25% Semolina Sourdough - 12/7/09

Starter Build 1

50g - stiff starter (active)

50g - semolina (Bob's Red Mill)

50g - bread flour (KA Organic)

100g - water

Starter Build 2

250g - all of starter build 1

100g - semolina

100g - AP flour (Whole Foods or Hecker's)

100g - water

Final Dough - 2296g total dough weight @ about 72% hydration

550g - all of starter build 2

500g - AP flour

250g - bread flour

250g - semolina

720g - water

26g  - Kosher salt

Instructions

Starter Build 1

-Mix ingredients for Starter Build 1, cover and let ferment for 8-12 hours or until doubled, bubbly and sinking in slightly at center.

Starter Build 2

-Mix ingredients for Starter Build 2, cover and let ferment for 8-12 hours or until doubled, bubbly and sinking in slightly at center.

Final Dough

-Mix all ingredients in large metal mixing bowl with a wooden spoon, cover and let rest (autolyse) for 20-30 minutes.

-After rest, knead dough in bowl using wet hand using the French fold method for about 5 minutes working out any lumps.  Cover and let rest for 20-30  minutes.

-After rest, turn dough using stretch and fold method in bowl with wet hands.  Do not add any flour.  Let rest for 15 minutes.

-Repeat stretch and folds 4 times at 15 minute intervals.

-After last turn, place dough into lightly oiled container, cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

-Turn dough one last time after 15 minutes, and return to refrigerator for 21 to 24 hours.

Bake Day

-Remove dough from refrigerator, divide into 4 pieces (574g), shape into boule and transfer to bowl lined with a lightly floured tea towel/linen, or floured bannetton.  Place proofing bowls in large plastic bag to prevent dough from drying out.  Proof for about 2 hours or until dough passes the poke test...

-45 minutes before loaves are finished proofing, place baking stone in oven on 2nd shelf up from bottom and preheat to 550F.

-When loaves are proofed and oven has reached 550F, place loaves on to peel, slash, and place directly onto stone, steam, turn oven temp down to 450F, and bake for 50 minutes, rotating loaves halfway through bake.  Loaves are done when internal temp is between 205F to 210F.

-Cool completely before cutting and eating.

Notes

-These turned out really good!!!  4 loaves are a very tight fit on a 14" x 16" baking stone, but it will work... 

This week I discovered that my local grocery store carries a brand of semolina flour from Bob's Red Mill, and I picked some up, eager to try out a couple of the recipes from The Bread Baker's Apprentice which had until now been unattainable.  However, I faced a quandry.  The Pugliese bread from BBA calls for fine-ground semolina or "fancy durum," which according to PR is the same grind as is used in pasta, and is the same consistency as bread flour.  The Bob's Red Mill bag says it is ideal for pasta, and has the "traditionally sandy texture."  It does not seem as find as bread flour, but is not as course as, say, cornmeal.  Quite puzzling.

Thus, my question: Does anyone know if the Bob's Red Mill Semolina Flour counts as Fancy Durum flour, and/or if it works well for pugliese? (in the meantime I made the BBA's pane siciliano, which takes either fine or coarse semolina.  It was wonderful).

I've been a longtime reader (lurker) of the The Fresh Loaf and haven't really had the chance to bake for a while, oven use when it was hot out just wasn't working, I was really busy with work, etc. But I recently jump started myself back into it with the BBA Challenge, and the realization that my girlfriend didn't care about me using the oven at her house!

Hello,

I'm new to the forums but am learning lots already from the posts.  Wanted to share with you my baked bread of the week.  All three made Friday in Hawaii.

Buckwheat Sourdough Rolls

Light Rye -- with my first attempt at dusting (I did it by hand, I now realize I should have sifted it on)

And lastly, Semolina Country Bread.   This dough was amazingly soft.   I decided to braid it.

i have this recipe that has a semolina in it- but i can't find that ingredient here in my country ( philippines ). so, is  there a substitute for semolina? will be using it as a filling for tart. thanks. FYI, readily available here are coft flour, hard flour and all purpose flour- can i sub any of this?

Hi,

I was interested in making the semolina sourdough mentioned in the recipie posted by Zolablue:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4215/sourdough-semolina-bread

She indicates using "fine semolina". I only seem to be able to find ordinary semolina, which is rather coarse and gritty and is the kind normally used for pasta. I am aware that I can mail order 'durum patent flour".

Anyone have any suggestions which is indicated for this recipie?

