Grobread's blog

Lately I've been experimenting with steamimg methods. Before this I had been using a pan full of lava rocks, preheated with the oven, and pouring a cup of boiling water after loading the bread. It worked rather well, but the main problem was that it was really hard for me to get the oven hot enough with the rocks in --the most I could get was 230°C-- and then after I loaded the bread and poured the water there was a lot of steam immediately, but most of it vents shortly after, and the temperature droped about 20° or more, and the flame goes out so I have to reach under the burner with a lighter (wich is probably not very safe). Also, I burned my hand the last time I did it because I forgot to wear an oven mitt; so I decided it was time to look for a more efficient method and came up with this:

I plugged a plastic tube through the hole on the lid of this pressure cooker. I stuffed it with aluminum foil so that most of the steam goes through the tub, but some of it escapes through the sides, but still most of it makes its way to the oven. I insulated the last section of the tube, which goes inside the oven, with masking tape, and also cover it with a piece of cloth; and it goes in through the broiler door, beneath the flame.

I think it should work fine, I tried it before with the oven off and saw that after only a few minutes the oven is saturated with steam. And my favourite part is that with this method I can get the oven to 250°C or more and the steam doesn't cool it down at all. But when I tried baking some baguettes with it I got a very pale and thick crust. I pre-steamed for five minutes, then let it on five minutes more after loading the oven, turned the steam off and waited for 7 minutes before opening the door to vent it, then baked them for 18 min more (30 in total).

My only idea is that the paleness is due to an overproofing (they were also very flat), and that the thickness means it was too much? Maybe I should try steamming for 5 minutes and venting immediately? 

I would like to know if anybody has tried this before and if they have any thoughts on why it isn't working well.

It's not the best or holiest baguette I've seen, but I think it is a solid attempt to develop upon (it's actually my fourth attempt since last week). I used all purpose flour (or something between APF and bread flour, it says 12.78% protein), 67% hidration and 20% sourdough starter, plus about 3% of malt flour, mixed and folded a few times yesterday afternoon, retarded in the fridge overnight and shaped and baked this morning.

The crust is really nice, not too thick, the crumb is soft and almost creamy; the taste is mostly sweet.

I think mostly I need to improve the shaping because they had some irregular bursts from the oven spring and even though they expanded nicely, there is no discernibe "ear" in the slashes. I might remove the malt flour (I used it mainly because I just found it and wanted to use it on something), and will try to increase the hidration a bit since the flour seems to be able to handle it.

Any thoughts?

Cheers.

I made this Tartine Country Rye loaf and I think it came out pretty good. I followed the recipe and anstructions as much as I could, but I don't have a probe therometer to measure water and dough temperatures, so that forces me to adapt a few things in the method. I use warm water without knowing for certain what the temperture is. The levain was more active than I expected in the morning, so instead of fermenting at 78°F, I just let it in the kitchen, which is between 70 and 74. Also, I went out in the morning, so the dough had a bulk fermentation of about 5 hours, so I reduced the proofing time to 2 hours; I was very careful not to degass the dough when I shaped it, and I think I'm getting rather good a that.

I baked it in a dutch oven at around 450F, covered for the first 20 min, uncovered for 40 more. I expected a darker crust, but I think that's because I left it covered longer; Also I´m not sure why there are all those holes near the crust.

Amd as always, it's delicious :)

Cheers, 

Pablo.

Hi! I just got a copy of "Tartine" (it might be a little outdated, but what the hell). Anyway, this is the first attempt at the basic country loaf recipe. I think the crimb should be more open, at least according to the pictures, but I still liked it very much.

What do you think is causing the crumb not to be as open as desired? Is it a problem of shaping or fermentation/proofing? I followed the instructions as closely as I could, but in the morning the levain was a little mre ripe than I expected, and I couldn't control the temperature very well, I used water at room temperature and put the dough in the oven with a pot of hot water during the bulk fermentation, by the time I shaped the loaf, my kitchen was at about 75°F so it wasn't really necessary. It proofed for about 3.5 hours; eventhough the book says to proof for 3-4, I think its possible that it was slightly over-proofed since as I said, I think the levain was a bit more active than desired. Also, I still have to practice the whole idea of being very gentle on the shaping and last turns to avoid degassing; I was doing it all wrong, thinking that the most important part of shaping was to get the gluten very tense before the final proof, but it was the other way around, am I right?

