Autolyse
I am applying a receipt with pre- ferment with : half of flour, about 60% water, 2% SALT, 0.7% Yeast.
I do the night before.
Then, the following morning I add the remaining Flour, remaining water ( overall is 68%), 2% SALT and 0.7% Yeast.
3 bulk fermentations (spaced 50 min)
preshaping of 20 minutes.
Shaping round, for 1 hour and a half
baKing.
I have used type2 flour( not whole wheat, but half)
if I try to apply autolyse on half of the remaining flour that I don't use in the preferment I'm not able to create anymore the gluten when I mix.
I tried 2 different ways:
The first is the night before: I do the preferment and with part of the remaining flour I do autolyse that stays all the night. (Flour: 250 in the preferment, 150 in autolyse, 100 is kept for the following day).
The second is in the Morning: before mixing the flour with the preferment I did autolyse with 150g of flour over 250 of remaining flour: 250 in the preferment, 150 autolyse, 100 remaining flour.
I am not abLE to understand why the glutin does not develop anymore. In the end I don't change the overall hydratation.
When you autolyse, are you adding the preferment? It looks like it, but I might be reading that wrong. If so the salt and yeast can interfere with the autolyse. If it is a shorter autolyse then the yeast might be okay, but the salt is still a problem. For an overnight autolyse, salt and yeast will both interfere.
No,in one trial I do the preferment the evening before with 250g of flour and in parallel I do the autolyse (150g of flour).
In the other case I do the preferment the evening before, then. In the following morning before mixing I do the autolyse with 150 g of flour and 140g of water. Altre 1hour I mix the autolyse, the preferment, the remaining 100g flour, the remaining 50g water, yeast, the remaining SALT.
So in one case it is a 12 hours autolyse, in the second case it is 1hour autolyse.
Are you kneading the dough or stretching and folding the dough at any point?
FF
In the morning after mixing I do 3bulk fermentations, space 50 minutes. Be' tweed echi pbase I fold.
So:
MiX, ferment, fold, ferment, fold,ferment, preshaping, ferment (20 minutes), shaping, 1 hour and half, baking
weigh each "module" (spreadsheet) of flour and water separate, then I realized I was making my life difficult. Now I autolyze all the dough at once, and that's only water and flour, though a variable is the water temperature, and how long it is left to absorb. Mixing is kept to a minimum. Later, for each module, the water and flour weight are summed, and that much autolyzed dough is used instead.
Not sure to have understood.
Have you ever used preferment and autolyse in the same recipt?
In which Way?
Thanks
Autolyze is dissolving the flour in water only. Nothing else, per Calvel.
"Have you ever used preferment and autolyse in the same recipt?"
Yes. When I need a pre-ferment, I tend to use the term sponge, I take some autolyzed dough, sprinkle my IDY on it, mix it for one minute, let it rest for 10 minutes, then mix for another minute, then the sponge is put in a jar, which itself is placed in a water bath on a hotplate set to keep 80°F. The rest of 10 minutes is the time I've determined works well for the yeast to dissolve, the second mixing distributes it better. I start the timer for the module's fermentation period when the yeast is first added.
This technique can't be used with ADY, as it should be pre-dissolved in warm water, so were I to use it instead of IDY, I'd have to reserve a little bit of water for that purpose, as I calculate everything in the spreadsheet, and I mean everything, every last fraction of a gram of all ingredients. When I decide to make someone else's formula, I first transfer it to my spreadsheet. Each step is laid out as what I'm calling a "module", it's just a set of calculations, everything based on flour weight. It works for me.
Were I to use fresh yeast, I'm not sure what I'd do, probably just mix it in, but I can't buy any locally, so I don't worry about it.
If a recipe called for a poolish, which is essentially a fluid sponge, then all the flour and water could not be autolyzed at once, as different hydrations are involved. The same goes for a biga, which is a very stiff sponge.
I use brewer yeast.
I don't know the others kind of Yeast (IDY ADY)
I understand the reccommendation is to autolyse the preferment, before putting Yeast in it.
i can understand doing it with the poolish, which has a high quantity of water, so autolyse con be' applied.
But for a biga I suspect the water not to be' enough for a good autolyse which usually requires a big amount of water.
IDY = Instant Dry Yeast
ADY = Active Dry Yeast
If you're using someone else's recipe, then the best you can do is follow their instructions.
Is it possible the flour you're using is higher protein than what the original formula called for? (I'm referring to endosperm protein, not including protein in the bran or germ). If so, a little more water would be expected.
Good luck!
