The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Forkish questions: Double-fed sweet levain

pizza fool's picture
pizza fool

Forkish questions: Double-fed sweet levain

Howdy!  Mostly successful with first attempt. Crumb slightly sticky even after 4 hours of resting, but flavor is there.

Kitchen was warm so I should've used cooler water or a shorter bulk fermentation. I used the 2g of yeast in addition to the double-fed levain.  After 5 hours the dough felt like whipped cream when dividing and shaping.  Never handled such a gassy dough.  I was trying not to use any extra flour so I oiled the board and shaped with wet hands.  Anyway, the shaping could've been tighter but I got a fissure on loaf 2.  Too much gas release when unmolding breads. Oats for extra moisture absorption.  So here are my questions:

1) I've never done cold-fermentation before yesterday in a straight banneton with no towel to absorb the moisture.  The dough was hard to release, even with tons of flour and oats.  I love the look of the spiral but not the release.  And then the bannetons felt moist, like they needed to be dried out afterwards. Do y'all do straight bannetons with his recipes or towels?

2) It hurts me to throw away all that extra starter.  Why is 500g of starter from a 1000g batch stronger than 500g from a 500g batch?

3) After autolyse, doesn't sprinkling salt and yeast on top of the dough kill the yeast?

4) 45 minute preheat seems like a very, very long time. I've always done 30 for Tartine loaves and they bake beautifully, even with two pots in the oven.  Will 45 get me darker colors? (I'm using corn meal and parchment paper on the bottom of the DOs so the bottom of the loaf doesn't burn.)

Thanks!

Eli

Les Nightingill's picture
Les Nightingill

1. I use a 50/50 mix of rice flour and whole wheat flour to facilitate releasing from the banneton. It's what Chad Robertson suggests and works very well for me. No liner, just the banneton.

2. It's a perennial mystery why KF suggests so much starter. You don't need it. Scale it down to produce just what you need.

3. Salt will retard the yeast, but you need salt in the dough. You mix it as soon as you add it, right? So it's not a big deal.

4. There's probably little difference between preheating for 30mins vs. 45mins.

The crumb on your loaf is very nice indeed.

rgconner's picture
rgconner

2. Ken does not specifically say you HAVE to use that amount, it is not what his book says. He states you can make any size you want so long as the ratios stay the same.

Why this myth persists is beyond me.

You can pare down the amount of levain, fresh flour, and fresh water used with each feeding as long as you maintain the same ratios. Here’s the formula for maintaining half the amount of levain: • 50 grams (3 tablespoons) of levain • 50 grams (⅓ cup + 1 tablespoon) of whole wheat flour • 200 grams (1 ½ cups + 1 tablespoon) of white flour • 200 grams (⅞ cup) of water, 85 ° F to 90 ° F (29 ° C to 32 ° C), depending on the season

Forkish, Ken (2012-09-18). Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza (Kindle Locations 2577-2581). Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony. Kindle Edition.

 

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

I finally reread Forkish recipe and then  checked out the location you specify, and totally understand what you are saying.  I think the problem arises because although we read the book, when baking, we just go by the recipe which makes a whole lot more than needed, hopefully only once! if Ken were to say "make levain in this ratio", we wouldn't make so much levain and the myth would fade away?

pizza fool's picture
pizza fool

Thanks for the advice.  I guess I worried about the salt and yeast cause Peter Reinhart makes such a fuss about them never coming in contact with each other.  I'll try the rice flour/bread flour mix - I've used it before but only for cloth linings in the banneton.  

As for the levain quantities, Forkish elsewhere in the book says you don't need to keep a large quantity of levain on hand as long as the ratios are the same, but in the recipe for this bread he specifically calls for that quantity to be made. Robertson for his levain calls for making 400g but only uses 150g.  Assuming the authors have a reason for making a lot and using very little, (although personally I'm with you Les Nightingill and feel like whatever difference it makes must be minimal - I only keep 60g of starter from week to week in the fridge and bake delicious Tartine breads)... does the larger quantity of levain make for a sweeter flavor or more leavening or both or neither? 

Happy eating!

rgconner's picture
rgconner

I swear, I am going to get on the motorcycle and ride up to Portland to his bakery and haunt him until he posts a clarification somewhere of why he does it.

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

makes his insane amount of levain,throws it in the trash and this time says, 'You don't but I know I'm as nutty as a fruit cake when it comes to levain builds, so don't ever do what I just did because there is no reason what so ever to make so much levain for one loaf of bread:-) 

 

rgconner's picture
rgconner

are you going to haunt every post I make Dabrownman just to be contrarian?

It is getting old.

I think the site would be a better place if I did not respond to you, and you did not respond to me. 

I will start right after this post.