Anyway, I'm liking it very much, I think I can learn a lot from the whole method. I also got a copy of "Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast", so I'll be experimenting with that soon too. I get the impression that the community around here actually prefers FWSY, right?

Cheers and happy baking!

I've made a similar version of this spice bread before and its one of my favorites, but this time I decided to add more whole wheat flour plus some whole rye flour and I also experimented a bit with the method. I liked  how it turned out in terms of flavor and texture, just not very sure if it should have risen more.

The recipe is something like this, it makes three medium loaves or batards:

Total flour: 705 gr.

Total water (hidration): 529 (75%)

Whole wheat flour: 352 gr. (50%)

Whole rye flour: 70 gr. (10%)

Bread flour: 283 (40%)

Salt: 14 gr. (2%)

100% hidration, 30% rye/70% WW starter: 141 gr. (20%)

Honey: 27 gr.

Cardamom: 3 gr.

Cinnamon: 3 gr.

Ginger (powdered): 3 gr.

I mixed the flours and 95% of the water and autolysed cold in the fridge for 5 hours. Then mixed in the rest of the ingredients, mixing the salt first with the remaining water. After the initial mix I did 5 S&Fs at 20 minute intervals and then let rest another hour, for a total of three hours bulk fermentation at room tempertarure. Then I put it in the fridge overnight (about 8 hours). I took it out in the morning and let it sit for about an hour. Then cut and preshape, let it rest for 20 min. Shape into batards and let rise in linen for three hours (I put them side by side folding the linen in between and put some boxes on either side to keep them from spreading too much).

I baked them for 15 min with steam and 30 min. without steam (I preheated the oven to 230°C, but it allways drops down to around 200 when I load it and put water for steam).

The crumb is open, I think, for a 60% whole grain loaf, but they are a little flat. I don´t know if that might be related to gluten development or fermenting/proofing. What do you think? I think it migh be the latter, since with the cold autolyse, the dough initially was cold before the bulk fermentation and also before shaping.

Anyway, I love the taste of this bread, but I think it can still improve. I'd love to hear what you think.

Happy baking.

Pablo

I've been experimenting a bit with rye lately and the first thing I learned is that it has this weird quality that makes the dough very extensible, but not very elastic, right? So I was thinking to myself, where, oh where could I use that specific quality? And the first answer that came to my mind was Pizza! (The second idea is laminated dough, but I haven't had the chance to try it, I wonder if anyone has). 

I had already planned a pizza party with some friends and at the last minute decided to try that idea by adding 10% of rye flour to my pizza crust recipe. I had never done it with sourdough starter either. I don't make pizza very often, but I'm very happy with the results, I think this is my best attempt yet. They had a very nice oven spring, and the crust was crispy and golden, not super open crumb, but enough that it was really good and almost no edge leftovers, even with a rather picky and healthy audience! And as predicted, the dough balls were very easy to extend to make the pies very thin with a thicker edge. Needless to say, the flavor was great.

The formula was this: 

Levain:

112 grams of sourdough starter at 100% hidration (30% whole rye, 70% whole wheat)

140 grams whole rye flour

354 gr. plain white flour

504 gr. water

I originally calculated this to be ripe in about 12 hours but in the morning, about 8 hours later, it was already quite ripe, so I degassed it, and put it in the fridge for the remaining 4 hours until mixing the final dough.

Final dough:

Levain ..................1120 gr. (40% prefermented flour)

Bread flour ............840 gr.

Salt..........................35 gr. (2.5%)

Sugar.......................40 gr. (2.8%)

Water.......................448 gr.

Total flour: 1400 gr.