I can explain better:
I am following a receipt:
- evening before: pre-ferment = 250 white flour, 150g water, 0.5% brewer yeast, 1.8% salt
- day after: add 250 g white flour, 190g water, 1.75g Yeast, 4.5g salt
ferment 50 min, fold, ferment 50min, fold, ferment 50 min , preshaping 20 min, shaping 90 min.
Now: the problem is if I change the flour: no more white flour, but Type2 flour (mid range between white flour and whole wheat ).
The point is that type2 flour has less glutin than white flour, so I made experiments in using autolyse .
Can I use autolyse to change the above receipt to work better with type2 flour?
I did 2 experiments:
The first: the evening before, I do the preferment but also I take 150g of flour and 140 g of water and make a long autolyse for all the night. The morning after I mix all together: preferment, autolyse, flour etc.
The second: i do the autolyse in the morning. Wait one hour, then mix with the preferment and the reamaining flour, water etc.
The difference is how long is the autolyse: one night or one hour.
The 2 experiments were failing: i did not develop more glutin, but Instead when I mix ( i use a bread machine to mix) i get a very wet misture.
Note that the percent of water does not change versus the same receipt with type2 flour. But In both cases I ended by having less glutin instead of more glutin as desired.
So, when i replaced the white flour by type2 flour, I have worse results, but by autolyse instead of improving I get even worse results.
I was thinking you needed more water, because bran also soaks up water. But if you think the dough is too wet, then it's probably one problem (always trust yourself!).
You also say it's a lower protein percentage flour. According to Wikipedia, Type 2 Italian flour is equivalent to first clear flour, and has a high protein percentage (and maybe Wikipedia is wrong). According to Joe Pastry, it's a high ash flour that doesn't have much extensibility, is coarsely ground, and is not classified by protein level. He asserts Type 1 and 0 are appropriate for bread. According to Andrew Whitley, the Continental legal specifications do not address protein level. I find myself wondering if this flour is more appropriate to making pie crusts than bread.
Autolyze: If I recall correctly, Calvel used 20 minutes, and have also read in many places that 2 hours is frequently recommended. Using your weights, I would take 500 g flour and 340 g water for the autolyze. Then, for the sponge, I would measure 400 g of autolyzed dough, ideally leaving 440 g of autolyzed dough for the final dough, (refrigerating it until needed). However, there is always a small amount of loss, dough that sticks to various utensils and gets washed down the drain.
Thanks for hour answer.
The recipe I use is also on this site : it is the "rustic bread" from hamelmann.
I know my type2 flour gives me a penalty. My previous white flour had a level of proteins of 11%, which I think means more than 200 of force. This type 2 has 12 as level of proteins but as it has a component of whole wheat I think it is just less than 200 as strength.
The type2 is anyway not bad for bread, but it has a penalty in glutin, so I would like to modify the recipe to try to compensate the penalty, even if not completely. I'm wondering If adding autolyze is the good way.
I understand your Reccommendation is to put all in autolyze, then to make a preferment out of it, while refrIgerating the remaining autolyzed to be' used the day after.
If I was confusing, my apologies. If the protein level of the flour is lower, then it's my understanding and experience that water should be decreased some.
You had earlier said that autolyze did not seem to help. When I explained with the numbers in my last post regarding how I would do an autolyze, I was simply clarifying my method, in the case I wasn't clear in my prior posts. It simply saves weighing and mixing steps. In your case, it didn't help, so you should follow your own guidance, in my opinion. Nothing beats what you learn yourself from your own experience!
I looked at Hammelman's Rustic Bread, and it has no oil. In cases where there is no oil, I would expect an autolyze to help a lot less than in a formula that does include fat of some kind. I generally use a little oil in my formulas, as they are sometimes-to-often toasted, and I've found that bread toasts better when it has some oil in it, and I don't have enough time to make lots of different varieties.
I am able to pull windowpanes after my own process of full autolyze, this is with very minimal mixing using U.S. flours of around 12% protein or thereabouts.
Thanks, I enjoyed communicating with you!
Thanks for your comments.
I recall your sentence:
"If the protein level of the flour is lower, then it's my understanding and experience that water should be decreased some."
I start from here because the objective of my experiments is the following: how to compensate a lower level of gluten proteins, without reducing the water.. That's why I did experiments on autolyse.
Morever I don't want to use fat in my bread.
So I take this rustic bread recepit as my base and I try doing experiments on it.
To me there are many things not clear, for example: why the recepit has 3 bulk fermentations with 2 foldings between each one?
When I use type 2 flour, with less proteins, shall I increase the yeast ? (not yet tried).
Can autolyse compensate the lower level of gluten proteins? With autholyse I get a much more sticky dough. In the end the bread is good, but it is not able to grow so much. So my experiment is not successful.
Moreover with type2 flour I've never been able having holes inside the bread.
