This is Bread Log’s first ongoing post. A saga of flour and water. A quest to bake (my) perfect country bread. An adventure so noble it cannot be contained by space and time.

  1. Bake No. 1 (03/07/22)
  2. Bake No. 2 (03/26/22)
  3. Bake No. 3 (04/09/22)

Setting the Table

Pain de dampagne (country bread in French) on Wikipedia:

Also called “French sourdough”, is typically a large round loaf (“miche”) made from either natural leavening or baker’s yeast. Most traditional versions of this bread are made with a combination of white flour with whole wheat flour and/or rye flour, water, leavening and salt. For centuries, French villages had communal ovens where the townsfolk would bring their dough to be baked, and the loaves weighed from four to as much as twelve pounds (1.5–5.5 kg). Such large loaves would feed a family for days or weeks, until the next baking day.

Before the advent of roller milling, virtually all wheat was milled by stone grinding. In order to produce a lighter, less chewy bread, the whole wheat flour was sifted or bolted using mesh or cloth. This resulted in a whiter flour that still retained some of the bran and germ. The addition of rye flour in some recipes probably originates from the presence of rye growing among the wheat. All the grain was harvested together, and as much as 10 percent of it would be rye. Rye flour ferments more quickly than wheat flour, and it imparts a distinctive flavor to traditional pains de campagne.

Chad Robertson (Tartine Bakery founder) thoughts on country bread from Bread Book:

Any time you are making something that is fermented and has just three ingredients, the way that you make it better is by searching out the best-quality ingredients to source and then properly applying the best technique and timing…

The recipe for country dough here has been written to give you some ideas about how to adjust and be flexible to the differences in different flours. I encourage you to experiment, practice, and seek out other inquisitive bakers with whom you can confer and collaborate.

My country bread goals:

  1. Make the perfect country loaf with a dark, almost charred chewy crust combined with a light, open, tender crumb.

  2. Experiment with fresh, high quality, high-extraction wheat flour. This recipe calls for 1 type of flour so I will really be able to isolate how changes in the flour create changes in the final product.

  3. Develop a feel for the correct hydration of dough. Every flour’s absorption tolerance is impacted by a huge range of factors. I need to be able to dial in hydration based on the texture and feel of dough rather than relying on exact measurements not necessarily suited to the flour I am using.

Original Bread Book Country Bread Recipe

Ingredients Weight Baker’s Percentage
Leaven 200g 20%
Water 750g 75%
High-extraction wheat flour 1000g 100%
Warm (86°F-90°F) bassinage 100g 10%
Salt 25g 2.5%

Number of Loaves: 2
Hydration Percentage: 75%-85%
Autolyse (Time/No): 0.5-2 hours

Bake No. 1

Date: 03/07/22
Flour: Central Milling Organic Type 80 Wheat Flour
Water (guess since bassinage added by feel): ~775g

Thoughts

Wow definitely the freshest, highest quality dough I’ve every worked with. It felt like soft and sticky. And the final result was so much more tender and sweet than the grocery store bread flour I normally bake with. I tried really hard to get the hydration right, being much more deliberate and slow during the initial mix and folding additional water after some light kneading. I think I could push it a tad further with more experience. I’d love to see an even more open crumb and higher rise. I could have also shaped the loaf more aggressively to help drive it upward during the bake.

Review: Supremely delicious country loaf. Light but clearly nutritious and full of character.

Pics

Country Loaves 1
Happy Loaves
Country Loaves 1 Crumb
Country #1 Crumb

Bake No. 2

Date: 03/26/22
Flour: 60% Central Milling Organic Type 80 Wheat Flour / 40% Central Milling Organic Type 85 Wheat Flour
Water (guess since bassinage added by feel): ~825g

Thoughts

SO CLOSE to a damn perfect loaf. Needed 5 more minutes in the oven for a crackling crust. I ran out of Type 80 high-extraction flour and had to supplement the final 40% of flour with Type 85. Its actually crazy how much more water the dough tolerated with the a 0.85% Ash flour than the previous bake that was 100% Type 80 flour. I am looking forward to trying a 100% Type 85 flour country loaf to see how the properties differ. I think I am liking the stronger dough feel of the Type 85 flour to the Type 80 based on my results so far. I think it has held it’s shape better during shaping + baking. The final results were still exceedingly soft and tender. Almost too much so another reason why I wish I baked it longer.

What is Ash? From The Baking Network:

The ash content of flour refers to the mineral content which is measured by burning the sample of flour to ash and then measuring what’s left. Since most of the mineral content resides in the bran and germ of the grain, high extraction flours (more whole grain flours) generally have more ash content.

Review: Simple, flippin delicious, slightly underbaked.

