Pain Au Levain… Naturally Fermented French Bread

Pain Au Levain

Pain Au Levain

I received a new starter from a woman in Macairiere Boulogne, France. She wanted to remain nameless, but I do want to thank her for her wonderful French sourdough starter. I made the Pumpkin Sourdough in the preceeding blog with it. It is a midrange sour flavored,robust, five hour proofing starter (medium range proof). I thought it would be great to bake up some French Bread with it so I modified a formula from Raymond Calvels book “The Taste of Bread”.  

I very loosely followed his version of Pain Au Levain by doing two builds and then the final dough. The first two builds are around 60% hydration, the final dough is 65 % hydration. There is Rye flour added to AP flour and Bread flour. Please don’t compare what I have done to Dr. Calvels, as it is a very loose interpretation, mostly of the builds.

The first build:

  • 3 oz 166% vigorous French starter
  • 3 oz water
  • 7 oz flour (Bread flour)

Add these ingredients to a medium covered container and stir well with a heavy spoon or by hand. Allow the dough to ferment for five hours- six hours if you have a 6 hour starter ( suggest 10:00 am to around 3:00 pm) at room temperature. The dough should be around 78 degrees and is at 60 %  hydration and weighs 13 oz.

Second build:

To the first build dough add:

  • 3 oz whole Rye flour
  • 10 oz flour (half All Purpose half Bread)
  • 8 oz water

Stir well with a heavy spoon or by hand, by hand is easier. Loosely cover the container and ferment for five more hours around 8:00 pm. The dough is now 2 lbs 2.0 oz and is at 61% hydration. If the dough can be kept around 78 degrees, that would be great. You don’t want to get the dough too warm though. Keep it near a warm stove or on top of a water heater. Use a dough thermometer to make sure it doesn’t get over 80 degrees.

Final Dough

To your dough mixer add: (don’t add second build dough until after autolyse)

  • 26 oz water
  • 3.6 oz Whole Rye flour
  • 35 oz flour (half AP flour, half Bread flour)
  • 1.2 oz salt (add after autolyse)

Mix these ingredients on medium speed for about 2 – 3 minutes or just until incorporated. Now let the dough rest for 20 minutes (autolyse). After autolysis add the salt and tear off chunks of the second build dough and mix together with the final dough on low speed until all of the second build dough, final dough and salt are mixed together. This should take 1 – 2 minutes. Do not mix too much at this point as the gluten will further develop during fermentation. Allow this dough to ferment for an hour or two until around 10:00 pm and then put it to bed in a cool place around 48- 50 degrees in a loosely covered container. If you don’t have a dedicated refrigerator, then use a refrigerator, but it may take a little longer to warm up and proof next day.

Next morning take out the dough and uncover it and allow it to warm up around 3 hours, make sure the top of the dough doesn’t dry out by loosely covering it with a moist cloth or very lightly misting it with a little water. Do not have the water running off the dough, just keep it slightly moist. After three hours, shape loaves into batard style loaves. To stagger the loaves for baking, I weigh and shape the first loaf, then put it in it’s couche and set the timer for 25 minutes.

French Batard

French Batard

Then after 25 minutes I weigh and shape the next loaf and so on. That way they are not all ready to bake at the same time. This works well for us home bakers who cannot bake ten loaves at the same time, but only one! Allow the loavs to final proof for 2 – 3 hours or whenever the dough is done proofing then bake according to the roasting lid method – spray dough with water and then bake at 450 degrees F for fifteen minutes with a roasting lid on. Take off lid , turn down oven to 425 degrees F and bake for 15 more minutes, turning once for even browning. For slashing the dough, I took a sharp pair of scissors and cut deep v shaped slashes with the points of the scissors across the dough top in a line. The slashes were cut pretty deeply, about 1 inch or so.

Gashes

Gashes

 

Here are some additional pictures:

Three Pain Au Levain

Three Pain Au Levain

 

Pain Au Levain Crumb

Pain Au Levain Crumb

 

Pain Au Levain

Pain Au Levain

 

Crumb Closeup

Crumb Closeup

 This is a very nice moderately sour Pain Au Levain, with flecks of Rye and a crisp tasty crust.

If you haven’t yet seen Susan’s blog at Wild Yeast, and her fun Yeast Spotting page, make a mad dash, something good is always baking there.

northwestsourdough

Teresa L Greenway - Sourdough bread baker, author, teacher, entrepreneur. Join my baking classes at: https://tinyurl.com/nbe3ejd

Click Here to Leave a Comment Below

Leave a Comment: