Katharinen-Markt-Bread

I had the day off so I made this wheat sourdough bread. It seems these always need a lot of resting, this one needs multiple resting periods too, total of almost 5 hours.

Sourdough

• 100g (3 1/2oz) all purpose wheat flour
• 125ml (4 1/4oz) water
• 10g wheat sourdough starter

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until smooth. Cover and let rest at room temperature for 16-18 hours.

I had enough sourdough so I took 200g of sourdough and let it warm up for 2 hours before using it. Since my flour:water ratio is more towards the flour (about 5:4) I added 20ml of water to the main dough.

Soaker

• 40g (1 1/2oz) whole grain rye flour
• 40g (1 1/2oz) rye meal
• 60g (2oz) durum wheat semolina flour
• 250ml (1 cup) boiling water

Combine all solid ingredients in a bowl, give it a quick stir and pour the boiling water over. Cover and let rest for 16 hours.

Main Dough

• 190g (6 5/8oz) all purpose wheat flour
• 90g  (3 1/8oz) light rye flour
• 80g (2 7/8oz) whole wheat flour
• 130ml (4 3/8oz) water (add in smaller portions)
• 1 tsp barley malt powder
• 1 tsp Active Dry Yeast, 1/2 tsp of sugar and 26ml (7/8oz) of water, mixed and let stand for about 10 minutes (or 5g fresh yeast); this acually equates to 7.5g of fresh yeast, but I'd rather use a little more.
• 2 tsp salt 

Combine all ingredients except for the salt in a mixing bowl, mix with the dough hook for 3 minutes (I leave  it on speed 1) and let rest for 45 minutes. Then add the salt and knead until the dough comes off the bowl, around 10 minutes.

Now the dough needs to rest (covered) for 2 1/2 hours, stretch and fold it every 50 minutes. For that you take the dough out of the bowl, knead/stretch it into a square shape and fold the corners into the middle. First top and bottom, then left and right corner; repeat this twice, put the dough back into the bowl and cover again.

Form the dough first into a ball, then into oval shape, transfer into rectangular fermentation basket, cover and let the dough rise at room temperature for about 90 minutes.

Preheat oven to 465°F (240°C).

Put bread into oven on 2nd level from the bottom. Spray some water into the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then open the oven door to let out steam and reduce temperature to 360°F (180°C). Bake with falling temperature for another 35-40 minutes.

To check if the bread is ready knock on the bottom. It should sound a little hollow. I had to increase baking time since I made one big loaf vs 2 smaller ones in the original recipe. So make sure to actually do the knock test.

Let cool on a cooling rack. 

The original recipe on ketex.de makes 2 smaller breads. Since I don't have 2 smaller fermentation baskets I made one large one.