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Simisu's picture
Simisu

so i thought to try out my new rye starter which seemed to be doing fine, though i wasn´t treating it nice at all (let it sit outside for more then 24 hours without feeding...), that said i though to make pitas for lunch and try it out anyway, it turned out that i had to do some things and in the end i decided to shape it into a loaf and stick it in the fridge for a few hours before i could let it out to rise and stick it in the oven...

i was improvising with the recipe more or less and i´m noting it from memory so i might be wrong about some numbers...

did an over night build of my starter (which was starving by then i guess) i put 20 grams starter on 100 grams water and 100 grams whole rye.

in the morning i diluted all that with 150 grams water and mixed in 100 grams of  rich gluten wheat flour and 200 grams whole wheat flour, put in one big tea spoon of salt, one tea spoon honey,  a spoon of olive oil  and also a tea spoon yeast (i didn´t measure any of that because i thought, what the heck... are pitas... and the added yeast too, though it was no more then 4.5 grams yeast!)  kneaded a little and let it bulk rise (did a couple or three stretch and folds, it was looking pretty good within 2 hours or so, then figured better if i make it a loaf so i shaped it and put in the fridge. took it out and let it rise for about 2.5 hours wet the top with my hand and stuck some poppy seeds on it. when it was ready i tried making a nice curved cut before finally sticking  it in the oven it for about 45 minutes...

i´m using a silicon pen and the loafs come out a bit funny looking but all in all i´m pleased with the result.

pretty soon the house was filled with an intoxicating smell and i was getting excited, when i took it out i was extremely proud! in general i´m going for the last month saying how proud i am of my breads, i´m thinking it every morning when i eat them for breakfast and it turns out through out the day... to be quite honest it´s been rather therapeutic even!

next morning  i woke up with anticipation for the photo shoot and taste test... after cutting the first slice and taking a deep sniff (which hurt, this thing had a Tang, a zing, a whole careful of fireworks) i realized it might just be too sour... the tasting confirmed it too, but i have to say one day later the strong sour taste subsided and it´s not only strongly sour but not too sour to eat.

so... here it is...

 

 

 

 

 

 

beginners luck or maybe i´m at the right place ;O)

any comments are more then welcome,

thanks

Simisu's picture
Simisu

ok,

so far i´ve had a couple of successes, especially the last couple of loaves (where i omitted the flex and sesame seeds which i thought complicated matters!) 

now on the road to the stable recipe i´m making some changes, first off i will use less gluten rich flour and only whole wheat flour (spelt is too expensive and until i start using the rye starter i´m gonna stick with whole wheat)

i would like to add some olive oil to the recipe to help conserve the loaves and then also make bigger loaves (as i figure the pans i have are too big for what i´m putting inside and i want more bread anyway ;O)

so the revised recipe is:

  • 300g white wheat gluten rich flour (30%)
  • 700g whole wheat flour (70%)
  • 700g water (70% hydration) / 68% (in case of adding olive oil)
  • 20g olive oil (2%)
  • 16g salt 1.6% / 20g 2% (depending weather or not i use the seeds)
  • 2og instant dry yeast 2%
  • 60g flax and sesame seeds 6% (after a night´s soak in 100 gram water)
  • total flour 1kg (100%)

the poolish

  • 200g whole wheat flour (20%)
  • 200 g water
  • 4 g yeast (20%)
  • 60g soaked flax and sesame mix (possibly washed, possibly only in final mix and not in poolish)

so that leaves for the final dough

  • 500g whole wheat flour
  • 300g white gluten rich flour
  • 500g water
  • 16g salt
  • 16g yeast
  • 20g olive oil

now, i don´t know if it will make any difference but i would like to try to put the flax seeds in the poolish, thus making the whole thing a little less sticky (and/or to wash the flax seeds before incorporating them?) 

i´ve opened a thread about the olive oil and flax seeds but for now i´m thinking 2% olive oil instead of 2% water (we´ll see what you guys say first...)