Pics

Country Loaves 2
Tried to score one like a batard, came out looking like a lima bean
Country Loaves 2 Crumb
Country #2 Crumb

Bake No. 3

Date: 04/09/22
Flour: 100% Central Milling Organic Type 85 Wheat Flour
Water (guess since bassinage added by feel): ~875g

Thoughts

My takeaway from this loaf was that there is no perfect country loaf. This loaf was heartier with the higher ash/protein content (all Type 85 rather than Type 80 on loaf #1 and blend on loaf #2). The change of pace was welcome and the loaf came out beautifully! Doing these 3 loafs in succession clearly demonstrated how important it is to be able to do the water/bassinage by feel. This dough handled MUCH more water. I do feel like I like the lighter crumb of the previous loaves when it comes to a country loaf. But it’s always nice to mix it up!

Review: Simple, flippin delicious, not as soft. Great for avocado toast and croutons, not quite as pleasant with a slab of butter.

Pics

Country Loaves 3
Country #3
Country Loaves 3 Crumb
Country #3 Crumb

High-Extraction Wheat Flour Addendum

From Bread Book :

High-extraction flour: Flour that has had some of the bran removed in the milling process but retains much of the germs and oils is classified as high-extraction flour. It is slightly sifted, so it is not a whole-wheat flour, but it is not nearly as sifted as a white, or refined, flour…

Pure white sifted flour contains about 50 percent of the whole grain, while true whole wheat contains 100 percent. High-extraction flour, like the one we use to make our breads and pastries at Tartine, contains between 75 and 90 percent of the grain.

Wheat flour from Wikipedia:

Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called “soft” or “weak” if gluten content is low, and are called “hard” or “strong” if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or bread flour, is high in gluten, with 12% to 14% gluten content, and its dough has elastic toughness that holds its shape well once baked. Soft flour is comparatively low in gluten and thus results in a loaf with a finer, crumbly texture.[1] Soft flour is usually divided into cake flour, which is the lowest in gluten, and pastry flour, which has slightly more gluten than cake flour.

In terms of the parts of the grain (the grass fruit) used in flour—the endosperm or protein/starchy part, the germ or protein/fat/vitamin-rich part, and the bran or fiber part—there are three general types of flour. White flour is made from the endosperm only. Brown flour includes some of the grain’s germ and bran, while whole grain or wholemeal flour is made from the entire grain, including the bran, endosperm, and germ. Germ flour is made from the endosperm and germ, excluding the bran.

The Perfect Loaf on flour spoilage:

When whole grain berries are milled, the protective outer bran layer is broken open, exposing the interior components (germ, endosperm, etc.) to oxygen and likely increased moisture. In addition to these components, the grain also contains a small but significant lipid (oil) content which is unstable and is the first to spoil. Degradation of the lipids in the flour is the main cause of poor flour performance and a lack of favorable flavor and aroma.

Fresh flour has experienced less hydrolytic rancidity (water-related rancidity) and oxidative rancidity (oxygen-related rancidity) and is therefore more nutritional and aromatic.

Hydration Addendum

From chopin.fr:

Wheat flour is primarily made up of starch, protein, water, lipids and mineral material. With the exception of lipids, the four other components all have significant impact on water absorption.

The higher the moisture content of the flour (i.e. the more “water rich” it already is), the less room there is to add more. Conversely, the drier the flour, the more water it will absorb.

Mineral material, commonly referred to as “ash”, is an indicator of the amount of the outer part of the grain (the bran) which ends up in the flour. The bran is very rich in compounds called pentosans. Although present in small quantities (approximately 1.5% of the flour), pentosans can absorb up to 15 times their weight in water. This also explains why whole wheat flour has a much higher water absorption capacity than “white” flour.

Protein/gluten constitutes between 7% and 17% (dry matter basis) of the flour. It has the capacity to absorb approximately two times its weight in water. The more protein/gluten, the more water absorption.

Starch makes up between 65% and 70% of the flour (dry matter basis). “Native” starch, undamaged, absorbs a relatively small amount of water (0.3 times its weight in water). In fact, it’s more about the contact between the surface of the starch granule and the water (this is called “adsorption”). But during the process of transforming grain into flour, some of the starch granules end up damaged. Damaged starch granule’s absorption potential increases from 0.3 to 3 times its weight in water. The more damaged starch, the more water absorption.

When water is added to the flour and it is mixed, there is competition between the different compounds to absorb the liquid. Damaged starch is the winner in this game (it’s said to be very hygroscopic) and attracts water more quickly than protein. But damaged starch doesn’t know how to retain the water and the water in turn is also released. The water then gets captured by the protein, which takes the opportunity to finalize its own hydration. However, if water continues to be released beyond the capacity retention of the protein, it will start to come out of the dough. This is when the dough becomes sticky.

In the end, a flour’s water absorption capacity depends mainly on the work of the miller. He or she can raise or lower the water absorption by choosing and mixing different types of wheat, and preparing them differently for grinding, adjusting their grinding passage differently or by adding other ingredients, such as vital gluten.