Directions

Leavener: In the evening of the day before making the bread: Put the starter, flour and water into a smallish bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon until the flour is stirred in well. Cover the bowl with a plate and set aside overnight in the oven with only the light turned on. Unless it is ridiculously hot in the kitchen. In that case, leave the oven light turned off. Mine failed so I used 150g of active starter and would do that again.

Prepare the Oats: Pour rolled oats into a dry cast iron frying pan and place it over medium high heat, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time. It takes about about 7 minutes to toast the oats. (They smell wonderful!) Transfer the toasted oats into a medium-sized bowl and pour boiling water over top. Cover and leave overnight in the oven with the leavener, if using.

Autolyse: Mix the dough In the morning of the day you will be making the bread: When a small forkful of the leavener floats in a small bowl of room temperature water, you can go ahead and mix the dough: Sift the whole wheat flour into a stand mixer’s mixing bowl, reserving the bran for after shaping. (I wouldn’t next time as there is bran all over my kitchen now.) Add all-purpose flour, wheat germ, malted wheat chops, salt and 325 grams water (body temperature if the kitchen is cold) to the sifted whole wheat flour. Use the paddle attachment and run the mixer until everything is incorporated and the dough pulls away from the sides. Set aside for 30 minutes to an hour.

Add the 150g of starter or the leavener to the bowl. Use a dough hook to knead for 8-10 minutes, until the dough passes the windowpane test. Rest covered for 30 minutes.

Adding the oats and first stretching and folding: Add the oats overtop. Turn the bowl as you fold and re-fold the dough into the center, to distribute the oats. Cover the bowl and leave on the counter. In lieu of stretch and fold you may choose to leave the dough hook on the mixer and run it for a minute or two. If you prefer coil folds or stretch and slap, go for it. Repeat every 30 minutes for a total of two hours.

Leave the covered bowl in a draft free area another hour or two until the dough puffs. Mine came nowhere near doubling as the original recipe says. But I’ve learned that 4 hours total from mixing in the starter works out about every time.

Pre-shaping: Scatter a dusting of rice flour on the board and gently place the dough on the flour. I divide it in half at this point or you may continue and make one large loaf. Form the loaf in your preferred method. I flatten in out and pull the corners up over and over until a round ball is formed .Turn it over on the board and pull it towards you with your hands on the board. Repeat the pull a few times, rotating the loaf ¼ turn each time. This video shows the method I use. Repeat for the second loaf it making one. Let sit 30 minutes and then repeat this whole process.

Prepare the brotforms: Liberally coat the insides of a brotforms with rice flour. Or a bowl lined with a lint free kitchen towel. Those flour sack towels work well for this.

Adding optional topping: Optional: Wet your hands and rub them gently over the top. Scatter quick oats overtop. Now carefully put the shaped loaf seam-side UP into the brotform. Optional: Scatter the reserved bran evenly onto the seam area. Cover with a kitchen towel or an overturned mixing bowl and let sit for an hour or so until it passes the poke test. You want to poke it and have it spring back fairly quickly. At this point I put one loaf in the fridge in a zip lock bag for an overnight proof. 

Preheating the oven:  Set your oven to 450°F. And prepare your steaming method. I’m lucky to have the Anova Precision Oven that steams. So I just have to set it to steam during the first stage.

Scoring: When the oven is thoroughly preheated transfer the loaf to the oven or dutch oven if using.

Baking: Bake for 20 minutes with steam on for a large loaf, 15 minutes for smaller. Lower the oven temperature to 400°F and bake until the internal temperature is 210°F. This is the best method for assuring it’s cooked properly.

Cooling: When the bread has finished baking, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool on a footed rack before slicing and eating; the bread is still cooking internally when first removed from the oven! If you wish to serve warm bread (of course you do), reheat it after it has cooled completely: To reheat any uncut bread, turn the oven to 400F for 5 minutes or so. Turn the oven OFF. Put the bread into the hot oven for about ten minutes. This will rejuvenate the crust and warm the crumb perfectly.