Wheat-rye yeast water bread

Going to Poland for Christmas meant I had a chance to see how my yeast water was doing and then bake with my new recipe.

Wyjazd do Polski na Święta umożliwił mi sprawdzenie, jak ma się moja woda drożdżowa, a potem upiec na niej z użyciem mojego nowego przepisu.

After I have made and tested my yeast water, I put it in the fridge and left it behind for four months. I was curious what would happen to it.

First opening and reviving

There was a light thump when opening and a significantly yeasty smell. No bad smells, no mold. The summer fruit mash in the jar was not the most attractive view ever.

Yeast water with old fruit

I fed it with an apple and left it for the night. In the morning it was very active. I released the carbon dioxide and got even more in the evening.
I took 160 g water and mixed it with 160 g strong flour to make a levain. I have put the rest on a strainer, washed the jar, poured just the water back into the jar, diced an apple into it and filled it with water. It looked much better.

Yeast water cleaned up

How to make the recipe

I decided to plan a new recipe. My first assumptions:

• 65-67 % hydration – not very moist, but enough to make a flexible dough with moderately open crumb
• 20 % rye flour
• 2 % salt
• add some wholemeal wheat flour
  I could not find the wholemeal wheat flour so I removed it from the plan.

Now it’s down to maths. Let’s say we want 650 g of dough:

• 65% hydration and 2% salt means that 167% flour weight = 650 g

• this means flour weight is 390 g

• 20% rye flour is 80 g

• 80% wheat flour is 310

• 2% salt is 8 g

• 65% water is 250 g

• I’m guessing the amount of levain, really. This turned out ok, if it didn’t I would be adjusting it. Anyway, I made it using 160 g flour and 160 g yeast water, so the rest goes into the final dough

  

  Yeast water bread

Ingredients

Makes a 600 g loaf

Levain

• 160 g strong white wheat flour
• 160 g yeast water

Final dough

• 320 g levain
• 150 g strong white wheat flour (I gave 250 g which was wrong)
• 80 g light rye flour
• 8 g salt
• 100 g normal water

Preparation

1. Mix levain ingredients and leave for 14-20 hours
2. Mix all ingredients together and leave for bulk proof for two hours in a warm place. After 20, 40 and 60 minutes do a quick stretch and fold
3. Shape the bread and place in a basket for a final rise until it doubles in volume, about 1-2 hours (90 minutes in my case)
4. Set the oven to 200 C degrees 30 minutes before baking. I used a fan assisted program
5. Score and bake for 40-45 minutes
6. Leave it to cool

I was surprised how rapidly that bread rose. I don’t remember such activity back in the Summer.

Yeast water bread – the crumb

Final result: This is a perfect bread. The recipe is not even close to revolutionary, but the bread just disappeared in one sitting.

This recipe was initially published on my “metablog” on Steemit, in two parts. Follow me over there to see my tries and mistakes, drafts and other, unrelated stuff.