"To me there are many things not clear, for example: why the recepit has 3 bulk fermentations with 2 foldings between each one?"
It is not three bulk fermentations but more one bulk fermentations interrupted with folding. The "stretch and fold" concept that has become so popular to strengthen high hydrations doughs.
No where do I see dough temperatures in this discussion. Would like to know how fast things are fermenting and one factor missing is temperature. (or did I miss it?) Soaking of whole grains encourages fermentation (with or without yeast) unless salt is added to slow it down. Is any of the whole grain flour being soaked with salt water? I see all kinds of combinations for run away fermentation as I read thru the thread, not being controlled the fermentation rate can vary even when repeated. The slightest change in temp will make big differences with time. Whole flours ferment faster and so do very wet flours.
Let me say that many receipts follow the same basic scheme. For example the basic scheme I follow consists of
- Preferment (including salt), the evening before
- mixing, the following morning
- bulk fermentation (2-3 hours), during which we have 2 or 3 stretch and fold
- cutting and preshaping, with moderate rest (about 20 minutes)
- final shaping, longer rest (about 1 hour)
- baking
Now: when I replace the white flour by a type2 flour ( intermediate between white and whole wheat, type 2 I think is a bit less than 200 in strength) I am penalized, because the type 2 develops less gluten.
My objective is understanding the direction to move to have a compensation of this penalty, even if only a partial compensation.
The direction is
- increase or decrease the bulk fermentation time?
- increase or decrease the number of stretch and fold during the bulk fermentation?
- increase or decrease the mixing?
- increase or decrease the yeast (I use brewers yeast)?
- increase or decrease the rest time after the shaping?
- add autolyse? And in which way on the above scheme?
Any of the above helping me in compensating the usage of the type2 weaker flour?
Any way to come back to having holes in the bread, as with the white flour? Or at least improving a bit with one of the above directions?
you will automatically, chemically change the dough matrix.
Not only is the gluten lower by comparison but bran bits have made an appearance, tiny hard sharp edged particles that can cut the gluten resulting in shorter gluten bonds. Shorter bonds = less stretch and restricted ability to trap gas resulting in less than equally volumous and fluffy loaf of pure fine wheat flour.
To put it simply, the goal is to lengthen or protect the fewer protein bonds that make up the gluten matrix without adding more gluten or proteins or subtracting the bran bits only using changes in hydration and dough development and the manipulative use of salt and/or yeast.
Edit:
Soaking has been shown to soften bran.
Sifting bran out and hot or cold soaking separately while developing gluten could also be an option.
Spontaneous fermentation should be looked into and is it helping or destroying your valuable gluten with the passage of time.
Bran speeds fermentation.
I appreciate very much your answer, because you ave understood my point.
My goal is exaxtly what you say: to protect the fewer protein bonds without adding more gluten or proteins or subtracting the bran bits...
Now: in my list there are different things that can br done: increase or decrease.... You can see my list.
My point is: what goes in the direction of protecting the fewer proteins... Etc?
Shall I increase or decrease the bulk fermentation time? The number of foldings, the yeast, the mxing time? ....
basic experiments first. See what soaking does to the bran.
Just take small amounts of flour and add water, measure everything and then compare the little doughs as time goes by. Set them up so you can check on them as the hours and days go by. Example: little bowls or cups under a larger bowl.
Do the same with small amounts of yeast in the water and compare them. Does Yeast improve the dough qualities or does it degrade them and when? Does it do both? Try again using just salt.
How about the temperature of the water? Does cold water improve the qualities? warm? hot? (try above 80°C) just for an idea. (have you looked into adding cooked flour into the dough for more polymeric action? See Water Roux or Tangzhong)
I have not understoo how to perform the experiment. How do I have to mix and what do I have to measure?
"Just take small amounts of flour and add water, measure everything and then compare the little doughs as time goes by. Set them up so you can check on them as the hours and days go by."
start with 3 samples of the #2 flour. 20g each now add different amount of water to represent basic hydration... 60% 70% and 80% for example
Stir them up with a little spoon or fork and then let each one sit 10 minutes or longer to hydrate or autolyse. Cover them all with a big bowl or bread tin. After the 10 minutes are up, Use your fingers to make a little ball of dough for each and play with them to test their stretch and feel and write down notes. Cover and come back every hour to check and compare them both to the other hydrations and to themselves as time passes. Do that for as long as you can. If you make more than 3 samples, say two of each
4. 20g flour add 12 g water for the 60% hydration sample. Retard after 2 hrs. and overnight
5. 20g flour add 14 g water... 70% hydration Retard after 2 hrs. and overnight
6. 20g flour add 16 g water... 80% hydration Retard after 2 hrs. and overnight
you can stick half of the sample doughs (one each 60%, 70% and 80% into the refrigerator (retard) while the other stand on the counter all night. Compare them the next day. Cover between checking and observing and keep taking notes.
