Oatwheat Bread from Pete's Starter (PS #2) January 3, 2012

Ingredients:

17.75 oz of bubbling starter from batch made this morning, stirred down
2 c. whole wheat flour
1.5 c of finely ground old fashioned oats
about 2.5 c bread flour
1.5 c. buttermilk
about .5 c water (filtered)
about 4 T molasses
2 t salt

Method:

Mixed everything in the big stand mixer, adding enough bread flour to make a slightly wet dough.  Weighed a hefty 3.5 #!

Shaped one 2# loaf into "cigar" shape; the other into a 1.5 # boule; put them into their towel-lined, floured baskets, folding the towels on top of the loaves.  Preheated the dark blue roaster (medium size) and the 1 1/2 quart le creuset, both with their lids on, at 450 F for 50 minutes.  Tipped the breads into the pans, docked them with a straight edged razor, covered them, and baked for 30 minutes.  (I took the round loaf's temp at 25 min; not done.  At 30 minutes it was 202 F. ) 

Notes:
 * The starter was nicely doubled in a couple of hours, but I let it go for about 6 hours total.  No tangy smell.
 * Bread dough rose nicely- I let it go for about three hours.  Texture was beautiful.

I had to try it before going to bed (after fiddling with this blog template).  Beautiful crumb- texture was even, well-risen, crust nice and crunchy, tasted of molasses but not overly sweet; just an excellent loaf.  Delicious!!

Application for next loaf:

Pay attention to the ratio of starter to flour for main dough.  Looks like about one pound of starter for roughly 6 c. of flour.  However, maybe I should weigh the flour and try and keep the measurements more consistent.  I am not overly concerned; however, I'd say this ratio was perfect for this particular loaf. 

Keeping Pete's Starter

I took Pete's starter from the fridge- it looked to be about 3/4 of a cup of soft biscuit-like texture. No aroma other than that of a nice starter: fresh, not soured at all.  (NB:  Carol Field describes a starter made with a 2:1 flour-water ratio as a biga.  Helpful to know when determining how much starter to use to leaven breads when yeast is specified.)
 
Starter was left on the counter at 11 pm. I checked on it at 9:30 this morning: lots of  little bubbles, looked good:


I emptied it into  a  pyrex mixing bowl and added roughly 1 c. water (filtered, from my faucet) and 2 c. AP, unbleached flour. Stirred well, it mixed into the same soft biscuit-y texture.

I put the empty little plastic bowl (unwashed) on the kitchen scale and set it to zero. I added roughly the same amount of newly refreshed starter as the old- about 3/4 c, it weighed in at 6 oz. I'll measure the volume amount next time.)

I covered it with plastic "shower cap" and set it back in the fridge.
The refreshed starter left weighed 17.75 oz.

It went into my 2 quart measuring cup/mixing bowl, showing roughly 1.75 cups at the measure mark. I set it on the stove, under the little stove light, with a plastic cover. I will bake something from this later today if it shows lots of activity by mid afternoon.