Summer struck Northern New Mexico with some wicked temperatures and living in a house with no A/C means severely limiting oven usage. After a couple month hiatus from baking, monsoons have started up again and temperatures mellow at in the late afternoon. My first loaf back is an experiment using some black rice flour to add color, taste and texture.

Schedule: I based this loaf off of my bakers yeast schedule.

Ingredients:

Dough

• 485g bread flour
• 15g black rice flour
• 390g filtered water
• 11g sea salt
• 2g bakers yeast

Method:

I’ve never seen black rice flour in the store (only brown and white) so I made my own. I bought some black rice (which is great on its own) and ground it in a coffee grinder for about 30 seconds until it was a fine flour.

I started with a 30 minute autolyse with all of the flours and the water.

After mixing the dough, I performed 4 stretch and folds within the first 90 minutes, separated by 20 minutes.

I proofed for 45 minutes in the banneton before placing it in a dutch oven.

I baked the loaf in a preheated dutch oven at 450’F for 38 minutes covered, then removed the lid of the dutch oven and baked for an additional 15 minutes.

Result:

The black rice flour contributed some unexpected flavor as well as some expected color and texture. The flavor of the black rice is a little more earthy with almost some fruitiness that comes through. The crumb is nice and open and the bread vented pretty well in the oven.

In a future version of this loaf I’ll increase the black rice flour quantity up to 30g and see how that affects the color and flavor. I’m looking forward to using this bread for toast and sandwiches!

My Baking Notes

• Ambient Temperature: 72’F-76’F
• Started autolyse @ 6:20am
• Water temp: 92’F
• Dough was 88’F at autolyse
• Mixed @ 7:00pm
• Dough was 79’F after mixing
• 4 stretch and folds over first 90 minutes
• Started proof @ 11:38am
• Into oven @ 12:23pm