Bulgur Loaf with Poolish and a Hybrid Soaker Loaf

So I'm still playing around with soakers and this time I'm adding some active dry yeast into the loaves. This first loaf had a bulgur soaker and a brief soaking of the whole wheat flour used in the bread. Those soakers and hopefully the poolish added to the flavor that was on the sweet side even though I added no honey or sugar. I did make a slight mistake here when I just grabbed one of my large loaf pans, a Wilton 9"x5". The expected oven spring didn't send the crown up, it merely filled in the gaps around the dough in the pan. Nonetheless, it was a tasty loaf for sandwiches or a smear of peanut butter in the morning with my coffee.

Poolish
100 g organic  Central Mills AP flour
100 g water at 95F
1/4 tsp active dry yeast

Soaker
60 g bulgur
42 g water at room temperature

Main Dough
188 g bread flour
72 g hard red whole wheat
140 g water at 85F
7 g kosher salt
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 tbsp olive oil

The poolish and soaker were assembled at the same time in the morning. At mid afternoon, I started the soaking of the WW flour in the mixing bowl while I scaled the other ingredients. Raggedy home baker that I am, I just added the ADY to the bread flour on the premise that it would be hydrated slowly in the mixed dough. I could have hydrated the yeast in the main dough water before I added the WW flour. That would have worked a bit faster. Because the shaped loaf was lighter than my usual loafs, I shortened the baking time to 15 minutes at 450F and 18 minutes at 425F. At the end of the bake, I knocked the loaf out of the pan and onto a wire rack. Then I placed the loaf back into the cooling oven for an extra five minutes to give an extra crunch to the crust.




The next loaf was pulled from the oven this morning. I was behind schedule with the build of my levain, the second stage wasn't quite roaring away. So I decided to go ahead with mixing with a 1/2 tsp of ADY in the soaking water. There was little change in the flavor from the ADY and the crumb looks pretty good. It turned out to have adequate tang in the flavor for sourdough fans .



                                                                                    
                                                                                  


                                                                        Levain

190 g at 125%, 75% AP/ 25% white whole    wheat

Main Dough
                                                                          
286 g bread flour                                                         
90 g white whole wheat
210 g water at 85F 
9 g kosher salt
1/2 tsp ADY                   
                                                                                                                                                                   
The soaking was nothing more than simply adding the WWW flour to the water in my mixing bowl after I hydrated my ADY. That lasted 20 minutes and I then added the levain. I aerated the slurry in the bowl with the whisk attachment then added the remaining flour. There was no autolyse. I mixed at first speed for three minutes, added the salt, and finished the mixing with three minutes at second speed. After shaping, the loaf got an overnight confinement in the refrigerator. Baking was done at 450F for 15 minutes and 425F for 22 minutes along with five minutes in the cooling oven with the door cracked open.

Our streak of cool weather has continued and is now affecting the trees to the point where some of them are starting to change color about two weeks earlier than usual.

A visitor from the Bahamas has found my obscure corner of the internet. 

Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.