A great night to gaze at the skies!

The skies cleared enough to see Jupiter, Venus and the crescent moon tonight!

You can see the moon in the center, Venus is above on the right and Jupiter is barely visible above and on the left. The large yellow light at the right is a street lamp. 

At 9:13pm tonight the International Space Station passed over and was visible for about 4 minutes. 

Bettween now and the end of June, Venus and Jupiter will move closer together (from our perspective on Earth) and by June 30 will be so close together you could extend one finger and 'cover them up' in the sky.  

Earth Sky is a great newsletter with all kinds of science information. You can sign up to receive their notices at the bottom of their web page. Go to Earth Sky.org. I have been following the movements of Venus and Jupiter after reading their articles.

To find out when the International Space Station will be passing over your location, go to Spot the Station and enter your location. You will receive email notices for the dates and times when it will pass over your location. spotthestation.nasa.gov

 Tips for stargazing is a link to a great article from EarthSky.org.You can access lots of star maps for each month of the year on the internet, but a Planisphere is a great tool for orienting you to what can be seen any time of night and any day and month of the year..

Marbled rye and whole wheat spent grain

Marbled rye made with a sourdough starter is a light savory sandwich bread. It makes a great grilled cheese sandwich. It is made with  a rye sourdough starter, and bread flour. Two batches are made and coco powder is added to one batch to get the dark color. Caraway seeds and orange extract add to the aroma. It has the wonderful rye flavor due to the starter, but is light like a sandwich bread because it is made with bread flour. Layers of light and dark dough are rolled up and placed into a 5 x 9 loaf pan. The top is brushed with an egg white wash. The recipe can be foundd in Peter Reinhart's book artisan breads every day. 

The whole wheat spent grain again used the whole wheat starter plus bread flour, whole wheat flour and spent grain. It is a dense loaf, but very flavorful. I began with the sourdough starter I have been feeding since September 2014 and added whole wheat flour to make a whole wheat starter. Again, the directions are in Reinhart's book, see above. This starter ferments at room temperature for 6 to 8 hours, then goes in the refrigerator overnight. The next day the rest of the ingredients are added, the dough goes through a series of stretch and folds and then goes into the refrigerator overnight or for up to 5 days. The slow fermentation simply adds flavor.

 This is the marbled rye. Thanks to my neighbor for this great picture of the loaf he sampled. 

 This is the whole wheat spent grain bread. It is one of my 'experiments'. Of the 454g of flour, 254g of unbleached flour, 100g of whole wheat flour, 100g of spent grain flour. The spent grain was half barley and half wheat, from the brewing of  Slam Dunkel Weizen beer from Natty Greene's Brewery.

The nice thing about using the starter is that you can divide the bread-making process up into a couple of days and not feel tied to the dough over a whole day. Of course this does require patience to wait for the finish product, but it is well worth it. 

If you haven't seen Reinhart's class on artisan breads on Craftsy.com, it is well worth the time. He is a great teacher!

Kranz Cake Chocolate Babka

The last lesson in the Artisan Bread class by Peter Reinhart is Chocolate Babka. This was much less intimidating that I thought it would be, mostly because of Reinhart's instruction and demonstration on the video lessons (see previous post).

Everything mixes easily in the mixer then the dough ferments overnight in the fridge.

The dough is rolled out, slathered with partially melted chocolate chips and butter then rolled up. The log is then split into two halves lengthwise.

The ends on one side are pinched closed and the two lengths are twisted.

The twisted dough is placed on a cookie sheet and baked.

Then a sugar-milk-vanilla icing is drizzled over the slightly cooled cake. 

Ready to eat! This picture shows the swirls of chocolate throughout. Sorry the picture is fuzzy!

This recipe is also in Peter Reinhart"s book Artisan Breads Every Day.

Now I have a few more 'homework' assignments to finish from the video lessons!

Learning from a master - Peter Reinhart

Since retiring I have been obsessed with baking bread, all kinds of bread. When someone at a local bakery said that making brioche was hard, I knew that was my next challenge. It was a wonderful dough to work with. If I could make brioche, there was nothing that I couldn't try. I have accumulated lots of books about baking bread, spent hours pouring over the recipes. There was just one thing missing - time with a baker to watch their techniques and ask them questions.

Problem solved! In my email one day appeared an online course with Johnson & Wales baker Peter Reinhart. I knew he taught there, but going to culinary school was out of the question. Taking an online course was a new adventure:10 lessons, with PDF files for directions, a chat platform to ask questions! Of course I signed up. It has turned out to be the answer to my desire to make better bread. Reinhart answers the questions you pose, provides a place to share projects and pictures of your bread triumphs. You can watch the videos again, if needed. The course is offered through Craftsy.com and is called Artisan Breads.

