I ain’t no quitter!

I’m certainly not the best at sourdough baking, but I’ve been bread baking since I was 10, making a stellar loaf of challah and have had the bread bug ever since. Anyhow, I started trying sourdough about ten years ago to ulimately repeated failures. But I ain’t no quitter! Started again last fall, finally achieved a super bubbly starter I named Crustina A-Boulera. The loaves between then and now have been great and not so great based on hydration, however, more great loaves vs not so great this year so I decided to level up the flours i used instead of just KA bread flour and whole wheat.

These are photos of my latest loaves. I used the 50% Yecora Rojo Sourdough recipe from Breadtopia.

50% Yecora Rojo Bread

250g whole grain yecora rojo flour or fine-milled yecora rojo wheat berries (1 3/4 cups + 2 Tbsp flour)
250g bread flour (1 3/4 cups + 2 Tbsp flour)
420g water (1 3/4 cups + 1/2 Tbsp)
75g sourdough starter (1/4 cup)
11g salt (2 tsp) ( i up the salt to 13 g)
Autolyzed for an hour before adding salt (plus 30g more water to “melt” the salt in) dimpling in until i didn’t feel the grains, then dimpled and mixed in the starter. (My starter is 100% hydration rye, whole wheat, or KA bread flour depending on what’s close by @ feeding)
*laminated after an hour of bulk.
*ended up doing 5 stretch and folds @ 30 minute intervals to pass windowpane.
*covered and waited. Total bulk time from innoculation was 6 hours.
*split in half, then carefully & kindly folded roasted garlic into one loaf as i preshaped.
* after preshape, waited 45 minutes because i lost track of time.
*shaped into batard for my two new 8” bannetons @ 9pm covered and placed directly into the fridge.
At 9am heated up the oven and DO. When ready pulled first loaf and turned out onto parchment paper, dusted off the rice flour and placed into DO with 8 cubes of ice, covered and baked at 450 for 25 minutes. Pulled the lid and placed the loaf sans bottom of DO or parchment and baked for approximately 20 minutes longer until i had this reddish brown crust all around. Inner temp was 205*. Did the same process for the garlic loaf.

I’ve made several loaves with the yecora rojo. My first attempt with it I immediately assumed was a failure, because it didn’t seem to rise in the covered DO so i was pissed and forgot about the bread still in the oven until i smelled it getting really browned. It looked “burned” to me and i figured i was going to have croutons instead. I accidentally dropped it on the floor and squished the loaf in pissiness at utterly wasting 48-50 hours of my time and good expensive flour. I was making a fathers day gift & this was the “test” loaf to check taste and crumb. The other loaf went in with better care had had another hour in the fridge proofing and came out loftier, 😁. It wasn’t “burned” just to my regular browness of crust. I heard good things about the loaf from both Dad and Mom. Sent along with some homemade dukkah because I had to, because i did cut into the cracked up test loaf. It was literally heaven! The sky opened up and I fell in love with yecora rojo’s taste and the dukkah upped the ante to interstellar atmospherics for us. My hubby and I demolished that entire loaf in about 4 hours.

Other loaves since that “failure” have been less browned and to my disappointment did not have the same complex and unctuous flavors as that “burned” loaf. Now, this is what I’m doing going forward when using YR flour.

Side note: i added the extra 30g of water with the salt because i have found the stone milled special flours are fairly thirsty here in TX. Looks like i can dial it back o the recipe and maybe get a good ear. My ears are kind of hit and miss, as is my shaping, but I am stoked with today’s bakes!

What flours are your favorites to use?