Graham Flour Sandwich Loaf

[Russellkhan]

OK, here's the recipe for the graham flour sandwich loaf I made the other day. This will be my first ever attempt to write out a recipe for others to use, so please forgive me any errors and ask me any questions you may need to make things clear.
Preferment:

• 200 g All Purpose flour
• 200 g water
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast

Mix yeast with flour, add water, mix. Cover and leave out overnight, anywhere from 10-20 hours should be fine.

Dough:

• preferment
• 200 g graham flour
• 25 g potato flour
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1/4 tsp vitamin C crystals (should be ok to leave this out if you don't have it)
• 68 g milk
• 1 Tbsp sorghum (substitute malt syrup or honey if you don't have this)
• 2 Tbsp butter, cut into small chunks or slices

Combine flours, salt, yeast, vitamin C in a bowl, stir to combine.

Put preferment, milk, sorghum in mixer, run mixer for a moment to combine.

Add half of flour mixture to mixer, run mixer to combine (30 seconds or so). Leave mixer running. Once it is combined, add the rest of the mixture in 1/4 to 1/2 cup increments. Once all flour is added, add butter. Allow mixer to run for another 3-4 minutes. Turn off mixer and cover bowl. Allow to rest for 10-15 minutes.

After the rest, turn on the mixer and knead until dough has a nice smooth consistency (probably about 5 minutes). Cover and allow to rise until doubled, about 4-5 hours.

Remove from bowl, flatten dough into a rough rectangle, fold into thirds once horizontally, then once vertically. Allow to rest 5-10 minutes. Shape and place into a greased 4.5x8.5 loaf pan. Allow to rise for an 1-1.5 hours, until roughly doubled. Preheat oven to 400F before end of rise.

Place loaf into preheated oven, spray oven with clean fresh water from a sprayer only used for water (Do this carefully - the water will shatter the oven light or the oven window if it comes into contact with either). Spray oven 3 times or so during first 5 minutes of baking. At the end of 5 minutes, turn the oven down to 375.

Remove loaf from oven after a total of 35 minutes or when internal temperature of the bread reaches 195F.

Some explanations and disclaimers:

1. I have an Electrolux DLX mixer and the recipe is written based on how I do things with my mixer. It can be done with another mixer or by hand, please make adjustments if necessary to do things as required by your mixer.
2. I used very little yeast, mostly because I knew that I was going out for several hours and I didn't want the bread to over-rise while I was out. If you prefer a faster process, add more yeast to the dough. I'd say if you use 1 tsp in the dough (in addition to the 1/4 tsp in the preferment, of course), the dough should double in about an hour to an hour and a half for the first rise, and an hour or less for the second.
3. I measure by weight, and highly recommend this method (and I do it in metric, as metric is much friendlier to calculating for things like scaling). If you must measure by volume, be aware that it is much harder to get an accurate measure that way, especially for flour. With that said, here are the ingredients by volume, as converted by this site and rounded a little bit for reasonable numbers:

Preferment:

• 1.6 cups (1.5 cups + 1.5 Tbsp) AP flour
• 7 oz water
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast

Dough:

• preferment
• 1.67 cups (1 1/3 cups) graham flour
• 1/4 cup potato flour (couldn't find a conversion for this, so this is en estimate)
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1/4 tsp vitamin C
• 2.4 oz (a little more than 1/4 cup - but less than 1/3 cup) milk
• 1 Tbsp sorghum (substitute malt syrup or honey if you don't have this)
• 2 Tbsp butter, cut into small chunks or slices

I think the next time I do a similar bread I will use the whole grain flour for the preferment. It seems like there's more flavor there to be released, and it will benefit more from the extra time in contact with water (the first rest is primarily to allow the graham flour some time to hydrate). Try it that way if you are interested. I have a feeling it will improve the bread.

 

[JoeV]

Thanks, Russ. Good job getting it all down. My only question (and you may not know this, so I'll leave it open for someone with more experience at bread baking) is why do you need to add yeast to the dough when you have a preferment just teaming with yeast beasties. I would think that the preferment would be all the yeast required for a recipe, unless you're trying to achieve a sour taste to the end product using a 12-20 hour preferment.

Thanks!
JoeV

 

[Russellkhan]

Thanks, Russ. Good job getting it all down. My only question (and you may not know this, so I'll leave it open for someone with more experience at bread baking) is why do you need to add yeast to the dough when you have a preferment just teaming with yeast beasties. I would think that the preferment would be all the yeast required for a recipe, unless you're trying to achieve a sour taste to the end product using a 12-20 hour preferment.

Hey Joe,

I should have responded yesterday, but I went off to do some research around the web on the subject. If I had responded yesterday, my answer would have just been something like "I don't know, I just do it that way because it's the way I've seen others do it".

Today, having read up a good bit on the subject of preferments, I can confidently say that that seems to be the way it's done and many things are explained by very knowledgeable bakers, but very little is said by anyone about why one adds yeast to the main dough rather than just let the preferment itself provide the yeast.

My best guess is that it has to do with the fact that the prefermented part of the dough is pretty much used up in terms of what food it provides to the yeast. But that doesn't really explain it in my mind, as you're providing more yeast-beastie food when you add the rest of the flour.

 

[JoeV]

Hey Joe,

I should have responded yesterday, but I went off to do some research around the web on the subject. If I had responded yesterday, my answer would have just been something like "I don't know, I just do it that way because it's the way I've seen others do it".

Today, having read up a good bit on the subject of preferments, I can confidently say that that seems to be the way it's done and many things are explained by very knowledgeable bakers, but very little is said by anyone about why one adds yeast to the main dough rather than just let the preferment itself provide the yeast.

My best guess is that it has to do with the fact that the prefermented part of the dough is pretty much used up in terms of what food it provides to the yeast. But that doesn't really explain it in my mind, as you're providing more yeast-beastie food when you add the rest of the flour.

LOL, your statement "seems to be the way it's done and many things are explained by very knowledgeable bakers" reminds me of the story of the young girl who asked her Mom why she cut the end off the ham before cooking it. Mom responded the her Mom did it, so she was just following what she saw. So the girl went to her Grandma, asked the same question, and got the same answer that her mother did it that way. Finally the girl gets to her Great Grandma and asked her why she cut the end off the ham before baking it. Her Great Grandma said, "Because it wouldn't fit in the pan otherwise." Sometimes the answer is only to be found at the source.

My best guess is that it has to do with the fact that the prefermented part of the dough is pretty much used up in terms of what food it provides to the yeast. But that doesn't really explain it in my mind, as you're providing more yeast-beastie food when you add the rest of the flour.

Exactly! Not only more flour, but sugar as well, and a little salt to keep it all in check. The preferment is actually the beginning of a sourdough starter, which once the yeast is propogated, needs only flour and water for it to continue to prosper and grow. When I made my starter, it sat on the counter for 5 days and was never fed any yeast to get it started. It all came from airborne sources, and it continues to live a chilly life in my fridge. If the preferment is lively and fresh, it should not need a kick in the pants to get going any faster.

I have to wonder if this is another example of the end of the ham being cut off because of the pan. Maybe someone was not confident in their preferment, and the little extra yeast was more for insurance than for any substance. I'd bet a shiney new nickle that the extra yeast is not needed at all, and if I were making this bread I would leave it out. Besides, I don't care for sour breads, and I know this bread should have a sour tone to it with all that yeast.

Lastly, in looking at your recipe conversion, the 1.6 and 1.67 C of flour should be 1-2/3 C for each or 7 ounces for those using scales. Sorry, but the old engineer is still trapped inside my bread baker body.

JoeV