This is a bread recipe from a local baker here in Toronto who teaches baking Centennial College, Matthew James Duffy. I made minor changes to it and put it into the spreadsheet. This is my first run at this, and probably won’t be the last if it tastes as good as it smell.
Mix all the ingredients until well combined in a large bowl which you’ll use to mix the final dough. Cover with a lid. Let rise for about 11-13 hours at 22°C/72°F. At peak the dome should be just starting to flatten.
Mix the Dough:
Mix the flours and salt together.
Put the honey, toasted sesame seeds and cracked buckwheat on top of the flour.
Combine the beer and the water and pour into the cointainer or bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Mix until well combined.
Bulk Fermentation:
Bulk ferment the dough for 30 minutes at 26°C/78°F.
No folds are required during the bulk fermentation.
Pre-heat oven at 460°F
Final Shape
Lightly oil or butter your loaf pan unless using a non stick tin.
Using a wet dough scraper or silicone spatula, scoop the dough and place it into the dough tin. While filling the tin, lightly press down on the dough with a dough scraper to prevent any air pockets.
When all of the dough is in the tin, use a wet dough scraper to smooth the top and sides of the dough.
Sprinkle the dough with a good coating of rye or whole wheat flour.
Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel.
Final Proof:
Let rise for 30 minutes at room temperature. You should see the top JUST starting to crack.
Baking:
Score a straight line or an X pattern in the bread with a wet blade
Bake with steam at 235°C/460°F for 50-60 minutes. Halfway through the baking time vent the steam. The bread is done when the internal temperature reaches 97°C/206°F.
Remove the dough from the tin immediately after baking to prevent the loaf from steaming itself.
Let rest for at least 8 hours before serving (I know it’s hard but do your best!).
The crumb is fairly tight, now more than half of the flour is low or no gluten and the sesame seeds are over 40% so I don’t expect an open crumb by any means. But the crumb along with the side cracks I’d say I under fermented. I waited until the top started to show some cracks, in fact more so than the recipe called for, but I think I should have allowed more rise and more cracking. I’ll have a slice at lunch and report back on the flavor.
I should also mention that I don’t drink beer, so the leftover beer I’m fermenting it into malt vinegar. I’ve transferred some of the vinegar mother from my almost ready red wine vinegar I’ve been fermenting to get this one going. Because the alcohol in beer is less than 8-9% this doesn’t need to be diluted, so the acetobacter in the mother will start to convert the ethanol to acetic acid. My plan with the malt vinegar is to make proper mustard with it.
Love buckwheat, Benny. Loaf looks delicious. I think adding some toasted whole groat buckwheat porridge would be a nice addition too. Very nice bake indeed.
Yes I think I would have preferred to try using the groats, but I have this bag of buckwheat flour that I’m having a problem using up. Thanks Abe.
Benny
When you do get to try whole groats you’ll love it. Highly recommend @Fermentada’s buckwheat groat porridge sourdough and the naturally fermented buckwheat bread when you do.
How did it end up tasting, Benny? I see Duffy uses honey but I don’t see it in your spreadsheet. Did you sweeten your dough? Otherwise, the only other difference I see if you used buckwheat flour in place of the cracked buckwheat. I have a mill so I think I’ll try the cracked buckwheat.
I quite enjoyed this bread, hearty and rustic with great sesame flavour. I sweetened it using barley malt syrup which is very molasses like. I always forget that I have this stuff and decided to use it instead of the honey in his recipe. Honey is probably sweeter than barley malt so using that might balance the bitter notes of the beer better.
Benny
This turned out quite tasty. I’m not much on scoring and didn’t quite get the x’s right but what’s strange is that the center of the loaf didn’t spring. I wonder if it ran out of steam before the center could spring. I use ice cubes in a container next to the loaf pan, covered with a roasting pan, all on an extra large baking sheet. It’s a steaming method that always works for me, but maybe this time I didn’t put enough ice cubes in. Or, could there be another reason? I used cracked buckwheat and white sesame seeds so the crumb isn’t nearly as dark as yours, Benny. Thanks for posting this recipe.
That looks wonderful Arlo, nicely done. I’m not sure why the center didn’t rise as much as the ends. It’s almost like the heat didn’t penetrate the center as much as the ends, but I don’t know why that would be.