One of the things he explains is the baker's formula. Using this information I increased the amount of liquid in the spent grain dough to 68% of the flour weight. It created a lighter less dense crumb. The shaping instruction Reinhart provided helped eliminate the tendency of the loaves to split when baking.

This is the recipe for spent grain (dried and ground in the blender) that I have used most recently. It probably will continue to be a work in progress:

• unbleached bread flour   (2 and 1/2 cups)    404 grams
• spent grain     (3/4 cup)     86 grams
• sourdough stiff levain        308 grams
• fine sea salt       10 grams
• water & wort (liquid from the production of spent grains)  333.2 grams

I measure everything on a scale usually in grams. Combine the flour, spent grain, salt and water/wort and mix thoroughly. Cover and wait 20 minutes for the flour to become hydrated. Add the levain, mix with the dough hook or by hand.

Let the dough rest for 5 minutes. Do 4 stretch and folds at 15 minute intervals, covering the ball of dough when resting.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover and let rest 60 - 90 minutes to ferment.

Shape and place on an inverted half sheet pan or cookie sheet on top of a linen couche or kitchen towel. Spray with pan spray and lightly cover with plastic wrap and allow to proof for 60 minutes.

Preheat oven to 500, with a baking stone in place if you have one. When the loaves are ready, make diagonal slices in the tops of the loaves and slide them into the oven. Mist the oven to create steam. Reduce the heat to 450 and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the loaves after 15 minutes. 

Adjustments in temperatures in your oven may be necessary depending on how it cooks. Aim for an internal temperature of 200 degrees in the loaves.

When it has cooled it is easy to slice by hand in thin enough slices for sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches tonight. When it is still warm, or you rewarm it in the oven for a few minutes, slice it thicker for dunking into soup. Anyway you slice it, Yummy!

Tweaking the spent grain recipe

Using spent grain in a sourdough recipe gives you a wonderful taste and texture. The latest one was a chocolate porter spent grain from Natty Green's. Recent loaves of spent grain had begun to split while baking, resulting in a large ragged tear in the finished loaf. What to do?

Over Thanksgiving, I got advice from a baker from Baltimore (who just happens to be my youngest son's girlfriend) and we decided to add more water to the flour mixture than the original sourdough recipe called for, increasing the amount of liquid from 1 and 1/2 cups to 1 and 3/4 + 1/8. That is a strange way to measure it, but my measuring cup doesn't measure eighths. Anyway, that seemed to be the right amount of liquid and has given consistent results for several batches of bread.

The amount of flour is as follows:
2 1/2 cups of bread flour
1/2 cup of dried and ground spent grain*
1/4 cup of whole wheat flour

*I have had good results grinding the dried spent grain in the blender. Putting more rather than less grain at one time allows the blender to grind the grain to a finer texture. Seems odd, but with more grain in the blender, the grain that has been ground pushes up the sides and then falls towards the center where the blades are and the grinding proceeds.

Add the dry ingredients to the water and mix well. Cover and let the flour hydrate for 20-30 minutes. This is advice from Dan Leader's recipes in Local Breads. Then mix in 1/2 cup of stiff dough levain and 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of fine sea salt. Mix well and knead by hand or in a mixer for 8-9 minutes. If mixing in a mixer (i.e. Kitchen Aid), knead 1-2 minutes by hand. With this addition of 3/8 cup more water, the dough will be very wet and sticky. Use flour on the kneading surface and dust the surface of the flour lightly as kneading, using only as much flour as absolutely necessary. Use a bench scraper to help you knead. Soon the dough will firm up and just be tacky, not sticky.

Place the dough in a lightly greased 2 quart container and cover. Allow it to rest 1 hour. Remove the dough to the floured surface and fold and turn. This adds the same effect as more kneading.

Cover the dough in the 2 quart container again and allow to ferment for 2-3 hours in a warm place.

Remove the dough, divide and shape and bake at 450 degrees, for 20 - 45 minutes depending on the shape and size of the bread pieces.

A great way to safely add steam to your oven is to use a metal pan with sides that contains 2 feet of very heavy chain and a bunch of smooth river rocks.  Scroll down to the first picture on this previous link to see an example. Putting 1 and 1/2 cup of water in the pan with the rocks and chain creates a lot of steam. It is necessary to preheat the oven with the pan of rocks and chain for 1 hour at 450 prior to baking. I have found it easier to put the loaves of bread into the oven, then grab a mitt to pull the hot pan out and pour in the water. This will produce LOTS of steam! Quickly shut the oven door to trap the steam, resulting in a crusty bread.

