White, Rye, and Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

This White, Rye, and Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread is called Field Blend #1 in Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza. 

He says he is using a term from wine making, meaning, he is using multiple varieties of grains (e.g. grapes for wine) to produce a loaf of bread.

This is a mixed method bread, in that it combines the use of levain (sourdough) and a bit of yeast, along with a long cold ferment.

While rye has been my nemesis forever, this loaf had the ideal ratio of wheat and rye to create an amazingly soft, fluffy, and delicious bread.

While I've loved every bread I've baked from the book, I'm pretty sure that this one was one of our favorites. I can attest to the fact that we all kept asking, "who ate the bread?" It disappeared so fast!

You will need two days to make this bread as long as you have a freshly fed 80% levain. I usually feed my sleepy levain to get it going on a Friday morning. Then feed the levain again on a Saturday morning.

For a version with whole rye, be sure to try the White, Whole Rye, and Whole Wheat version. It's wonderful too. 

In the afternoon, I mixed the final dough, let it rise, and then shaped the loaves. The loaves rested overnight to be baked on Sunday morning.

In 2014 we visited Portland, which was one of my favorite cities. My mission that time was to visit Ken Forkish's Ken's Artisan as well as his restaurant Trifecta. I tried not to seem like a stalker.

We had lunch at Ken's Artisan. Mr. Kitchen had a panini, and I had the pork Banh Mi. It was amazing.

 I'm pretty excited about having visited the mothership.

Even though I am NOT a stalker, we then had dinner at Ken Forkish's restaurant Trifecta.

 The place was amazing. Bread was free but you had to pay for the hand churned butter. The booths were red "leatherette" and the staff was totally hipster, with beards down to there.

Of course I had to try their charred maple Negroni!

As we were leaving, I mentioned to our server that I was a giant fan of Ken Forkish (still NOT stalking, right?). She told me that he loves his fans, and gave me a "to go" care package of two small baguettes and some of that amazing butter.... xoxo

White, Rye, and Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Adapted from Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza. Get the book. You will produce breads you never thought you could master. 

Ingredients

Levain

100 g active starter

400 g all purpose unbleached white flour

100 g whole wheat flour

400 g lukewarm water

Final Dough

590 g all purpose unbleached white flour
60 g whole wheat flour
150 g white rye flour
590 g lukewarm water
21 g salt
2 g instant yeast
360 g levain

Instructions

1. Feed your active starter with the flour and water, stir it to combine the ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for 6 to 8 hours. 
2. Mix the flour, wheat flour, rye flour, and water in a large bowl or bucket by hand until just incorporated. 
3. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes. 
4. Add the salt, yeast, and levain and mix by hand by folding and pinching the dough. Wet your hands to keep the dough from sticking. Cover the dough bucket with plastic wrap.
5. Do four "stretch-and-folds," once every 30 minutes. After that, let the dough continue to rise until the dough is 2 1/2 times its original size, about 3 hours more. 
6. When the dough is ready, gently scrape it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide it into two and pre-shape it into two preliminary boules. Let them rest for about 15 minutes.
7. Again, shape the loaves into boules and place them into proofing baskets that have been dusted with flour. Spray the bread with spray oil, cover with plastic wrap, and place in the refrigerator overnight. 
8. The next day, preheat the oven with two cast iron Dutch ovens at 475 degrees F.
9. Remove the loaves from the refrigerator and carefully transfer them to the hot Dutch ovens. 
10. Bake covered for 30 minutes, uncover, and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes, until the loaves reach an internal temperature of 205 degrees F.
11. Cool on a wire rack.