36th bake. 02/03/2021. CB: 100% durum Fiber Wala.
Feb. 3, 2021. For the Durum Community Bake!
I’ve spent over a year touting durum flour (the finely ground flour, not just the gritty durum semolina) from Indian grocery stores… so I felt I had better walk-the-walk and join this Community Bake.
I haven’t done actual durum flour since getting into sourdough — but did use some durum semolina in recent bakes. One was 100% semolina, except for the bread flour in the starter, https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/66452/24th-bake11232020-semolina-chia
Here’s a photo from my kitchen/stove as evidence of which variety I got, Fiber Wala, from Sher Brar Mills of Canada:
Patel Brothers grocery was all out of their house brand whole grain durum, so I bought this at $12.99 for 20 pounds.
I stopped by a friend’s house on the way back from the store and gave him about 4 pounds, since it will take a while to use this up.
The package calls this “whole wheat” but I’m not convinced it is 100% extraction.
Mix:
- 553 g Fiber Wala durum flour. 3 cups, not sifted, using “scoop and sweep”.
- 11.0 g salt
- 1.0 g instant dry yeast. 1/4 tsp.
- 470.5 g bottled spring water. 85% hydration.
That it easily took 85 % hydration, I take to indicate that it is high extraction, if not 100% extration. I had started at 69.6% hydration (385 g water) and it was too dry, so I kept adding water until it felt right. Fortunately, I weighed the water at each addition.
Mixed, rested it a bit, kneaded it by hand for a few minutes. There were some small lumps that disappeared during kneading. I take this to mean that the flour should have been sifted or otherwise fluffed up before mixing.
Drizzled a little regular olive oil on the dough ball, turned to coat, covered bowl with plastic wrap and put in oven to rise.
12:40 pm. Start bulk ferment (when yeast was wetted, not at end of mix/knead). Dough ball weighed 1014 g, not counting what stuck to the bowl and my fingers.
1:32 pm – Stretch and fold. Dough is now nicely hydrated and supple. No tearing while stretching.
2:25 pm – stretch and fold.
— to be continued…