Do another 6 samples and add yeast... In that case might be easier to weigh 120g of flour and add 1% yeast (for example) stir together dry to thoroughly mix the yeast the then divide into 20.2g flour with yeast samples Treat 7. 8. 9. like 1,2,3 and retard samples 10. 11. and 12. Wash and dry your hands between checking the little dough balls so yeast isn't added to any on the non yeasted doughs.
You can touch and examine the little dough balls and make notes on feel, stretch, how many times to fold etc. You will also see some of these fermenting to the point of falling apart. In this batch of 12 samples, you can quickly narrow down what you want to investigate further.
Lets see, we got variable hydration, variable autolyse, variable yeast, and yeast with retard. for now. The wet flour on the counter top serve also as a control against the yeast and the retarding. You can touch and feel the differences. Does it make sense?
This is a 'scientific' method, I can try making these experiments, but on the other hand I' m also interested in having directions from experts, instead of experiment all by myself.
That's why I put a list of clear possibilities to choose among them.
I'm going to repost the list in a new forum subject, to collect recommendations.
Put in wrong spot.
Salt will slow down the yeast growth and is useful when a long fermentation is used (as in an overnight preferment) or if the room temperature (and therefor the dough temperature) is high. Rye flour and whole grain flour tend to ferment faster so salt may be helpful in slowing fermentation down for these grains. Salt will also tend to reduce the starchy gel from forming that is so helpful in making a good crumb. Not adding the salt to the preferment and dough until the final mixing may be beneficial to your dough.
What is the temperature in your kitchen? That will have a large impact on your dough.
Is this a coarsely ground flour? Is it closer to feeling like sand or powder when you rub it between your fingers? Do you have a brand name from the package? Which country is it from? A picture of the flour or the package may be helpful.
I have made bread successfully with low gluten white flour and with high gluten, coarsely ground whole grain flour. I have never made bread (so I have no experience) in making bread with low gluten, whole grain that is coarsely ground. Low gluten white dough needs extensive kneading so not only gluten forms but so that the starch is also developed. It tends to overprove easily. Coarsely ground whole wheat with high gluten tends to need a lot of time to absorb the water into the bigger particles and then a lot of rough kneading to squeeze the starch out of it so a decent crumb can form. I'm not sure that stretch and fold will be as effective for these flours. I'm sure it would work better for the weak, white flour than the coarsely ground, strong flour.
Persistence will pay off.
Experimenting to see how this particular flour behaves may be just the most expedient thing to do. Bakers are wonderful scientists-they observe, evaluate and change the formulas all the time.
I have not understood why you say that salt is i usefuL in slowing fermentation down, but at the same time you conclude that removing the salt can be beneficial
Salt is a tool. Use it according to your needs.
_If you need to slow down fermentation, then use it for that, but know that it may reduce the amount of starchy gel that is produced in your dough and that will negatively affect the quality of the crumb.
_ If you are using a coarsely ground whole grain flour that feels gritty or sand-like (or half whole grain), then you may need every bit of starchy gel you can get out of that flour to make a satisfactory loaf. Coarse grain generally makes a coarse crumb. There are techniques to refine the crumb-usually hydration and time.
_ If your flour is very finely ground (like a fine powder) and the gel can easily be developed, then the salt will have little effect on developing the needed starchy gel- use it as you wish. Unless , of course, that the temperature is very warm and fermentation needs to be slowed down.
_If you are in a cooler environment, the salt is not needed to slow down the fermentation but the flour again comes into question-do you need to develop the starchy gel or not?
You would probably find the responses much more useful if you answered the questions that have been asked before questioning the responses that have been given. It is hard to offer solutions if all the information is not known.
1. What is the temperature of the location where you are mixing, fermenting and baking bread dough? Do you know the dough temperature?
2. Please describe the characteristics of the flour you are using. I am not familiar with it and it sounds like other responders were also not familiar with it. The information provided has not been adequate for me to troubleshoot. Can you provide a country location where it is bought or a brand? Can you provide a link or a picture of the label? The flour may be the key to giving you the response you need.
More information is needed. Please provide.
Thanks for your answer.
The type2 flour is an Italian half-wheat flour. In Italy we have type00, 0, 1, 2 and whole wheat.
I find very interesting suggestions in your reply. I understand that the salt can be a tool to slow down fermentation, but to me it is not clear when I have to slow down the fermentation.
In the country bread recipe I found the preferment with salt. I don't know what happens if I don't put the salt.
If I leave in the night, it will be around 20 deg celsius.