breadbakingbassplayer's blog

Hey all,

Just wanted to share with you this bake from 9/23/10.  It is a Tourte Auvergnate inspired by the recipe in Le pain, l'envers du décor by Frédéric Lalos.  His version is basically 80% rye, and the rest in white flour, which is made into a stiff levain.  I decided to make mine with 75% rye flour, and 25% AP flour.  I made the AP flour into a stiff levain, and then with some of the rye flour, I made a rye sour.  Here's the formula, process, and pictures.  Enjoy!

Overall Formula

750g Whole Rye Flour

250g AP

720g Water

18g Kosher Salt

1738g Total Dough Yield (approx)

Stiff Levain

250g AP

150g Water

50g Storage Sourdough Starter at 100% hydration

450g Total Stiff Levain

Rye Sour

150g Rye Flour

150g Water

8g Storage Sourdough Starter at 100% hydration

308g Rye Sour Total

Final Dough

600g Rye Flour

420g Water

18g Kosher Salt

450g Stiff Levain

308g Rye Sour

1796g Total Dough Yield Approx

Process:

9/22/10

6:30pm - Mix rye sour and stiff levain, cover and let rest on counter.

7:00pm - Put stiff levain into refrigerator.

9/23/10

9:00pm - Weigh out all ingredients, and place into large mixing bowl in the following order, water, levain, rye sour, rye flour, salt.

9:15pm - Mix for 5 minutes starting with a rubber spatula and switching to wet hands as the dough gets harder to stir.

Switch to wet hands and knead dough.

9:20pm - After mixing and kneading, cover and let bulk ferment for 1:30...

10:50pm - Dough after bulk ferment.  Notice the poke in the top part.

10:55pm - Divide and shape.  I made 3 relatively equal size boules.

Place in floured bannetons seam side down.

Cover and let proof for 1 hour.  Place 2 baking stone/stones in oven with steam pan filled with lava rocks and water.  Preheat to 550F with convection.

11:55pm - Turn off convection. Turn boules on to floured peel/flipping board and place in oven directly on stone.  When last one is in, pour 1 more cup of water into steam pan, close door and turn oven down to 500F no convection.  Bake for 10 minutes at 500F.

9/23/10

12:05am - Take out steam pan, turn oven down to 420F.  Bake for 20 minutes.

12:25am - Rotate loaves around, or between stones.  I am baking on 2 stones, starting them off on the bottom, transfering them to the top.  Bake for another 20 minutes.

12:45am - Take one loaf out to check weight and internal temp.  Should be at least 15% lighter than prebaked weight, and internal temp should be about 210F.  Turn oven off, and leave loaves in for another 10 minutes.

12:55pm - Take loaves out and let cool at least 24hrs before cutting and eating to let the crumb stabilize and dry out a little.

8:00am - I was a little impatient so I cut into one so I could see the crumb...  Slightly gummy as I had expected, but after a little toasting and butter, it was all good...  Enjoy!

Tim

So my friend sent me this link to check out: http://vimeo.com/13181134

I need to figure out if this will make it to the theaters here in NYC...

Hey All,

Just wanted to fill you in on my latest baking installment...  I have this older German lady that lives in my building that I've been baking for for the past few years.  Once or twice a week, I will bake something, and drop it on the little table outside her door before I go to work.  She has taken a liking to my breads, in particular the dark hearty ones that reminder her of Germany...  She's been here for many year now...  She's on this weird schedule and only comes back to the city randomly... and she notified me that she would be in town only for an evening before heading back to the woods...  I had to bake something for her to take back to the woods...

I've been experimenting with pain au levains which were mostly AP flour with a WW levain.  They were about 5% rye, 10% WW and 85% AP.  I wanted to flip that around and try something like 70% WW, 20% AP, and 10% rye...  I also did not make a starter the day before, so I needed to figure out how to make a starter in a short period of time so I wouldn't have to stay up all night..  So it went something like this:

Fast Liquid Levain:

75g Rye Flour

75g WW

104g Sourdough Starter at 100% hydration preferably fed a few days ago, or the night before.