Darell

Todays Bake included the Five grain bread, Pain Au Levain, semolina baguettes and the vermont sourdough (no pictures sry) out of hamelmans book. But upon looking at the 5 grain recipe i only came up with 4 grains. If anyone could clarify for me that would be awesome. I stuck with the batard shape as i will be picking up a few wicker baskets soon. al so if anyone has any ideas on loaf shapes let me know! enjoy comments questions and whatever else are always welcome. ( sorry about the medicore pictures they came off my iphone.)

Pain au Levain Crumb

Well I prepared a semolina starter yesterday all ready for baking some semolina-based bread today. Unfortunately I ran out of semolina for the final mix (bought cornmeal by mistake!) so I mixed the semolina starter into a rich sweet dough using lots of egg yolks (5), sugar, milk and butter (25ish percent).  The result was not unlike the milk loaf I made a few weeks ago only much richer. The crumb has nice colour from the semolina and egg yolks. The texture was probably the most  soft and tender that I've ever had in a bread (sourdough or commercial yeast).

The recipe as best as I can recall...

Starter:

200g Semolina 
200g Water
50g Active Starter

Final Dough:

400g Semolina Starter
450g-500g Bread Flour (I actually used some spare Tipo 00 left over from pizza making - it is roughly 11% protein)
200g Milk
150g Butter (softened at room temperature)
100g Sugar
5 Egg Yolks
5g Salt

Glaze:

2tbsp Butter (melted)
1tbsp Honey

The night before, mix together the semolina starter and leave until it reaches peak activity (it should roughly double in volume) - about 12 hours.

The following day, mix the egg yolks, sugar, milk and starter together.  Stir in the flour until you have a slack dough and leave to autolyse for 30 minutes. 

Using a mixer or frissage, gradually incorporate the butter into the dough.

Knead/mix the dough for a further couple of minutes until you obtain a smooth consistency (it will still be quite slack and sticky)

Refrigerate the dough for about 20 minutes if the butter got too warm.

Bulk ferment at room temperature for 2 hours with stretch-and-fold every half hour (very important).

Divide the dough and shape on a well floured into two loaves and leave to proof for a further 2-3 hours.

Brush the top of each loaf with milk before baking at 375F for 30-40 minutes (until a skewer comes out clean and the top is nicely browned).

After removing the loaf from the oven, brush the top with the butter/honey glaze and allow to cool completely.

Cheers

FP

I just got Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice and intend to make many of his breads over the next few weeks. It's slightly unfortunate timing, since it'll be Passover in a month and then summer in a few more weeks (I'll wait, impatiently, until fall to put up a sourdough starter), but that just means I need to make as much bread as possible each weekend.

My first loaf was the pane siciliano, made with semolina flour. The nine-year-old promptly dubbed it "the best bread I've even tasted;" he'll be getting sandwiches made from the batard loaf this week. I'm going to try adding some whole grain flour to the recipe in the future.

I made a triple batch of his pate fermente on Thursday. One pound went into this bread; the other two are frozen for future use. The bread dough is made with the pre-ferment, high-gluten bread flour, semolina flour -- the nubby kind you make pasta out of -- a little honey and olive oil, salt, yeast and water. I kneaded, fermented, and shaped on Friday. It was an extremely flexible dough, stretching out like a baguette with no springing back at all. It went into the fridge overnight to proof. (I was out of sesame seeds, and the nine year old doesn't like them anyhow.)

I baked it this morning in a very steamy oven. (I preheated the oven to 550 degrees, with a cast iron skillet on the floor. I poured in simmering water and closed the door quickly, twice. The oven was incredibly steamy, despite no additional misting of water). When the bread went in, I turned the heat down to 450. After 15 minutes, I separated the breads, because they were touching; ten minutes later, they were done (205+ on the thermometer.)

Unanimous verdict? Yum.

For next time:

• Try replacing about a third of the flour in the pre-ferment with King Arthur white whole whole wheat.

• The batard loaf is a little small for sadwiches;maybe make one large batard and one spiral next time? It also should probably be slashed; it split some on the side.

• After 15 minutes in the oven, take the bread off the pan entirely and put them directly on the rack. The middle load stayed white and soft on the sides because they didn't get enough direct heat.

Semolina (Durum) Bread - From Hammelman's Bread, only without the sugar for the "flying" sponge.

I would have used my sourdough except it's whole wheat-ish and i didn't want to mix that with the creamy yellow semolina.