High Protein Flour Sourdough

I’ve been playing around with various bread recipes using Ardent Mills Kyrol high protein flour. The protein percentage clocks in at 14.3% (compared to ~12% for bread flour and 10-11% for AP flour). The high percentage of protein means a lot more gluten development. This recipe tempers the high protein content slightly by adding some All Purpose flour along with some dark rye and spent grain flours.

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

750g Ardent Mills Kyrol high protein flour (14.3% protein)
150g King Arthur All Purpose flour (11.7% protein)
50g dark rye flour
50g spent grain flour
750g filtered water @ 93’F
200g unfed starter straight from fridge (100% hydration)
20g 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 16 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 30 minutes.

Result:

These loaves rose 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 30 minutes really helped to caramelize and add some color to them.

The addition of spent grain from an imperial stout really helps boost the whole wheat flavor, provides some added texture and color and also gives it a slight chocolatey flavor.

There was some really nice blistering on both loaves, which I’ve seen a lot of when testing the Ardent Mills Kyrol flour. My guess is the extra gluten development helps the bubbles stay intact under the surface and then they turn into some really nice blisters during baking.

The crumb is exactly how I like it for sandwiches, toast and cheesy bread. It’s soft and airy enough, but not so much that there are giant holes that jam, butter or cheese leak through. The spent grain addition gave it a nice tan interior with some dark speckles from the roast malts I had in the spent grain.