10g Honey

464g Total Liquid Levain

9/21/10

6:40pm - Mix liquid levain, let sit covered on counter for approx 4 hours.

Final Dough:

625g WW

200g AP

25g Rye

550g Water

24g Kosher Salt

464g Liquid Levain

1888g Total Dough Yield

10:40pm - In a large mixing bowl, place the ingredients in the following order: water, levain, flour, and salt.  Mix with large spatula until dough forms, and mix with hands to make sure all the lumps are out.  This should take about 3 minutes.  Cover and let rest.

11:00pm - Knead for 1 minute, cover and let rest.

11:20pm - Turn dough, cover and let rest.

11:40pm - Turn dough, cover and let rest.

9/22/10

12:00am - Divide dough into 2 equal parts, preshape into boule, let rest seam side down on work surface.

12:10am - Tighten boule, flour top, place in well floured linen lined banneton/basket, place in plastic bag and let proof.  Place 2 baking stones into oven along with steam pan in oven.  Go to bed.

5:00am - Wake up, fill steam pan with some water, put thermometer in oven, turn on oven to 500F with convection.  Make sure your kitchen windows are open for ventilation.  Go back to bed.

6:00am - Wake up, turn convection off, turn boules onto a lightly floured peel, place in oven directly on the baking stone.  When the last loaf is in, pour 1 cup water into steam pan, close door.  Turn oven down to 450F no convection.  Bake 50 minutes, taking the steam pan out at 20 minutes, and rotating the loaves between the stones at 25 minutes.  After 50 minutes, take a loaf out and check the weight and internal temp.  Should be 210F and weight 15% less than the prebaked weight.  Turn oven off and place loaves back into oven for 10 minutes.

7:00am - Take loaves out and get ready for work...

8:00am - Deliver loaf to my friend and go to work...  I left my loaf at home and didn't cut into it until today...  Here's what I found:

Maybe this is unsolicited advice, but here goes... 

For those of you who have tried recipes and have failed, my advice to you is to make note of what went wrong, and try it again.  Try it again until you it works for you.  And keep trying until it comes out how you want it to.  This is the only way to get better.  Success is not a very good teacher.  Learning from your mistakes is...  This applies not only to baking bread, but life in general...

Tim

Hey All,

So my mother keeps pestering me to send my brother a birthday card for his birthday on September 22nd...  Personally I think sending a $5.00 card + $0.44 postage that just says Happy Birthday is sort of lame...  I don't think sending birthday cards is really a guy thing either...  So what's a guy baker going to do for his brother who lives on the West Coast?  Bake bread and ship it to him via USPS Priority Mail...  So here's the project.  How to bake a loaf of bread large enough to survive the 2 day trip out West without drying out and getting stale, and fit into the large priority mail package box which is 12" x 12" x 6"...   Hmmm...  Here's what happened:  I had some lasagna pans that were as close to square as possible, and my floured linen couch fabric...  Here goes...

Here it is!  It's about 13" x 10" x 5" and weighs about 1800g after bake...  Total dough weight before bake was about 2150g...  It took a little work getting it into the box, but it worked...  The cool thing about this big priority mail box is that you can ship up to 20lbs for $14.70...

Side profile and crackly crust!

More crackly crust!

Close-up of crack!

Some little ones for me and my friends at work...

Crumbshot of one of the little ones...  I hope the big one as a nice crumb like this one...  Maybe my brother will be nice enough to send me a crumbshot when he gets it...

Enjoy!

Tim

Hey All,

I had a friend Russ in town from LA that I haven't seen since his wedding about 5 years ago...  He finally made it out to NYC, 13 years after we had first met in college...  Funny thing is that last Christmas, I send a loaf of bread to another friend Greg in LA that we both know.  Greg was raving about it to Russ and his wife...  Anyway, many months pass, Russ finally makes it out to NYC, and his wife jokingly asks him to bug me for some bread...  Of course as an obsessive baker, I don't turn down many opportunities to bake for my friends...  I have been baking Poilane style pain au levains for the past fiew weeks trying different things with levain, flour combinations, hydrations...  I've been playing around with 68% hydrations levels which was inspired by Dominique Saibron of Le Boulanger de Monge: http://www.leboulangerdemonge.com/

He says on his website that they use 68 parts of water: http://www.leboulangerdemonge.com/du-moulin-au-four/la-composition-du-pain.html

So here's recipe and process:

Ingredients:

1576g Total flour (5% Rye/10% WW/ 85% AP)

1072g Water

38g Kosher Salt

316g Liquid Levain (100% hydration fed night before and refrigerated.  I keep mine an ever changing mix of rye, ww, AP)

3000g Approx total dough yield

Method To Madness:

9/18/10

4:45pm - Place all ingredients in large mixing bowl in the following order: water, levain, flour, salt.  Mix with large rubber spatula until a shaggy dough is formed.  Mix with wet hands to ensure all lumps and dry bits are gone.  Place bowl in large plastic bag and let rest.

5:00pm - Rest

5:30pm - Turn dough, divide into 2 equal pieces (1500g), transfer to lightly oiled plastic tubs, cover, let rest.

5:45pm - Turn dough, cover let rest.

8:30pm - Turn dough.

10:00pm - Turn dough.

9/19/10

12:40am - Shape into boule, place in well floured linen lined banneton, flour top of dough, place kitchen towel over each banneton, place bannetons into large plastic bag, proof for approx 4+ hours.  (Be sure to flour the bannetons very well as this is a very long proof with a wet-ish dough.  I had to be very careful when turning the boules out as they did stick a little and I had to be very patient for the dough to unstick itself and drop...)

5:00am - Place 2 baking stones on 2 levels along with steam pan with lava rocks.  Place a few cups of water in steam pan.  Preheat oven to 500F with convection.

6:10am - Turn off convection.  Turn boules out onto well floured peel, slash as desired, place in oven directly on stone.  When last loaf is in, place 1 1/2 cups water in steam pan, close oven door.  Turn oven down to 450F, bake for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes, remove steam pan, rotate loaves between stones, turn oven down to 425F, bake for another 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes are done, turn off oven and leave loaves in for another 10 minutes...

7:10am - Take loaves out of oven, check internal temp and weight.  Should be around 210F and 15-20% lighter than the prebaked weight.  Cool completely before cutting and eating...

These are by far the most open crumb that I have ever achieved using levain only...  I have no complaints here other than I should have used more levain to speed up the dough...  This was about 14 hours from start to finish...

Enjoy!

Tim

Hey All,

Me again.  This whole baking and blogging thing is a little nutty...  It's something one of those things that's fun, tedious and addictive...  Anyway, let's get on with this post...  How long can you cold bulk retard a dough and still have some good bread?  I've done 24 hours with good and bad results.  How about longer?  Why cold bulk retarding vs cold retarded proofing?  Well, from my experience, cold retarded proofing in a linen lined banneton seems to dry out the surface of the dough, so after baking, the crust becomes thick and tough...  This is my experience.  Also, I have a small under the counter refrigerator that has enough room to bulk retard maybe 4kg of dough in 2 X 4L plastic tubs.  So bulk retardation is my only option short of not sleeping if you've been following my baking schedule these days...

Here's my recipe:

Liquid Levain:

150g White Whole Wheat Flour

50g Rye Flour

50g Liquid Sourdough Storage Starter (100% hydration)

200g Water

450g Total Liquid Levain

Final Dough:

1000g AP

616g Water

30g Kosher Salt

450g Liquid Levain

2096g Approx Total Dough Yield

9/14/10

8:15pm - Mix liquid levain, cover and let rest on counter overnight.

9/15/10

8:00am - Mix final dough (in large mixing bowl put in water first, then levain, flour, salt).  Mix with rubber spatula until shaggy dough forms.  Cover and let rest 20 minutes.

8:25am - Knead for few minutes with wet hands until relatively smooth dough forms, transfer to lightly oiled container at least 4L, cover and let rest.

8:45am - Turn dough in container (stretch and fold), cover, place into refrigerator (40F), go to work.

9/16/10

6:30pm - Come home and take the dough out of the refrigerator and find that it was working on escaping the container

Divide into 2 equal pieces, shape into boules and place into linen lined bannetons and proof for 3 hours.

8:40pm - Arrange 2 baking stones on 2 levels, put steam pan in oven, preheat to 500F with convection.

9:45pm - Take bannetons out of plastic bag, lightly flour and give poke test...

10:00pm - Turn off convection. 

Turn boule out onto a lightly floured peel, slash as desired and place into oven directly onto stone.  When last loaf is in, pour 1 1/2 cups water into steam pan, close oven door.  Turn oven down to 450F and bake for 50 minutes, rotating between stones half way.  Then turn off oven and leave loaves in for another 10 minutes.

Loaves are done when the internal temp reaches 205F or higher (210F preferred), and they weigh at least 15% lighter than their prebaked weight.  Mine were 1050g before baking, and around 870g after, which is about a 17% weight loss...

Cool completely before cutting and eating...  Crumbshots tomorrow morning...  I wonder it this is a less stressfull baking schedule...  You tell me...

Tim

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and here's what I've come up with:

Sourdough: A device made from flour and water used for cultivating natural yeast.

Bread: A balloon like device made from usually wheat flour and water used for capturing "yeast farts". 

So based on this definition, bread is a "Yeast Fart Balloon".

Tim

Hi All,

So I was up really late waiting for some Pain au Levain to rise...  Maybe a little too late, which is why I don't feel so hot right now and should be getting to bed early...  Way, way before 2:00am like this morning...  Anyway, just wanted to share with you some Pain au Levain in a pan that I baked very late last night...  They turned out really well, but I should have used smaller loaf pans...  Enjoy!  Recipe and method will follow the pics and the obligatory crumbshot...  Also, this recipe was inspired by one of the Pain au Levain recipes in Le Pain, l'envers du decor by Frédéric Lalos.

Tim

Ingredients:

Final Dough:

1110g AP (KA)

555g Stiff Levain (63% hydration)

700g Water

38g Kosher salt

2400g Total Dough Yield (approx)

Stiff Levain

304g AP

192g Water

60g Sourdough Starter (I used a stiff one)

556g Total Stiff Levain Yield

Method to the Madness

9/12/10

3:50pm - Mix stiff levain, place in covered container, let rest on counter.

430pm - Place stiff levain in refrigerator.

9:13/10

6:50pm - Mix final dough in large bowl using a large rubber spatula, plastic scraper, wet hands.  Knead for 5-10 minutes.  Cover bowl, or place in plastic bag and let rest.

7:30pm - Knead dough for 2-3 minutes in bowl with wet hands.  Do not add any extra flour.  Cover and let rest.

7:45pm - Turn dough, cover and let rest.

8:45pm - Line loaf pans with parchment paper, or grease them if you like.  Divide into 3x800g pieces, and shape into loaves, place into pans, place pans into plastic bag, proof for 4 hours.

9/14/10

12:00am - Place baking stone and steam pan in oven, preheat to 500F with convection.

1:00am - Turn convection off.  Lightly dust loaves and slash as desired, place into oven on stone.  When all pans are in oven, pour 1 cup of water into the steam pan, close door.  Turn oven down to 450F and bake for 45 minutes.  Halfway through bake, remove loaves from pans and return to oven and place directly onto stone.  Turn oven down to 425F for remainder of bake.  At end of baking, check internal temp and weight loss.  Should reach 210F and lose approx 15% weight.  Turn oven off and put loaves back in for another 10 minutes.  Cool completely before cutting and eating...  Also, get some sleep...

Hi All,

Just wanted to share with you some rustic baguettes au levain that I made this morning...  I'll work on posting the recipe a little later...  Enjoy!

Tim