The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Insecure newbie's first real loaves: Soaker & Biga look right?

cheekygeek's picture
cheekygeek

Insecure newbie's first real loaves: Soaker & Biga look right?

First non-bread-machine breads. Wondering if this looks right to everyone?

The recipe is Peter Reinhart's "100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread" from his "Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads" book (pages 95-98). The flour is my own, milled from Hard Red Spring Wheat, in a Magic Mill III Plus at the 1-1/2 dots setting, and I scalded the milk that goes into the soaker to hopefully help the rise. This recipe makes a 2 lb loaf, but I plan on dividing that between two Lodge cast iron loaf pans to make two 1 lb. loaves. I'm making the recipe without adjustments this first time (though I understand that I may need to increase my hydration since it is whole grain flour... if I don't get enough rise I'll try that future tries). I made the soaker and the biga yesterday morning and will be assembling the final dough and baking on Sunday.

I'm planning on trying a crust embellishment to these loaves, however, called "Dutch Crunch" which I found on this page. It looks awesome! and is apparently also called "Tiger Tail". I'll have to search BreadIt to see what others have said about it in the past.

So this is what my soaker and biga look like this morning.The final dough recipe is for combining them and adding only 7 Tbsp of whole wheat flour, plus the salt, yeast, butter and honey. From the looks of it, I will use my vintage stand mixer with dough hooks. 

First time using my new Lodge cast iron loaf pans. Not sure if I preheat or not, etc. Any words of wisdom on that score would be appreciated.

Wish me luck! Photos and follow-up post , regardless of the outcome!

drogon's picture
drogon

... if you're trying too many new things at once. the issue now will be that if something goes wrong, then you might not know where to start looking (other than here ;-)

I'm not personally a fan of 100% wholemeal breads although I sometimes make them for my customers. Nowhere near as complex as this - just a slow overnight ferment with a fraction of the organic yeast I'd normally use, then I roll the shaped logs in malted wheat flakes before putting in a tin to rise & bake.

"Tiger bread" is typically finished with sesame oil to give it the tiger skin effect (although here in the UK after a letter from a 3 year old girl, one supermarket now calls it giraffe bread). I'm not sure oil on a wholemeal loaf is going to have much effect though.

Hope it works well though! I'm sure it'll be fun making it.

-Gordon

wildcat's picture
wildcat

I use a two quart cast iron dutch oven, not loaf pans. But I treat it like a loaf in that I proof the bread it (final rise) and it goes into the oven cold. I do cover it for the first 20 minutes get steam. You don't have to do that.

Don't be afraid to add water if needed to get the right action from the dough hook.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

doesn't set up before the spring has sprung.  Very easy to do.  Just take a cake pan fill it half full of water an roll up a kitchen towel and put it in the pan.  When the oven hits the per heat marl load this pan into the bottom rack of the oven  and then load the bread in 15 minutes later.  Do not hold you face bear the oven door when you load the bread as the steam will burn you badly.  This is a good bread and difficult to mess up so no worries,.

cheekygeek's picture
cheekygeek

Thanks for the replies. Drogan, you are probably right. :\ Also my Dutch Crumb recipe uses a combination of sesame oil and EVOO. Wildcat was right to question behavior on the dough hook. It climbed right up it, so I added a 1/4 cup of water and still didn't like how it was behaving in my mixer so took it out and kneaded by hand.

I proofed the bread in the cast irons pans that had a bit of residual heat from a 2nd seasoning I did earlier. I made sure it was below 114F to make sure I would not have a detrimental effect on the yeast. The Dutch Crunch mixed up and rose just as expected. I put it on the proofing bread and let it continue to proof.

It is now in the oven. Appreciate the steam suggestion, dabrownman. I put a rack above the bread level and used a metal popover pan (like this one: http://www.webstaurantstore.com/6-cup-non-stick-popover-pan/327926561.html ) on the top rack filled with boiling water right before putting the loaf pans on the lower rack. I'll flip the pans 180 degrees in just a few minutes and that will be my first look at how I'm doing. I've got an instant read thermometer which I'll be using to determine "done".

UPDATE: Well, at the pan rotation (supposedly half way through baking) it appears that my nice domes have collapsed, which is disappointing. Did I over-proof? 

wildcat's picture
wildcat

If the pans were warm, the dough would have proofed quickly. How did you decide when it was ready?

wildcat's picture
wildcat

Or prick the surface before baking?

cheekygeek's picture
cheekygeek

In retrospect, Drogon was probably right. I should have tried the recipe without the Dutch Crumb first. It was hard to tell if the dough was rising or if it was the yeasty Dutch Crumb (which was clearly active). It also stopped me from doing the "poke" test for proofing, so I just waited until it was domed over the top of the pan (about 1/2-3/4") 

I did not score the top.

What it looks like cooling: 

wildcat's picture
wildcat

That it still tastes great.

cheekygeek's picture
cheekygeek

Thanks for the encouragement! It is more than edible. I've had two slices as toast and it is delicious. There are more things that went right in this exercise than went wrong, so I guess I'll consider this a good starting place.

Here is an image of the crumb:

BobBoule's picture
BobBoule

looks yummy! I would eat it. Keep experimenting and most of all, just enjoy.

Arjon's picture
Arjon

Having only started baking bread last fall, I still clearly remember the temptation to try to do multiple things at once - different flours and other ingredients, different methods, etc. I was fortunate enough not to produce any completely inedible disasters, but quite a few of my experiments were less than stellar to varying degrees. And it was generally hard if not impossible to guess why. 

So, like drogon, who is far more accomplished than I am, I recommend learning to bake bread the way most people learn most things. Start with the basics (or at least quite basic) and move up your learning curve in an orderly, step by step manner. 

fotomat1's picture
fotomat1

Perfect one recipe at a time...take notes of each and every change. Once perfected...move on>

barryvabeach's picture
barryvabeach

Cheekygeek,  is that crumb shot the first slice?  If so,  I am not sure, but it might be the hydration is too high.  With a classic overproof  ( and I have done that a lot )  the overall shape looks right, but instead of oven spring, the whole loaf falls.  My classic overhydration has good height where the dough was touching the side of the pan ( it helps keep it up ) but I get a concave top, with the "hole" in the middle, farthest away from the pan.  I know you are keeping notes, so you might want to try reducing the hydration in one sample and see what happens.

wildcat's picture
wildcat

I am no bread baking expert by any means, but I do make 100% whole meal breads from my own home milled flour so I have some experience with the joys and challenges involved therein. So here are my thoughts.

First, it is important to always remember that even well made 100% whole meal breads do not rise as high as breads made with predominantly white flour, so you have to be careful about using proofing guidelines developed for the latter, especially when you also remember that whole meal breads tend to ferment much faster than white breads, especially in the final proof (my experience).

Looking at the pictures, I do think the main problem was the final proof. The pans were warm and you let the dough crest the pans. You had a big layer of air just below the surface. The rest of the crump does not look collapsed to me nor even really over developed.

Letting the dough crest in the pan is white bread practice since it rises higher over all. Reinhart's guidelines are a 45 to 60 min proof at room temperature (you were warmer) until it is 1 1/2 times original size. If the shaped dough filled less than 3/4 of the volume of the pan, that means it would be ready when it just barely filled the pan.  And that is what I do. I don't let the dough crest. I let oven spring complete the rise.

One last observation. Bigas and soakers are pretty basic techniques for whole meal yeasted breads. Not that complicated, just time consuming. And how diiferent is that from combining a starter and a long autolyse?  

Thanks for sharing your experience. Delicious is job 1 in my book and it sounds like you nailed that!