Ken Forkish Double Fed Sweet Levain

Ken Forkish's Double Fed Sweet Levain

-  A documentation of my trials with Ken Forkish Double Fed Sweet Levain Recipe.

-  The documentation will start with the latest first and work backwards and I will add on from there.

Original Recipe : (1/2 of what the Book gave with slight modifications)

 

First Levain Feeding  

Mature Active Levain  25 g

White Flour 100g

Whole Wheat Flour  25 g

Water 100g

Second Levain Feeding  (after 3-4 hours)

Levain  from 1st feed 125 g

White Flour 200g

Whole Wheat Flour  100 g

Water 200 g

Final Dough

White Flour 330 g

Whole Wheat Flour 20 g

Water 270 g

Fine sea salt 10 g

Instant dried yeast 1g

Levain  270 g

1. Feed Levain (1st feeding).  
2. Feed Levain 2nd time. after 3 hours from first feed.
3. Autolyse.  After 3 hours from 2nd feed. Mix the flour and water.  Rest for 20 to 30 min.
4. Mix final dough. Sprinkle salt and yeast over dough.  Weigh levain in container with a little bit of water (for easy removal) and transfer the levain to the dough.  Mix by hand alternating with folding and pincer till dough is well integrated.
5. Fold.  Dough needs four folds 1/2 hour apart.  
6. Divide.   Original recipe calls for a divide.  But I am using only half of mine recipe and so while just flour and fold into a boule and let it rest for 30 min.
7. Shape.  Dust proofing baskets with flour.  Shape each piece into a tight ball and place each seam side down in its proofing basket.
8. Proof.    Place each basket in a nonperforated plastic bag and refrigerate overnight. The next morning 12 to 14 hours after the loaves went into the refrigerator, they should be ready to bake, straight from the refrigerator.  They don't need to come to room temperature.
9. Preheat.  At least 45 min prior to baking, put a rack in the middle of the oven and put the Dutch ovens on the rack with lids on.  Preheat oven to 425 degree Celsius.
10. Bake.  Invert the proofed loaf onto lightly floured countertop, seam side up.  Cover and bake for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake for 20- 25 minutes.  Check after 15 minutes incase oven runs hot.
11. Remove the dutch oven and carefully tilt it to turn the loaf out.  Cool on a rack and let it rest at least for 20 minutes before slicing.

Experiment 1 : 17 Dec 2014 

Followed the recipe quite closely in terms of steps.  Didn't record the time nor the temperature (because I haven't got my digital thermometer probe yet...waiting for boxing day sale).

1. Followed through from step 1 - 3.
2. Step 4.   I only have active dry yeast so I added them to dough after I soaked them in water and a tsp of sugar afater 10 min.
3. I only did 3 folds because I needed to go out from dinner.  Came back in about 4 hour after the 3rd fold as I went to have dinner  I hope it wasn't too long.  But by the time I came back I half suspected the dough was a little too over bulk fermented.  Placing my finger in dough, the dough didn't bounce bad.  This is bad.  Starting to smell sour too. 
4. Shaped the dough and put in the proofing basket anyway.
5. Placed the proofing basket in the refrigerator to proof it overnight.  Placed it in at 9:30 pm.
6. Checked the dough at 11:00 pm.  Ah!!! the loaf has proofed beyond the basket and has no where to go dripping at the edges.
7. Pushed the dough back in again....placed the proofing basket into a larger container then back into the fridge.
8. Baked my bread in the dutch oven which was heating in the oven for 45 min in the morining 8 hours after I did the  proof.  While washing up, TW off my timer! by mistake.  I didn't really keep track of the time arggh.....so I baked for another 20 min.
9. Uncovered dutch oven and baked for another 20 min, the outer surface as a  little burnt so I quickly removed the bread.
10. Cooled on rack for 20 min, and I cut it opened

The bread was gummy inside but sweet...okay, I could see bubbles but definitely what I described like gummy ....what in Singapore we would label as kueh....

I should try this again.....I like the taste, sweet with a little tang but not the texture.  What is wrong? 

Possible Problems:

1.  Could it be because TW off the timer and I underbaked when I was covered?  
2. Could it be the proofing basket was too small?
3.  Could it be too much water?
4. Could it be the fact that dough was overproofed?
5. Oven could only set at 220 degrees Celsius as it was limited by the knob.  I need to change the knob.

Another reason to go shopping for a new and larger proofing basket and knob.

Ken Forkish Double Fed Sweet levain #1 - Looks good on the outside.

Ken Forkish Double Fed Sweet Levain #1 - Cut open, with holes.  Don't really see oven spring.  Crumb is holely but gummy like nyonya kueh.  Though still edible.

Growing Levain - Part 1 Growing the Yeast Water

I have been playing around with sourdough lately this school holiday.  I have been wanting to make sourdough bread for some time but I thought that it was something that could only be done in places where it was cooler e.g. America. But when I saw my friend posting her starter on Facebook, I decided to give it a try.

Decided to do an internet search on natural yeast and went to the National library to borrow books on natural yeast bread. I found out that this kind of bread making is not only prevalent in Europe but also in Japan and Taiwan (in this case, in recent years) and is very much gaining popularity around the world again due to its health benefits, in particular, the lactic acid in the sourdough and bulk fermentation process breaks the phytic acid in the grains and wheat and allows the nutrients from the these grains to be better absorbed by the body.

After doing all my readings and watching the videos, I decided to take a plunge do the sourdough levain in two stages:

Stage 1 :  Grow my Yeast Water

Stage 2 :  Grow the Starter

Stage 1 Growing Yeast Water

It seemed all so easy from the readings.  