4 different malted barleys

4 malted barleys
The top row is aromatic and vienna.









The bottom row is Cara red and special B

 Spent grain has been added to each container. There is 1/2 cup of malted barley and 1/2 cup of spent grain in each container.

2 and 1/4 cups of bread flour

After the flour and water have been mixed and allowed to sit covered for 20 minutes, 1/2 cup of sourdough starter is added and 1and 1/2 teaspoon of fine sea salt are added to the flour. Mix thoroughly and knead for 8 to 9 minutes.

Sourdough is the leavening agent in this recipe. This is a stiff dough levain. It uses no commercial yeast. It is started using bread flour, whole wheat flour and rye flour. Spring water is used instead of chlorinated water. Over a week to 10 days, the naturally occurring yeasts in the flour will begin the fermentation process. Dan Leader's book Local Breads has great directions to make a stiff dough levain.

Two of the loaves have been shaped and placed on parchment paper. Once they have been scored they will be ready for the oven.

Here are two loaves after baking.

Slices of Cara Red, on the left and Special B, on the right, show the beautiful interior.

Enough experimenting for one day, it's time to eat!

Malted Barley + spent grain = delicious bread!

Recently I began adding malted barley to my spent grain bread recipe. When I have it I also add wort from the brewing process as well. This recipe is a variation of Dan Leader's Auvergne crown, found in his book Local Breads.

The proportions of flour, spent grain and malted barley are as follows:

• 2 1/4 cups of bread flour
• 1/2 cup of ground spent grain*
• 1/2 cup of ground malted barley*

If the malted barley  has a very strong flavor I have used 3/4 cup spent grain and 1/4 cup malted barley.

*The wet spent grain was dried in an oven at 170 degrees F on a sheet pan, stirring occasionally until the grain is completely dry. Then grind it in a blender until it is almost like flour. It won't quite grind down to a flour texture. The spent grain is 70% fiber and 20% protein. 

**The malted barley is the grain used to create the wort and ultimately beer. It has been partially germinated then roasted or kilned for varying amounts of time depending on what flavor is desired. The malted barley is also ground in a blender. It is more granular after grinding and very fragrant.

To make the bread begin by mixing the flour, grain and barley with 1 1/2 cups of water that is between 85 and 95 degrees F. If I have wort, I heat it to that temperature and sometimes use a combination of wort and water to equal 1 and 1/2 cups total liquid.

Mix the water and dry ingredients thoroughly so that all of the dry ingredients are incorporated and wet.

The moistened flour is covered and allowed to rest for 20 minutes.

The add the stiff dough levain (sour dough starter) and 1  1/2 tsp fine sea salt. Mix thoroughly with the flat beater of a mixer and then change to the dough hook to knead, or knead by hand for about 8 to 9 minutes. I use Dan Leader's recipe for a stiff dough levain from his book Local Breads. 

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl to ferment. Cover with plastic wrap or a top.

After one hour of fermentation take the dough out of the bowl to fold, placing it on a surface that is slightly wet to prevent the dough from sticking. This dough is not easy to knead by hand. With wet hands take each side and stretch it out, folding it back on the remaining dough, do this again from the other side and from the top and bottom. This helps develop the gluten and the structure of the dough without kneading it more.

Place the dough back in the oiled bowl for another 2 - 3 hours. At this point you could put the covered dough in the refrigerator for a slow overnight ferment. Peter Reinhart recommends this for many bread recipes to fully develop the flavor. If you do put it in the refrigerator, take it out about 2 hours before you want to bake it.

Now you shape the dough, place it on parchment paper, sift a veil of flour over the top, cover with plastic wrap and proof until it has risen 1 and 1/2 times the original size. For this recipe I like a large oblong loaf.

Place the baking stone in the oven and preheat the oven to 450 F. With a serrated knife, cut 3 diagonal slits across the bread about 1/2 inch deep with the knife at a 45 degree angle.

After placing the dough in the oven (a pizza peel is really helpful), spray the sides and bottom of the oven with water to create steam, close the door and reduce the oven temperature to 400 degrees. My oven loses 50 degrees in this process so that is why I preheat to 450. By the time I have placed the bread in the oven and sprayed water, the temperature is about 400.

Bake for 35 - 45 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom. I like an internal temperature of 205 - 210F. for this hearth bread. Sometimes this takes another 5 minutes of baking.

Allow the bread to cool completely before cutting.

Pictures of spent grain using 4 different malted barleys are in the next post.