Ever since I’d heard of ancient grains at San Francisco Baking Institute, I’ve wanted to try them. Well, enough procrastination, I choose this gorgeous weekend to devote to Quinoa and teff, my latest ventures in psuedo-cereals and ancient grasses.

First I made a formula for quinoa bread, which had a twelve hour retard in the fridge, based on a firm levain of wheat. On my second attempt I made the quinoa the levain, rather then using the wheat, and lessened the inclusion of quinoa in the final dough. This was a a totally different dough, as the first was stable and took longer to warm up from the retarding to shaping, and final bake.

The second attempt with quinoa levain was a really quick ferment that also was trickier to handle in that this dough was wetter. Still the reddish hue and smell of the quinoa is heady and evident in production and final product.

Quinoa with wheat levain and quinoa inclusion in dough of sixteen percent in final dough.

Quinoa levain, with only seven percent inclusion in final dough.

The teff I’ve tried many times, it’s always a weepy and wet affair when attempting to shape or demold from the bread baskets. This time I took the teff in the levain and pregelatinzed it and let it cool, then added in my starter. Twelve hours later I had a crater like levain ready for bread making. From the SFBI newsletters I just changed up the steps and incorporated some information weened from here.