(1) Need some fruits with yeast

(2) Water and sugar (optional)

(3) Sterilized clean bottle.

However, I did fail twice before I could get my yeast water to produce the starter.  Read my 2 failed attempts below and finally my final success.

Attempt #1  (Failed attempt)

My first failed attempt at raisin yeast water.

1st Day : Added fruits to water and sterilized clean bottles.

I first tried with organic raisins (without oil!  I did read the label) and organic apples.  But only with filtered tap water (using a Brita filter).  

3rd Day :

There were some bubbles on the third day for my apple yeast water but none for my raisin.  Don't know why because many books said that it was easier to get yeast water (and the bubbles) from raisin.  Went to check my raisin package again - yes, it does says organic and there is no line, no passage of any oil anywhere on the package.

I decided to transfer some apple yeast water on my raisin. 

 4th Day:

Finally saw some bubbles in the raisin yeast water!  Was it because of the apple yeast water or raisin yeast water?  Not sure.  This is bad, I am a physicist ..... changing two variables at one time (time and adding of water from apple) does not allow me to find out which is the cause of the bubbles.....too impatient.  Hm....but I did start to see some white bits floating on the apple and raisin.

5th Day:

Saw more bubbles....in both bottles, very, very happy!  Decided to take some out to make the starter.

Did a starter for both raisin water and apple water.  50g starter water, 50 g flour, 1/2 tsp of sugar to get it going. It did double after 12 hours.  

6th Day:

I fed it some more now 100 g flour and 100 g water.  It continued to double after 12 hours.  I didn't understand why I must discard, seeing that there my bottle was not filled I decided that I shall not discard.

7th Day:

I thought the starter was stable, some books and website did say you can make a starter dough immediately after having the bubbles.  So I did and tried to bake with it.  Made the dough in the morning.  However, even after 6 hours of wait, the dough did not rise at all.  Was so disappointed.  Threw away both the starter water for both the raisin and apple, the (what I thought was) levain and dough of the bread.  Ending my journey for my first experience of yeast water making.

Attempt #2 (Failed attempt - or an attempt which could have succeeded but I would never have known)

My second attempt at yeast water with apple.

I was convinced that I couldn't fail, if others have done it before I should be able to do it.  I went back to the books and searched the internet, reading article after article.

"Maybe it was the water?"  Many people find success with mineral bottled water.  Maybe our water is too chlorinated.

To spur me on, Tze Wei decided to get me a bottle of Evian water.

This time I decided to change the water to Evian water and decided to have sufficient fruit to ensure there is sufficient sugar to feed the yeast.

So the second attempt goes like this:

300 g cut apples
200 g Evian Water
1 tbsp of organic sugar.

Day 2 -3 :   I got bubbles from day 2-3 and it did look promising.

Day 4:  The water still smells good and bubbles are still there.

Day 5 :  HORRORS!  The bubbles disappeared!  No more?!!! Why??? Why??? The water got cloudy.....no signs of life :<  By evening I still saw no bubbles :<  upset, upset.  Am I wasting my money and time?  Urgghhhh maybe I should give up.  Threw away this bottle of yeast water.

Alas, the end of experiment 2.


Attempt #3 (Final Success- or an attempt which could have succeeded but I would never have known)

I didn't quite dare to try after my first 2 failed attempts.  Was angry and frustrated because it is not very cheap and easy to get organic fruits in Singapore and the stuff don't come cheap.  I was actually wondering if it was all worth the effort then.

Again, my sweet, sweet husband nudged me on again.

"There is still the Evian water left?  Don't waste it.  Don't you always encourage your students not to give up and keep trying.  At least do one more experiment and use up the water."

He even drove me down to the nearest Finest NTUC to hunt for organic grapes.  His theory- maybe the apples were irradiated before imported in, let's look for fruits with obvious yeast on the skin.

So we went down to the supermarket and lo and behold, there were organic grapes (we don't always have them).  Choose a small box with the most cloudy skinned grapes and went back to start my 3rd experiment.

1st Day :

200 g organic grapes  (halved)
300 g water (Evian)
1 tsp of organic sugar
1 sterilised glass jar.

This time I used a double folded cheese cloth to cover my bottle, and just lightly twist in the cap. Read somewhere that the yeast needs to breathe!  So I should not have been sealing up my bottles cos I would have deprived all my yeast of the oxygen if there were any.  Instead of giving it a swirl, I was advised to keep give it a vigorous shake, which I did.

2nd - 4th Day:  Small bubbles emerged on the 3rd day, just as before but I didn't dare to get my hopes up too hig.

5th Day:   By the 5th day however, the bubbles disappeared again.  I was disappointed, but decided to just keep feeding.  Didn't quite like the smell, the apple yeast water was definitely better smelling.  The only difference was I decided to not throw this time.  Some books say keep for 7 days and I decided to do so.   Gave it a shake in the morning and another time at night.

6th Day:   No bubbles still.  But did not want to give up and persevere I shall.  Isn't this what I always tell my kids and students to do? Anyway no harm and no mould is growing, so why don't I just continue.

7th Day:  Finally!  I wokeup this morning and there were big bubbles, really big ones, and I could see effervescent, like soda pop.  The earlier acetone smell was gone and it was definitely like alcohol sweetness.  Putting my ears at the opening of the bottle I could definitely hear the bubbles popping.  Fizz Fizz....SUCCESS Finally.

Next Page will be growing the Levain for use!

Top View of the Bubbly  Grape Yeast Water

Side view of the Bubble Grape Yeast Water