Kayla

April 15, 2020 at 9:47am

I had to make quite a few adjustments to this bread for what I had on hand and ended up with a tasty but not quite right loaf that I could use some troubleshooting advice on. I'm very low on bread flour and AP flour and haven't been able to get any, so I subbed the following in this recipe:

700g white whole wheat flour
300g unbleached AP flour

Given the larger quantity of the more dense whole wheat flour and that my apartment is usually hovering around 67 degrees I upped the starter to around 90g. I also increased the water a bit. I ended up with a wet dough that rose so well overnight (in the oven with the light on) that it popped the lid off the top of the 6qt container and oozed over the side. Fun morning of oven cleaning for me! The dividing and shaping was difficult because the bread was so wet- I felt like I knocked a lot of the nice air bubbles out during this process. The shaped loaves hung out in floured tea-towel lined bowls in my fridge for around 8 hours and hadn't risen a whole lot. I let them rise a little more on the counter for around an hour before baking as instructed. They came out a beautiful color, great crust, excellent texture through the bread with lots of nice holes and a slightly tangy taste. However -- they are FLAT. they spread to cover the entire bottom of the dutch oven I baked them in and only got 2.5-3 inches tall. Right when I transferred the nicely spongy, risen loaves out of my lined baskets and onto the parchment for scoring, they just oozed into flat puddles. I'm guessing I must have over compensated on the liquid (thinking I'd need more for the whole wheat flour). Overall, this is a really delicious bread (and easier to manage than the KAF extra-tangy sourdough recipe, which is my standard loaf). I'd like to try this loaf again but now I'm completely out of AP flour. Does anyone have any advice on troubleshooting this loaf going forward, with any mixture of white whole wheat, whole grain, rye, pumpernickle, or gluten-free flours?

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