Monsoons finally hit here in Santa Fe which really helped cool the house down. I hadn’t baked bread recently because cranking the oven to nearly 500’F for almost 2 hours when it’s already 85’F in the kitchen just wasn’t appealing. I decided my first loaf back was going to be a hearty rye and spent grain sourdough!

Schedule

Using the lazy sourdough method is actually quite simple. The real key to this method is that you can use your unfed starter straight from the fridge without the need to make a levain. There’s also no autolyse which saves about 30 minutes.

Schedule: Here’s a link to the lazy sourdough method.

The exact schedule I used is at the bottom of this post.

Ingredients:

This recipe makes two loaves. Simply divide all the ingredients in half if you only want one loaf.

Dough

• 900g bread flour
• 60g dark rye flour
• 40g spent grain flour
• 750g filtered water @ 88’F
• 200g unfed starter straight from fridge (100% hydration)
• 22g sea salt

Method:

After mixing the dough, I performed 4 stretch and folds within the first 2 hours. I let the dough bulk ferment at room temperature for a total of 7 hours. I normally would have gone with 8 hours but it was still 78’F in the kitchen toward the end of the day which caused the dough to ferment much faster.

Once the dough had doubled, I shaped the loaves and put them in bannetons that I liberally dusted with rice flour, poppy and sesame seeds. I put the bannetons in vegetable bags and then placed them in the fridge for a 17 hour cold proof.

One hour before baking I started preheating the oven, with dutch ovens inside, to 450’F. When it was time to bake, I took the loaves straight from the fridge and placed them in the preheated dutch ovens, gave them a quick score and then put it in the oven.

I baked the loaf at 450’F for 20 minutes covered, then removed the lid of the dutch ovens and baked for an additional 30 minutes.

Result:

These loaves came out looking amazing. The color of the crust is exactly what I look for in a loaf of bread. The poppy and sesame seeds give a really nice attractive look as well.

The crumb picked up some great color from the addition of the spent grain and dark rye flours. I probably could have added a little more of each but I’m very happy with how this turned out.

As I’ve stated before, I’m a fan of slightly tighter crumbs so I can slather the bread with jam or dunk it in soup and not have it fall apart. This is the exact crumb I got in these loaves.

My Baking Notes

• Ambient Temperature @ mixing: 74’F
• Mixed @ 12:50pm on July 27th
• Dough was 85’F at mixing
• 4 stretch and folds in first 2 hours
• Started proof @ 8:00pm on July 27th (~7 hour bulk fermentation at room temp which got to 76’F)
• Preheated oven @ 11:15am on July 28th (~17 hour cold proof)
• Out of fridge and into oven @ 12:15pm