I really enjoy using several different flours and grains in a bread to really give it some depth and complexity. With this bread I used six different grains and flours I had in my pantry to come up with a really tasty sourdough.

Schedule: I based this loaf off of my sourdough schedule.

Since this is a 100% naturally leavened bread, I created a levain with my sourdough starter that was last fed 12 hours prior. This levain provides enough for 2 loaves of bread.

30 minutes before mixing the salt into the dough, I performed an autolyse by mixing the water, levain and flour together.

Ingredients:

Levain

Started at 8:10am with the following ingredients. Mix everything together and loosely cover and let it ferment for about 8 hours.

• 22g unfed sourdough starter (last feeding was 12 hours prior)
• 108g filtered water @ 85-90’F
• 108g bread flour

Dough

• 700g bread flour
• 60g whole wheat flour
• 60g rye flour
• 45g spent grain flour
• 20g quick oats
• 10g blue cornmeal
• 680g filtered water @ 90-95’F
• 216g levain
• 22g sea salt

Method:

After mixing the dough, I performed 3 stretch and folds within the first 3 hours. The dough fermented at room temperature (around 68’F) overnight. After the overnight fermentation I shaped the loaves before proofing in bannetons for about 2 hours.

I baked the loaves 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 16 minutes.

Result:

The dough was a little sticky at first but after really working it during the first fold it firmed up pretty well and was a lot easier to work with after that. The spent grain flour always makes the dough seem a little less pliable but it still seemed to stretch decently well.

The color of the dough is really nice. It’s a nice light brown color on both the crust and crumb. I wasn’t sure how the blue cornmeal would affect the color but in such a low quantity it didn’t seem to really make a difference. I would have added a little more cornmeal but this was the last of what I had.

You can definitely smell and taste that it’s sourdough. The sourdough flavor mixes perfectly with all of the flavors from the different flours and grains. There’s a little nuttiness and a lot of whole grain flavor. The oats give it a little bit of silkiness and the blue cornmeal an ever so slight crunch.

My Baking Notes

• Ambient Temperature @ levain start: 68’F
• Levain start: 8:10am
• Ambient Temperature @ autolyse: 69’F
• Started autolyse @ 6:15pm
• Water temp: 92’F
• Dough was 87’F at autolyse
• Mixed @ 6:45pm
• Dough was 81’F after mixing
• 3 stretch and folds in first 3 hours
• Started proof @ 6:15am
• Preheated oven @ 7:10am
• Into oven @ 8:05am