Here is the fourth (!) installment of my breadmaking tutorials. As always, your input is appreciated! Please see Ovenmitts Blog at www.ovenmittsblog.wordpress.com for the whole post!

Breadmaking 104 - Bakers' Percentages

So many people ask, “What’s up with these bakers’ percentages?? How does one loaf of bread make 175%?!”

So, I’ve come to tell you all about these bakers’ percentages. Let’s do this backwards. I’m going to tell you the summary first, and the reasons why after. It’s like a scientific paper! What is that called again? Oh yeah. The ABSTRACT! I feel like I should start all of my posts with an abstract….

Anyway! Here is my abstract: Bakers’ Percentages are the best things ever!

I guess that doesn’t help much, does it? Maybe I should reconsider my biology major…

Let’s start with Hydration.

The hydration of a bread recipe is the ratio of water to flour. For example, if you are using 10 oz flour and you add 6 oz water, you have a 6:10 liquid to flour ratio, or 60%.....

Please see the original post for the rest!

More then a few times now I've stroked my ego and declared, “grilled burgers with handmade hamburger buns!” Each time I might add, it has been in front of the eyes and stomachs of my friends. Whatever they happened to think of my attempts and the results that they ate, I knew the truth. They were horrible! Not surprising, considering my experience up until this point has not been in straight doughs, has not been in hamburger buns, and I really didn't know what I was talking about. Give me some dough to laminate, some brioche to mix. I can make several different types of hearth bread shapes, but more “American” type breads I am ashamed to say I am somewhat ignorant.

That last statement would be true up until about two months ago when I started working at an establishment that focused on making hamburger buns and dinner rolls. Sure there are some other types of breads, brioche pullman loaves for example (brioche toast for breakfast?), but more then anything else, we make thousands and thousands of rolls and burgers. And it really blew my mind, one of those steps. It makes sense though, if you want a wide, squat, cylindrical bread, your bread shape has to be wide, squat and cylindrical. You take a nice well rounded roll, let it proof up, then you smash it flat. I must admit, it hurt to flatten my little burger babies.

Sure at the other bakery I worked at we did the same thing. But we didn't do it anywhere near to the same extent. We didn't let them proof up, but more like like them rest. We didn't flatten them completely either, seeing as how they weren't particularly relaxed after being rounded. Just a gentle love tap all across the top. They were slightly flattened, and it was visible in the final product, a somewhat squat, yet quite tall, “hamburger bun”. But what they have me doing now, its totally different. Everything gets smashed flat. All the burgers that is. Kaiser rolls too, and the result is just like at the grocery store! Which is not necessarily a good thing, or a bad thing for that matter. It is different. A different shape for a different job I imagine. So tonight, having gotten out of work early armed with the knowledge working at an American bakery has equipped me with, I will be having hamburgers tonight.

“Rossisky” using the Three Stage Auerman Process; Pain au Levain using Rye Sour and Wheat Leavens; Panned “Wholewheat-style” Loaves with mixed leavens.

Refreshment Régimes:

1. 1.     Rye Sourdough

Refreshment One.   Saturday 16:00

Refreshment Two.   Sunday 07:30

Refreshment Three.   Sunday 15:00

1. 2.    Wheat Levain

Refreshment One.   Saturday 16:00

Refreshment Two.   Sunday 07:30

Refreshment Three.   Sunday 15:00

************************************************************************************************

1. 1.    “Rossisky” using the Three Stage Auerman Process

See Refreshment Régime above for sour building.   The “Scald” was made at the same time as the 3rd refreshment.   The “Sponge” was made 21:00 Sunday night.   The final paste was made 09:00 Monday morning.

Method:

• Build the sour as above.   Make the “scald” at the same time as the final refreshment of the sour, by pouring boiling water onto the flours and mixing.   Allow to cool to room temperature, covered.
• Make the “Sponge”, by combining the Built Sour with the “Scald”.   Leave to ferment, covered, for a further 12 hours [this proved to be too long; recommended time is 4 hours!]
• Add the remaining ingredients to the “Sponge” to make the final paste.   Target temperature is 29 - 30°C.
• Bulk Ferment for one hour.
• Scale and divide: I made one loaf in a pan @ 1kg, and one shaped round and proved in a banneton using the remaining paste.
• Bake on the “dead” wood-fired oven.
• Cool on wires, and set aside wrapped in linen cloth for 24 hours, before slicing.

