Ciabatta Bread with 100% Freshly Milled Wheat
This recipe produces a wonderful larger crumb while using 100% freshly milled wheat. No all-purpose flour needed!
Ingredients
Biga
- 1 cup warm water
- 1/4 tsp instant yeast
- 1 1/2 cups freshly milled hard white wheat flour, milled fine mill 1 cup of hard white wheat berries
Autolyse
- 3/4 cup warm water
- 2 cups freshly milled hard white wheat flour, milled fine mill 2 cups of hard white wheat berries
Final Dough Mix
- 3 TB warm water
- 2 tsp instant yeast
- 1 3/4 tsp salt can increase to 2 tsp to taste
- all of the biga mixed earlier
Instructions
The Biga
- Combine 1 cup warm water, 1/4 tsp instant yeast, and 1 1/2 cup freshly milled hard white wheat flour into a jar or bowl. Mix well. Make sure there are NO dried clumps of flour left.
- Cover loosely with a towel, lid of jar, etc and ferment at room temperature for 6-24 hours. If you need it to go beyond 24 hours, place in fridge. The longer this ferments, the stronger the flavor will be. See notes below.
Autolyse
- When the biga is ready, combine 2 cups of freshly milled hard white wheat flour and 3/4 cup warm water into a mixer or bowl. Using your dough hook, mix well until all flour is incorporated. The dough will look shaggy, slightly moist, and a lumpy (see video for details). Cover with towel or cover of mixer and rest for 30 minutes.
Final Dough Mix
- To the autolyse, add 3 TB warm water, 2 tsp instant yeast, 1 3/4 tsp salt, and all of the biga.
- Mix together on a medium low speed (speed 1 for Bosch Universal Mixer Plus; speed 2-3 for Nutrimill Artiste) for 3 minutes
- After 3 minutes, scrap down sides of bowl if needed. Then mix on medium high speed (speed 2-3 for Bosch, 4-5 for Nutrimill Artiste) for 5 minutes. Dough will be moist.
- After kneading for 5 minutes, dough should be stretchy but sticky. If dough is falling apart, knead a bit more until it's shiny, smooth, and stretchy but sticky (see video for details). Remove dough and place in a greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and rise for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, do a stretch and fold (see video). Cover again with plastic wrap and rest again for another 30 minutes at room temperature.
- After resting, lightly spray counter with some water and place dough onto wet surface. Gently spread dough out to a large rectangle. On the long end, fold over 2/3 of dough, then the remaining 1/3 of dough over that. Like folding a letter to stuff in an envelope (see video). This is called lamination. Roll up dough as seen in video (not super tight) and place back in greased bowl for another 1 hour up to 1.5 hours.
- When dough has risen, be VERY gently when handling it from this point on!
- Liberally flour your work surface. Prepare a large piece of parchment paper and liberally flour that surface.
- Gently release dough from bowl onto floured surface. GENTLY pat into a square slab. If you press too much you're degassing those wonderful bubbles that have formed on the inside of the dough.
- Cut dough into two equal rectangles. Gently transfer to parchment paper.
- Cover and proof at room temp for about 30 minutes. Dough is proofed when you carefully push on dough with finger and it gently comes back.
- While dough is proofing, prepare your oven. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.
- Place on lower third of oven a baking steel, stone, cast iron griddle, etc. On the bottom of stove place another cast iron or some sort of baking dish that can handle high temps and boiling water being put in. Prepare a roasting cover of some sort (see video for details).
- Boil about 2-3 cups of water.
- When oven is preheated, and the dough has been proofed. Carefully slide dough onto your baking steel in oven with the parchment paper. Cover with your roaster cover.
- Add boiling water to the pan at the bottom of the oven (if your oven door has a glass cover, you may want to cover with a towel while pouring the water to prevent glass from cracking. Remove towel before closing oven door).
- Quickly close oven door and bake for 12 minutes.
- After 12 minutes, remove roasting pan cover. Decrease heat to 480 degrees and bake for 13-15 more minutes until crust is browned.
- After baking, remove and place on cooling rack. Allow to cool for at least 40 minutes.
- Slice open and enjoy!!!
Notes
Wheat used:
In my experience, hard white wheat is best. I have not experimented with other wheats! For steaming affect in oven
If you do not have a roasting cover like in video to steam the bread, the crust just may not be as crusty. The bottom of a disposable turkey roaster works great as an inexpensive cover to create steam affect. You can use a Dutch oven instead if it will fit the bread! Storing Bread
When bread is cooled, it can be stored in an airtight container or bag for about 2-3 days.
In my experience, hard white wheat is best. I have not experimented with other wheats! For steaming affect in oven
If you do not have a roasting cover like in video to steam the bread, the crust just may not be as crusty. The bottom of a disposable turkey roaster works great as an inexpensive cover to create steam affect. You can use a Dutch oven instead if it will fit the bread! Storing Bread
When bread is cooled, it can be stored in an airtight container or bag for about 2-3 days.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!