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I comment on anything i want.  Ken could have explained and defended his levain builds easy enough years ago.   Not doing so might be because there really isn't a logical reason for doing them .....unless you are making more bread than he does in his recipes.

JH makes way more levain than Ken does in his books,for way more bread and then scales it down for the home baker in a separate column which is still too big for most of us..  No one that I know of makes such huge amounts of levain for a loaf of bread.  From what I can tell, that is the one thing he does differently than the millions of SD bakers over thousands of years have done.  Let's face it, there isn't much new ground to be covered in SD bread making that hasn't been done before.   

Since the book came out, this is about the 50th TFL post on this subject so it is a very common problem bakers who have his book run into - and the number of people on TFL is tiny compared to his book sales.

He makes great bread, no one ever says he doesn't and he has inspired many a home baker to make SD bread with his books and he was kind enough to tell us how he does it - something we all appreciate and respect.

But that doesn't mean we have to defend the indefensible either.  Even bread gods make mistake and Ken is no different.  It doesn't make him less of bread god.  

Happy Baking 

doughooker's picture
doughooker

Does Mr. Forkish's book cover Baker's Percentages? If so, why doesn't he give the recipe in B.P. and then recommend a starting quantity that doesn't require so much discard?

Jane Dough's picture
Jane Dough

Forkish does give Baker's percentages. His formula are well written - in fact quite wordy.

But I am another that thinks he has done more harm than good with his crazy levain build.  Sure after you have baked for a while you realize that the huge build is completely unnecessary.  After all you're paying for the supplies so forget this nonsense.  But it leaves you with a huge question about why he'd even put that that out there. That kind of waste is  ludricrus. Does he really toss it?  If so I'd not buy a single loaf from him just on principle.  I have little respect for anyone that will waste food like that.  So I'm left thinking while he may make terrific bread there are better ways. 

to each his own. 

rgconner's picture
rgconner

My guess is that he does not toss it normally. What I find interesting is that he primary makes 3Kg boles as his signature bread.

With a 3Kg loaf his standard lavain build would not leave much behind. Why he does not scale the levain build for smaller loaf recipes is beyond me.

I think he also missed his audience. Home chefs have a tendency to follow directions precisely as written to the best of their ability. Most chefs I know look at a recipe as starting point, and immediate alter it to their tastes.

After so many years, they can more or less look at it "See" what it would taste like without actually making it. For myself, I can't do that. I typically follow the recipe as written the first time, then modify it depending on how it comes out. 

(Unless I spot a glaring mistake, like 2Tbs of salt when clearly that would be too much and they meant 2 tsps. )

 

Arjon's picture
Arjon

I understand that making the quantity of levain in the book would be wasteful for most if not all home bakers, myself included. What I have difficulty grasping is why this seems to be, in some people's minds at least, a big issue. 

For one thing, I simply wouldn't make an amount far larger than I'm going to use. Book or not, I just wouldn't. And even if I did make extra and toss it, what are we talking about, a buck or two worth of ingredients? 

rgconner's picture
rgconner

Not even that if you use the type of flour he does, it is 34 cents a pound retail, probably even less for him.

But I totally understand the "waste not want not" train of thought, being frugal is a virtue, not a vice.

I make what I need and ~20% so I have enough to reboot the starter. 

many recipes don't scale well, but starter is not one of them, unless you are going really really big. Then surface area to mass ratio means you overheat as there is less surface area to dissipate the heat generated by the yeast.

But I can't imagine that in any reasonable home ratios, only commerical. 

And of course if you go too small, precision becomes an issue. Measuring out 5g of ingredients is imprecise with home scales, even good ones.

 

craftisan's picture
craftisan

I have the Forkish book,and just ignore his levain iquantities as a an error
I tend to hang on dabrownmans every word as I am in awe of his ability to extract such lightness out of breads containing such high amounts of whole grains
I thought at first that there was some fuctional advantage in the series of builds from the fridged starter that dabrownman employs,then it occurred to me that it owes more to his good housekeeping,frugality,and abhorrence of waste..

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Frugal and functional with a lot of lazy in our levain madness.  The 3 builds help to make sure that the levain is at its peak before using .  it also allows me to make sure that 20% hard bits sifted from those whole or sprouted grains, which cause havoc with the lightness of the crumb we seek, are as wet, softened and broken down by the fermenting LAB and yeast for as long as possible to reduce their gluten cutting ways to the bare minimum and being wasteful and lazy is a very bad combination for sure since one usually leads to the other.

You are both perceptive and wise - a very good combination and I remain frugal, functional but most of all..... lazy.

Thanks for the fine comments - Lucy won't talk to me now ,,,,,claiming it was all her idea in the first place:-)

Happy baking