1. 2.    Pain au Levain using Rye Sour and Wheat Leavens

See Refreshment Régime above for the rye sour and wheat levain building.

Method:

• Build the sour and leaven as above.
• Autolyse flours, water and rye sourdough for the final dough for 1 hour.
• Combine all materials for the final dough and mix to develop.
• Bulk proof 1½ hours
• Retard overnight, covered.
• Scale and divide: one @ 1500g, one @ 700g and one just short of 1200g.   Mould round and proof in prepared bannetons.
• Final proof: 3 hours
• Bake: Decant each loaf onto the peel, score an “S” shape onto the top, and set in the wood-fired oven to bake.
• Cool on wires.

1. 3.    Panned “Wholewheat-style” Loaves with mixed leavens.

These loaves are a request from a new-found customer who lives in the next village to us, and has been buying bread from the Village Bakery, Melmerby, where I used to work, for many years.

It’s as “plain”, as I go when working at home, and is largely wholewheat-based, which was the main tenor of the request.   It’s also made in pans, to allow for breaking into small and easy quantities for freezing down.

The refreshment régimes for both the pre-ferments are shown above.   The soaker was prepared at the same time as the final refreshments took place.

Method:

• Build the leaven and sour as above, and prepare a cold soaker [2], at the same time as the final refreshment stage for each pre-ferment.
• Combine the rye sourdough, soaker, flour and water for the final dough for 1 hour autolyse.
• Add the remaining ingredients and mix to develop a strong dough.
• Bulk proof 1½ hours.
• Retard overnight in the chiller, covered.
• Scale and divide: 4 pieces @ 390g for the Pullman Pan, and one piece @ 516g for the smaller loaf.  Mould round and rest, covered for 15 minutes.   Shape and pan.
• Final proof for 3 hours.
• Bake in the wood-fired oven.
• De-pan and cool on wires.

Comments.

The Russian Rye paste was too stiff, and therefore slow to prove; always a worry from my experience, producing a tasty, but dense loaf of reduced quality.   I fear the “zavarka” was too stiff, as a result of exuberance on my part boiling the water, resulting in excessive starch gelatinisation.   Result?   A very tasty dark loaf, but very dense!

I badly need more wood to fire the oven.   It was pleasing to bake these 3 varieties, but I now acknowledge I need a regular supply of tinder dry, soft wood; cut small.   The search continues…

Both the other doughs proved well and made good bread.   Today was a lovely sunny day here in Northumberland; however, there was a really sharp frost overnight, so it was a challenge to keep the dough warm enough to enable active final ferment, given 2 of the doughs had overnight retard.   The wholemeal looked particularly good.   Oven spring in both was fine, and the crumb of the Pain au Levain with the 2 pre-ferments looks great.   The crust?   This is where the wood-fired oven is really coming into its own with wonderful radiated heat from the arched roof of firebrick.

I managed to sell 4 of the 7 loaves I made today and net £10 proceeds.   My business adviser came to see me, and he left with a loaf he was happy to purchase, full of positivity about my progress, and other ideas I have too: a “pre-order Pizza Takeaway” service one night a week?   Seems like a winner to me!

This is arriving on a pallet by courier tomorrow, and I can’t wait!   An old 20 quart Hobart planetary mixer, but in excellent working order.   So, making up to 10kg of dough at a time should be really easy moving forward.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24731237@N03/6324106618/in/photostream

Happy Baking Everybody!

Andy

When I saw the strong proofing OWS was getting from his attempts at baking the Vienna Bread from Inside the Jewish Bakery.  I baked this as a tester a long time ago but this is the now released version so I thought I’d give it a whirl. It's a fast rising enriched dough that just takes a few hours to complete.

