Making Zingerman's Farm Bread Style Bread

On Apr 15, 2015, I used my five-year-old starter to make bread that was similar to Zingerman's Farm Bread. The procedure and most of the recipe came from the Zingerman's class that I took back in 2010.

My recipe was slightly different because the flour used in my starter is 100% white whole wheat. The Farm Bread recipe calls for a small amount of whole wheat flour, but since my starter is already whole grain, I used 100% all-purpose flour in the recipe.

The recipe calls for the levain to represent 15%, according to the baker's percentage. But I used 30%.

• room temp water 281 g (60% hydration)
• levain 140 g (30%)
• all-purpose flour 467 g
• fine grain sea salt 12 g

House temp was around 65 degrees.

The amount in the recipe made one loaf. I kneaded the dough for 10 to 12 minutes even though it was a single loaf recipe.

Fermented in lightly oiled bowl for one hour.

Stretch and fold.

Fermented for another hour.

Stretch and fold.

Fermented for 1.5 hours.

Dumped and rounded with the metal scraper.

Bench rested for 15 minutes.

Flattened and stretched out the dough a little. Then rolled and tucked the dough into a log, like a sleeping bag. But I didn't get the ends tucked in well enough.

I pitched the seams closed.

Since this was a stiff dough, I removed the liner from my oval-shaped Brotform banneton basket.

I scattered flour onto the coiled wooden cane rods, and I placed the log of dough into the basket, seam-side up.

I covered basket with plastic.

Proofed for 3 hrs and 10 min.

During the last part of proofing, I preheated the baking stone at 500 degrees for 40 minutes.

Anyway, the rest of the procedure was the same as before.

Bread turned out well. Looks, feels, smells, and tastes very much like Zingerman's Farm Bread.

The dough was very stiff. Next time, I'll try 65% hydration, since I used a fair amount of my white whole wheat starter.

#bread - #recipe