UPDATE:

OK, so while actually doing it i made small changes again but all for the best!

i flavord the water with onion and added less seeds in total (only 4% instead of 6) i put them in dry with the flour which made the whole thing drier (unless i miscalculated something on the way) so i added just a little bit more water.

i kneaded by hand about 18m and left it to rise, while it was rising i made 4 stretch and folds which felt strange because the dough was drier then until now and wasn´t sticking to it self (im making the S&F inside the bowl, gathering some from under and sticking it back on top)

i shaped them the best i could and left them to grow (i think i over did it... almost didn´t have any oven spring but they were already quite big so i was pleased anyway) when i first put the dough in the pens it was almost filing the pen. and after growing it went out of the pen... this amount is probably too much for these pens.

this time i put it 15m in the oven on max (gas level 6) and then took it down for another 30-35m at gas level 5 (that´s suposed to be 190C) and then took it out of the pen and another couple of minutes before opening the oven and leaving the loaves inside to cool.

i managed to burn the underside again, i don´t know why that happens but i´m trying to aliminate the problem by lowering the temps... we´ll see in the next bake.

they came out lovely though, apart of the burned bottom there was another problem with the crumb, its a little "loose" im not sure how to explain that but i think it has to do with my bad shaping technique...

the bread:

 

 

 

Simisu's picture
Simisu

so to put a long story short (and what better way to do it then photos?)

the result:

the recipe i followed:

  • 150g spelt (20%)
  • 300g white wheat flour (40%)
  • 300g whole wheat flour (40%)
  • 525 grams water (70% hydration)
  • 15 g salt 2% 
  • 15 g instant yeast 2%
  • 45 g flex and sesame seeds 6% (after a night´s soak in 80 gram water)
  • total flour 750g (100%)

the poolish

  • 150g spelt (20%)
  • 150 g water
  • 3 g yeast (20%)

so that leaves for the final dough

  • 300g whole wheat flour
  • 300g white flour
  • 375g water
  • 15 g salt
  • 12g yeast
  • 45g flex and sesame seeds with around 200% hydration 

 

now i still have to fix a lot of things but bueno... i´m quite pleased with the outcome as it is, its mostly cosmetic from now on (well more or less) first off it was certainly too wet (i originally thought to hold on on the water for after putting the seeds inside but i accidentally spilled all the water in before... also i think i made a mistake thankfully and put only 350g instead of 375g) and hard to work with but finally it was rising! i baked for 50m at 190C which wasn´t enough! and trying to shape the dough was almost impossible for me...

i think i under mixed the poolish but it seemed to be working just fine! here´s a photo of the poolish after about 16 hours outside (at low temps) you can click the thumbnail to view the full one...

the essential crumb shot:

i like this consistency but it was a little under baked and a little too wet, i also had a few problems with the shaping which resulted in broken loaves :O/

its hard to see but there´s a tear going through all the side (maybe my fault for how i took it out of the pan but still...)

all in all, better then the bricks i produced last time! using a slightly altered recipe (here they are)

further conclusions...

  • a little less water (accounting for the seed water anyway)
  • mix the seeds in with all the ingredients
  • maybe knead more as i´m not sure i had it developed enough...
  • bake on 240 for 20 minuets and then go down to 190.
  • split the dough into 1/4 and 3/4 so that they fit into the small and big molds and i could bake them together!

any comments are more then welcome!

Simisu

 

Simisu's picture
Simisu

Ok, so i got struck with the baking bug about a week ago and since then i´m obsessing about figuring out how to bake my own bread...

so far i produced together with my wife 4 lovely, tasty bricks of bread, what went wrong?

story goes as such...

first bread was made utilizing the formula from lesson one on this here website, measurements were way off since i don´t have proper measuring tools (ie cups and spoons) so this was very much freestyle bread you might say. i stuck some sesame and flex seeds in there also.

now... the process is quite probably were i failed (in the same way that we failed the other two loaves) that is to say, failing to realize just how much more time i need to account for cold weather and cold temps (just so happened that my adventure starts at the coldest time of year with temps close to 0ºC !!!)