Total water/hidration: 1008 gr. (72%)

I mix the levain with the rest of the ingredients in the bowl for about 4 minutes, then let it rest. S&F at 30 and 60 minutes, and then let it rest for about 2.5 more hours. Then cut and shape 8 300gr. balls and let rest covered. The first one was made about 2.5 hours later, and the last one about 5 hours later and they all came out very good. I bake them on a stone at 230°C for 9-10 minutes. The last one was something like a dessert calzonne with pear, pineapple and blueberries.

Happy baking!

Pablo

Does anyone else struggle with naming their breads, or is it just me?

Anyway, this turned out really nice so I thought I'share it :)

I've been feeding my starter wit a mix of 70% whole wheat and 30% whole rye flour; and I've also been experimenting with sandwich loaves, so I thought why not mix both ideas? 

The general recipe is this:

Bread flour: 300 gr. (50%)

Whole wheat flour: 120 gr. (20%)

Whole rye flour: 180 gr. (30%)

Salt: 15 gr (2.5%)

Water: 500 gr. (83.3%)

Levain: 120 gr. (100% hidration) (20%)

(Final hidration is about 85%)

I mixed the flours and 480 gr. of water for a two hour autolyse and after the two hours I mixed in the levain and the salt with the remaining 20 gr. of water. I kneaded (slap and fold method) for about 7-8 minutes. Strech and fold at around 45 and 90 minutes; then let it rise for another 2.5 hours. Shaped and let it rest for 45 minutes, then refrigerate overnight, about 8 hours, and baked it in the morning for 75 minutes at around 215 C. I greased the pan with butter before the shaping and the top of the loaf before baking. 

The crust is crispy but no too thick, the crumb is heavier that the typical sandwich loaf, but open and soft and moist. And the flavor is great, a little sour and just enough rye taste to combine with anything without overpowering. 

Happy baking!

Pablo

So I've bee seeing Tartine bread realated posts and videos all over and I thought I had a good idea of the general principles, so I decided to try my hand at it. I tried to follow the general method: autolyse, mix, strech and fold every half hour, six times, shape, cold proofing overnight.

The thing was I messed up with the measurement and initially added too little water, then added more for the autolyse and reduced the amount of starter. The dough consistency felt right so I moved on. I don't think that the gluten was developed enough during the strech and folds because when I turned the loaf on the peel it was too slack and flat and it just spread when I tried to slash it so it had no ear al all. 

But even so, there was a nice oven spring, the crust is crusty enough, the crumb is light and rather open and the flavor is there, wheaty and slightly sour. It was not a very succesful experiment, but it will not go uneaten either!

This is my first post ever, though I have been consulting the site for quite a while now. So hi, everybody, I'm glad to be here and hope to be a part of this awesome baking community!

This is a sourdough loaf with whole grain wheat, rye and oat flour, with chocolate and cranberries.

70% hidration; 50% wheat, 25% rye, 25% oats. For about 400 grams of dough, I used 40 grams of mexican chocolate from Oaxaca (it's mostly used for making hot chocolate beverage, it has cinammon and a more crumbly texture which I love; I also make pain au chocolat with it and its great); and 30 gr. of dehidrated cranberries. 

I keep a whole wheat 100% hidration starter, I took 40 gr. and added 40 gr. of rye flour and 40 gr. of water and lef at room temperature for about 6 hours. Then I mixed in the preferment with the rest of the flour, salt and water, kneaded for about 5 minutes and let rest for 30 min. Then I made 4 strech and folds at 30 minute intervals, added the chocolate and cranberries before the second S&F, After the fourth S&F I let it sit about an hour, then shaped and retarded proofing overnight and baked in a dutch oven this morning.

The flavor is great, although I would have like a more open crumb. I might substitute part of the WW for bread flour next time; and perhaps I'll be more generous with the chocolate and cranberries too.

All in all, it was a good experiment and I'll definitively try again, maybe adjusting a few things. Any suggestions?

Happy baking! I'ts nice to finally share something here.