- 750g Matthews Cotswold Wychwood Oat Blend Flour
- 50g Foricher T80 Stoneground Flour
- 550g water – 69%
- 14g salt
- 8g yeast
I’m trying out this flour for the first time. It’s a combination of strong white bread flour, oat flour, and oat flakes. Because of the oats, I tried hydration at 74%; the miller has a recipe at 70%, but also with some honey and olive oil, and I generally go a bit higher than their recipes to be safe. It’s easier to add flour than water.
I autolysed for about 40 minutes; essential for the oats to absorb water. I then added my yeast and salt and mixed in my Ankarsrum for about 12 minutes. It was clear that the dough was much too slack, so I added 50g of Foricher T80 stoneground flour, bringing the hydration down to 69%. After mixing, the dough was slack, but workable. I did a few folds, then put it into a box for bulk fermentation for 30 minutes; my kitchen was 21º.
I left it another 10 minutes in bulk fermentation, and let it rise 40 minutes in my pan, instead of the usual 30 minutes. I baked the loaf in my cloche with the lid on for 25 minutes and off for 20 minutes at 200º.
The loaf turned out beautifully. My initial guesstimate of hydration was a bit high, but I know how much water this flour needs next time. The crumb is chewy and airy, with excellent gluten development. I honestly don’t taste or feel the difference with a standard high-protein wheat flour (this flour is 1.5% protein), and there aren’t enough oat flakes to make it even look like an oaty loaf. Given how much more expensive it is than the miller’s standard white flour, it’s not worth the extra cost. It’s trivial to add some oat flakes to flour, and put some oats in a blender to make some oat flour.
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