i used old expired yeast mixed first in hot water, i either killed of what was left of the yeast and if not it was meant to go inside the flour anyway and not the kind mixed into water. next i kneaded on the cold marble and set aside to rise in a warmer room... which wasn´t quite warm enough.. after about three hours of just standing there without doing nothing i decided it was too late stuck it in the fridge and decided to consult this forum to see what can be done the next morning.

next morning i took it out and figured i should put more yeast, thinking the reason was the hot water that killed of the yeast i mixed the yeast again with a little tepid water and kneaded that into the dough... it was left for about 3 more hours until i attempted to fold it (again on the cold marble ·"$&"·%$") even though it wasn´t showing signs of rising and then set it aside for a few hours more and finally gave up after about 5 hours of no activity, stuck it in the oven (my stinky gas oven that goes up to gas level 6 (before knowing anything about gas levels i might add) i thought it should go on maximum... managed to burn the bread on top of everything...

it did show a little oven rise and the taste was too salty but otherwise good (inside...) i munched on it a little before throwing it away.

next day i went and bought fresh ingredients and tried the basic lesson one recipe with only slight changes (a little less salt and a little less water) again nothing was happening after about 3 hours and then we gave it one hour more in the mold before  sticking it in the small electric oven for about 50 minuets on 190º C it came out a lovely brick, edible but ummm.... not quite there yet...

i spent the next few days reading more and more about bread, starting to garner a little more respect for what seemed something indeed very simple.

for our next try i came up with the following formula:

375g white wheat flour (100%)

with 65% hydration makes 244 grams water

7.5 g salt 2% 

7.5 g instant yeast 2%

and 4%/8% flex and sesame seeds which are 15/30 grams respectively

we made two separate loaves,  mixed stuff together using an electronic scale (which is very precise but only goes up to 200 grams) and let it rest for a few minuets before kneading. this time adding the yeast into the mix before the water. the 2% salt was a big difference from 2 teaspoons salt, it turned out about a 1/4 of the amount i put the first time! this dough looked more promising and felt better, but again we were kneading it on the cold cold marble and the ambient temps in the house weren´t hot enough to do anything much... and so we waited 3 hours again (all the time thinking according to the lesson that 2 hours would be the maximum... he fails to mention anything about cold temperature!!!) nothing much was happening and we put it in the mold and waited a couple hours more... nada... even the second loaf which enjoyed an extra hour and a half on top of that (total 7.5 hours!) didn´t seem impressed and simply sat there... i avoided making stretch and folds since i assumed it has to double at least before starting with that.

these two showed more oven rise however (from which i gather that the yeast was indeed active, but too cold) and have a few big holes in them... still... they turned out heavy lumps of bread (what i imagine Terry Pratchett might call Dwarf Bread)

that day i got a few privet massages from MiniOven who´s been a great help and with her aid i am finally convinced that what is wrong are indeed simply the cold temps, i have to say that a simple mention of that in the lesson might have saved me a lot of time though on the other hand it forced me to research more and more, to the point that i read all the relevant parts in the book ¨Baking Artisan Bread 10 Expert Formulas for Baking Better Bread at Home¨ by Ciril Hints and much more over here... the book has been a great help to put a few things straight.

so conclusions thus far are:

  • find a way to correctly proof the dough in higher temps (maybe a warmed container)
  • change the formula to promote rise times (ie up the hydration and add a bit of extra yeast)
  • use tepid water instead of cold water
  • knead on warmer surface (ie not on freezing cold marble!!!)
  • patience is key!
  • utilize preferments (maybe a biga or at least leave to rest about 30m before kneading)

now i wish i could eat all this bread TODAY so i´d have to make the next one already :O)

***PATIENCE*** yes.....

so my revised recipe and method is linked here and i will keep updating until i get it (it´s just under there in the comments so the link is really for convinience sake :O)

thanks,

Simisu

 

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