My 5th baking lesson: potato rosemary wild rice bread

The transitional whole wheat bread was great. But it was a bit drier and heavier than I had expected. So I think it may take me longer than I thought to really get into full whole grain bread. Meanwhile, I'm so enthusiastic about a potato rosemary bread in Peter Reinhart's whole wheat bread book. Instead of going in full fledge into whole wheat, I'm going to try a 50-50 version (ie. half whole wheat flour, half white flour). Since white flour needs less water than whole wheat flour, I am going to use more potato water in the soaker than in the biga.

Recipe: Potato rosemary wild rice bread (adapted from Peter Reinhart's whole wheat bread recipe)

Ingredients:
potato water
- 1 medium potato
- 2 cups water
soaker
- 1+3/4 cups grocery store brand whole wheat flour (coarse grind)
- 1/2 teaspoon (tp) table salt
- 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (TB) potato water
- 1 TB dried rosemary flakes
biga
- 1+3/4 cups grocery store brand unbleached white flour
- 1/4+1/8 tp active dry yeast
- 3/4 cup potato water
final dough
- all of the soaker
- all of the biga
- 7 TB grocery store brand whole wheat flour
- 1+1/8 tp salt
- 3 tp active dry yeast
- 1 medium cooked potato mashed
- 1 TB olive oil
- 1/8 tp black pepper ground
- 1/4 cup cooked wild rice

Procedure:
Day 1

1. Cut 1 medium potato, with skin on, into 1" cubes. Boil in 2 cups of water on med-low heat until potato pieces soften or disintegrate, about 20 minutes.
2. Strain out the potato pieces and save the liquid (the potato water). Allow the liquid to cool to room temperature. Meanwhile, mash the potato pieces with a fork until smooth. It should be very easy to do so since the potato is already very soft. Then keep the mashed potato in the fridge.
3. Mix whole wheat flour, salt and dried rosemary in a bowl. Add 3/4 cup of cooled potato water. Mix thoroughly. If the soaker mixture appears to be a bit dry, add 2 TB of potato water. Knead for 5-10 minutes until the soaker forms a tacky ball. It should hold together rather strongly. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow to sit on the counter at room temperature (about 70F) for 12 to 24 hours.
4. Mix white flour with active dry yeast. Then add 3/4 cup of potato water. Mix well to form a ball of dough. It should be very easy because white flour tends to absorb less water. The biga ball should be very moist and soft. Cover with plastic wrap and keep in the fridge for at least 8 hours.

Day 2

1. Two hours before making the final dough, take biga and mashed potato out of the fridge to allow to warm to room temperature. 
2. Mix the dry ingredients (whole wheat flour, salt, yeast and black pepper) of the final dough in a large bowl. Tear the biga and the soaker into small pieces and add into the bowl. Then add in the mashed potato, wild rice and olive oil. Mix all the ingredients together to form a dough. Knead until the ingredients are homogeneously integrated. The dough is soft and slightly sticky. 
3. Allow the dough to rest for 5 minutes while preparing for a lightly greased bowl. The dough should become stronger and smoothly after the rest. Resume kneading the dough for a few more minutes.
4. Place the dough in the greased bowl. Rub some oil on top. Cover with plastic and allow to rise until it is about 1.5 times its original size. It takes about 45-60 minutes. If the rate of rising is too low, warm up the oven at its lowest setting (about 150F) for 10-15 seconds and then place the dough in the oven. Be careful not to let the temperature go too much above room temperature. 
5. Remove dough from the bowl, partition into a big piece and a small piece. Place the big one into a 4"x8.5" loaf pan, and the small one into a 2.5"x6" pan.
6. Allow the dough to proof at room temperature until its size increases to 1.5 times the original size. While proofing, sprinkle water on the top surface of the dough to prevent drying out. This is especially needed if proofing is done in the oven.
7. Preheat oven to 450F. Place the two loaf pans on the middle rack in the oven. Set oven temperature to 350F. Allow to bake for 20 minutes. Then take out the small loaf and rotate the big loaf by 180 degrees. Let the small loaf cool on a rack for 30 minutes. Allow the big loaf to bake for another 20 minutes. Remove the big loaf from the oven, and allow it to cool on a rack for 1 hour before slicing.

Results:

Day 1
11:25pm, potato water cooling down:

11:34pm, potato mashed smoothly:

11:42pm: initial texture of the soaker when just mixed:

12:25am: almost forgotten the rosemary! Texture of soaker after adding dried rosemary:

11:48pm: initial texture of the biga when just mixed:

12:05am: ingredients from Day 1. Soaker to be left on the counter, biga and mashed potato to be chilled in the fridge:

Day 2

2:15pm, pre-doughs 2 hours before mixing:

4:24pm, pre-doughs just before mixing (observe growth in biga):

4:31pm, texture of the soaker:

4:33pm, soaker pieces added to dry ingredients of the final dough:

4:34pm, texture of the biga:

4:37pm, biga pieces added to the final dough ingredients:

4:41pm, olive oil, potato and wild rice added to final dough:

4:44pm, initial texture of the final dough:

5:04pm, final dough preparing to rest:

5:53pm, final dough after 50 minutes of rest:

6:18pm, final dough warmed in the oven for 15 minutes to increase rising rate:

6:19pm, texture of the final dough after rising:

6:31pm, final dough to proof in one large and one small loaf pans:

6:58pm, final dough proofed for 30 mins:

6:59pm, (large) final dough scored:

7:05pm, (large) final dough's height before entering oven:

7:24pm, two loaves baked for 20 minutes:

7:25pm, small loaf done after 20 minutes, observe that crust is not browned:

7:26pm, small loaf bottom and side:

7:46pm: large loaf done after baking for 40 minutes:

7:47pm: height of the large loaf when freshly out of the oven:

7:49pm, bottom of the large loaf when freshly out of the oven:

9:05pm, large loaf top when cooled for 1 hour:

9:10pm, strength of the slices from the large loaf:

9:17pm, large loaf cut to 21 slices (right front side showing a center-of-loaf slice, left front showing an end-of-loaf slice):

9:17pm, a center-of-loaf slice from the large loaf:

9:17pm, an end-of-loaf slice from the large loaf:

9:18pm, comparing the big and the small loaves:

9:37pm, comparing a center slice from this loaf (left) and a center slice from the half whole wheat loaf in the previous experiment (right):

Observations:

1. The potato rosemary bread contains a significantly larger quantity of starch (1 medium potato and 1/4 cup of wild rice) than the half whole wheat bread in the previous experiment. 
2. This bread rises less than the half whole wheat bread, even though the same amount of yeast is used and roughly the same amount of time is allowed for proofing. The reasons for the less rise could be the amount of extra starch, the shorter time that the biga is allowed to warm up (2 instead of 3 hours) outside of the fridge.
3. The recipe for this bread does not use any honey or sugar, but it has more salt than the broom bread and the whole wheat bread (in my 3rd and 4th experiment).

This bread smelt so good! When I was slicing up the large loaf, my husband came in to the kitchen and gave me a hug from behind while peeking over my shoulder to find out what I was handling. The aroma was so attractive that he'd want to have a slice even though we'd already eaten dinner. I could tell that he really enjoyed it. The wild rice gave the crumb a unique flavor and a more chewy texture while the rosemary was just inviting. Its goodness was still irresistible after a day or two. We'd got ourselves totally captivated by the culture of breads!