The first thing I noticed is that the volume amounts an gram measurements don’t line up just right for me. The flour I scoop and level weighs 135g per cup. The recipe calls for 4-1/3 Cups. In my kitchen that would be 584 grams where the gram number is 620g. The oil is 2 T at 3.0 grams. I measured over 3 T of oil to be 30 grams. I didn’t go down item by item to see how they all worked out, I figured these are really Norms recipes and he would have kept notes in percents, Cups and pounds/ounces. I chose to use the gram weights and ignore everything else.

Another variable I had to make a decision on was the dough temperature. The recipe calls for warm water. I figured if the water was 82F the dough would come out near 78F after adding a cold egg and the other room temperature ingredients. That worked out perfectly. My dough temp was 77F.

My standard bread flour is Gold Medal, Better For Bread in the bright yellow bag. I think it’s right around 12% protein. The recipe calls for bread flour so my BFB should be OK.

One other thing that caught my attention was the use of malt and sugar. I only added 1 heaping teaspoon of dry malt powder where as the recipe calls for 2 T of dry or liquid malt or 20 grams. 2 T seems like a lot for under 4 cups of flour.

I used my Kitchen Aid mixer for this 2.3 Lb batch. It took 10 full minutes to reach a semi smooth consistency and a decent window pane window.  I think I could of continued a little longer and fully developed the dough in retrospect. After removing the dough and manually kneading it for a minute or so, I shaped it in a ball and returned it to the mixer bowl and put it in the proofer, set at 78F. The dough was at 78F and after the rise it was still just where I wanted it, 78F. It took just 1 hour to double as you can see. I divided and shaped it into 2-534g logs. The recipe calls for 510 g pieces but this is what the recipe gave me. I don’t think the additional 24 grams will cause any serious over flowing of the dough. But considering what OWS has been seeing, it’s worth considering.

I egg washed after slashing and baked for what turned out to be 30 minutes at 350F to get an internal of 205F. I’m a little surprised the top tore open so much but It looks nice. The crumb is soft and tight grained as would be expected. The crust has a little bit of crunch where the egg wash came in contact with the sides of the pan. Sugar is caramelized slightly. I followed the directions pretty near right like the recipe called for, except for holding a little malt back. Looks OK to me and tastes great. This would be a great French Toast. Actually I almost made rolls out of half the dough and stuffed them with stewed onions. The girls loved this bread.

NOTE TO OWS: The only thing I am aware of that I did differently than you did is change the flour and held a stable dough temperature so I could judge the oven spring fairly. The spring seemed about right to me. Oh, and the malt may have been lower.

Eric

No collapsing here. Just a great enriched dough loaf.

After 8 minutes the dough looks about there. Total mix/kneading was 10 minutes

I would call this the right size pan for 534 grams of dough. 8.5X4.5 inches

Finishing proof at 78F at one hour.

Divided and shaped

Back in the 78F proofer for another hour.

Proofed to just over the top of the pans. Looks good.

Better lighting, proofed.

Egg wash and slash.

They look pretty good to me here.

Not overly expanded. Just right. They didn't collapse after cooling

This was inspired by Franko's 25% Sour Rye with Toasted Seeds. I followed his recipe with the following alterations:

• Instead of AP flour, I milled 45% hard red wheat, 45% hard white wheat, and 10% rye, then sifted the results to a final extraction of 85%.
• That said, I ended up adding an extra 1/2 cup of KA BF during kneading to get the stickiness under control 
• After the final stretch-and-fold, I let the final dough proof for another two hours, then refrigerated overnight 
• This morning I took it out of the fridge, let it warm for two hours, shaped, and then let proof for 3.5 hours in a banneton

It's cooling now, I'll taste this evening!

I desperately need help with crust. what I want is a paper thin, shatteringly crisp crust. but all I can achieve is moderately crisp but thick, hard, turtle shell crust. I have tried everything imagineable. dutch oven, cloche, steaming, misting absolutely everything I can think of.  KA AP, Gold Medal AP, bread flour ..got desperate and  yesterday I even used 1/2 C rice flour .. got the shattering part, but under it was 1/4 inch of turtle shell. (great rise and crumb) Fortunately my sandwich loaves are most always good. specially James Beard's sour cream bread. I'm still working on a satisfactory graham flour bread like I was raised on (70 years ago) Your help is appreciated ..