Heritage Grain Sourdough

with a blend of white and wholemeal flours

Our Head Baker Chris Holister created this recipe for our organic heritage wheat flours, using a combination of our heritage white and wholemeal flours.

These two flours are milled from a blend of over 150 heritage wheat varieties from Heritage Harvest, and grown organically by David Wilson only a few miles down the road from the Mill at Broadfield Farm. Each year the population is resown from farm saved seeds. The diversity of varieties helps to ensure the crop will survive difficult weather conditions, and adapts to climate change. By championing such grains we hope to contribute to the preservation of the biodiversity of our cereals and our lands for the future, as well as creating flours with fantastic flavours. These flours have fragrant notes of grass and hay, that almost smell of the countryside they have come from.

Some tips on working with these heritage grains:

The gluten in them is more delicate than compared with, for example, a strong Canadian white flour, and the dough needs more gentle handling, and takes less water. It doesn’t work as well if pushed too far with very long fermentation times or high temperatures, so for the best results handle with a bit more care. The crust of this sourdough is slightly crackly, almost like a baguette, rather than chewy, and these two flours create a soft crumb.

Makes one large loaf, 850g

INGREDIENTS

  • 375g Heritage white flour
  • 125g Heritage wholemeal flour
  • 100g sourdough starter
  • 340g water, around 40°C
  • 10g salt

METHOD

The heritage flour’s gluten is more delicate than modern wheat varieties so make sure your starter is nice and fresh and not too acidic. A very acidic starter will start to break the gluten structure down too early.

Place all your ingredients except the salt into a mixing bowl.

Mix thoroughly until all the ingredients are well incorporated, cover, and leave for 30 minutes to autolyse. Leave the dough in a warm place to try and maintain a dough temperature which is in the mid to high 20s°C.

Next, add the salt and work this well into the dough and then cover and leave for 3-4 hours. Fold the dough every hour – be gentle when folding as you don’t want to tear the dough too much. To do this, imagine 4 sides. Fold the right side to the left, the left to the right, top to bottom, bottom to top.

Make sure you don’t fold the dough just before shaping, so, at hour 3 check the dough and if it still isn’t pillowy enough fold it and leave for another 30 minutes – 1 hour. Once ready, the dough should feel nice and light and have increased in volume by about a third.

Tip it out on to a lightly floured work surface and shape to fit your basket.

Place into a well-floured basket (the best is a mix of white flour and rice flour to prevent sticking) and leave out for 30 minutes – 1 hour before placing in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, preheat the oven and casserole pot/ Dutch oven to 250°C for at least 30 minutes.

Flip the loaf out of the basket on to some parchment paper and score.

Lift it into your hot casserole pot using the parchment and place in the oven for 20 minutes.

Remove the lid and continue to bake for 15-20 minutes at 220 – 230°C until you get the desired colour for your crust. Place on a wire rack to cool.

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