Multiple Flour Sourdough

I ran out of bread a little while ago and needed to restock my freezer with some. I always seem to go back to the basics when I want some hearty and tasty bread on hand. These sourdough loaves have dark rye and whole wheat flour in addition to bread flour fit the bill perfectly.

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
65g dark rye flour
35g whole wheat flour
750g filtered water @ 84’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 made sure to really stretch the dough to help strengthen the dough and promote gluten development. I let the dough bulk ferment at room temperature for a total of 8 hours. Bulk fermentation can take anywhere between 7-9 hours depending on the temperature of your kitchen and how active your culture is. My bulk ferments using this method often take a little less than 8 hours.

Once the dough had doubled, I shaped the loaves and put them in bannetons that I liberally dusted with rice flour and threw some sesame seeds into. 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 them in the oven.

I baked the loaves at 450’F for 20 minutes covered, then removed the lid of the dutch ovens and baked for an additional 33 minutes.

Result:

These loaves rose extremely well in the oven thanks to a quick and deep score I gave each loaf. They were already looking great when I took the lids off the dutch ovens, but the additional 33 minutes really helped to caramelize and add some color to them.

There was some really nice blistering on both loaves. I’ve found that whichever loaf I bake in my combo cooker ends up slightly darker than the one in my Le Creuset enameled cast iron dutch oven.

The crumb is a little tighter on these loaves due to the added rye and whole wheat flours. I’m not going to complain though since I like a smaller crumb so cheese, jam, peanut butter or butter doesn’t drip through as easily.