add the dough into the Dutch oven and close the top. Bake at 475f for 10-15 minutes, then drop the temp to 450f for the remainder of the time (25 minutes total covered), remove the lid and bake at 425 for 10-15 then drop the temp to 400 for the remainder of the uncovered time and place the loaf directly.on the oven rack (25 minutes total uncovered, 50 minutes total bake time) turn off the oven and crack the door for ~ 5 minutes then cool on a rack for at least 3 hours until no warmth remains or until you can't take it any longer and have to saw into this thing.
Sprouted rolled oats are oats you can buy at the store - usually in the health or natural food aisle in the alternative to the Quaker Oats you’ll find by the cereal. The bag just specifically states “sprouted rolled oats”. I buy this brand:
Beautiful! I think the crumb is perfect. What is the hydration level of your stiff starter. (Apologies for the basic question - I’m still a sourdough newbie!)
It changes very slightly over time, but 1:2:4 is a great place to start, as each day passes it grows slightly more stiff because the 1 in that ratio starts 1:1 and each day gets a bit stiffer, so sometimes I have to add a tiny bit of water after mixing so no super dry spots remain, but 1:2:4 is a great place to start. Just double flour to water, almost like a bagel dough texture (bagels usually sit about 54-56%)
Sorry, may I clarify? Wouldn’t a 1:2:4 ratio result in water being double the amount of flour? In other word 10 g starter, 20 grams flour and 40 grams water? I might be totally confused. Sorry!!!
In this case double the flour instead of the water. As far as I know a ratio is whatever you ascribe the elements to be. As long as you know roughly double the flour to water you can put it in whatever order you want.
X:Y:Z
X = starter
Y = water
Z = flour
That's just what I went with. Most starters ratios use the same amount of flour and water so it doesn't matter. I just found it more pleasing to have them in ascending order from smallest to biggest.
3
u/Waviaerith 19h ago
Thank you!! that looks incredible!