ROUGE DE BORDEAUX SOURDOUGH BREADS

Rouge de Bordeaux Sourdough Breads image

Rouge de Bordeaux wheat is delicious, aromatic, and high in protein. This fresh-milled flour makes wonderful sourdough breads that pair well with cheese, soup, and more. I've outlined formulas here for a 50% rouge de bordeaux bread and a 100% rouge de bordeaux bread. The timing of the recipe is given in ranges; the short end for summer ambient temperatures and the long end for winter ambient temperatures. You can also read the blog post above for ideas on how to change the fermentation times and how to pre-soften the bran in the whole grain flour if desired.

Provided by Melissa Johnson

Categories Recipes

Time 1h35m

Number Of Ingredients 11

Ingredients

100% Rouge de Bordeaux Bread
460g fine-milled rouge de bordeaux wheat berries (3 ½ cups flour)
380g water (1 ½ cups + 1 ½ Tbsp)
75g sourdough starter (¼ cup)
9g salt (1 ½ tsp)
50% Rouge de Bordeaux Bread
230g fine-milled rouge de bordeaux wheat berries (1 ¾ cups)
230g bread flour (1 ¾ cups)
365g water (1 ½ cups + 2 tsp)
75g sourdough starter (¼ cup)
9g salt (1 ½ tsp)

Steps:

Tips on building an overnight levain in summertime are in the blog post above.
Combine all the ingredients in a medium size bowl and mix until well incorporated. (If you're making both formulas, use two different bowls.)
Cover the bowl or transfer the dough to a straight-walled bucket and let the dough rest for about 30 minutes. Then do four rounds of gluten development with half-hour rests in between.
Let the dough continue to rise until it's about 40% larger than its original size. Depending on the room temperature and your starter strength, the dough may need a total of about 4-8 hours for this bulk fermentation.
My dough fermented three hours in my kitchen at ~79F, followed by 2 hours in the refrigerator to cool down.
Scrape your dough out onto a floured countertop and shape it into a boule, batard, or oblong loaf, depending on your proofing basket and baking vessel shape. I pre-shaped and bench-rested the dough to let it warm up a little from the refrigerator, but if your dough is warm or tending toward over fermentation, you might skip the bench rest altogether.
Transfer the dough to a well-floured proofing basket and cover it.
Let the dough proof 30-60 minutes at room temperature (possibly longer in a cold kitchen) and then refrigerate it for several hours to overnight. Or do the entire final proof at room temperature for 1-2 hours, again depending on your kitchen temperature and the dough's appearance. See the photo gallery above for target dough expansion in the basket.
Preheat your oven and baking vessel for 30 minutes at 500°F.
Flip your dough out of the proofing basket onto parchment paper and score it.
Transfer the dough to your baking vessel, cover, and bake for:
20 minutes at 500F with the lid on
15-20 minutes at 450F with the lid off
When the bread is done, the internal temperature should be over 205°F and the bread should sound hollow when you knock on the bottom of the loaf with your fist.
Let the bread cool at least 2 hours before slicing.