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dabrownman made me do it

alfanso's picture
alfanso

dabrownman made me do it

Make no mistake.  dabrownman is a puppeteer, a master manipulator, one who is capable of, and who garners great pleasure in takes unfair advantage of those weak of will and of mind.  Like me! 

In my most recent post, he once more "challenged me" to create a baguette using David's SJSD formula as a framework, but to up the hydration and the whole grain.  So I ask and beseech you, dear reader, what am I supposed to do?  The man's bidding.  (actually I think that it is his nefarious furry baking assistant who really pulls his strings as he dances to her every whim.)

So here we have it, a formula so far removed from the SJSD that it really isn't.  A wayward stepchild at best, and best kept in the darkened back room.  Using my own stiff levain as usual, I bumped the hydration from 72% to 78%, and the whole grain from ~11% to 25% split evenly between WW and rye.

The dough was quite wet even with the whole grain, which I assumed would soak up some of the added moisture.  But it seemingly didn't.  The dough was fairly goopy and was too difficult to French Fold as I usually do, so I had to split my FF activity into three, 15 minutes of rest time apart.  It rose nicely between letter folds, but those were also very slack.

A bit of difficulty with scoring them with my scores inexplicably going off to one side.  That is not my typical M.O.  The batard score seems okay even as the lame dragged, but as you can see, barely bloomed.  The less said about that, the better.  But none of these bloomed as anticipated.

1x600g, 3x300g.  There is a distinct sweet taste of rye, and the crust has a really nice snap to it.  However, I won't be revisiting this one again.  But - if one does not seek, one does not find.  In this case I suppose that also applies to dabrownman, who sought out a sucker, and found one in - me!

alan

Comments

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I read your post and immediately put her in her kennel as punishment for preying on the weak minded . Her Master is very cross with her and she has no idea why she is being put in the hole since I don't speak Swedish but I did wave a frozen herring at her growling in my most fearsome.Viking scowl that I could muster at 7 AM.

I'm guessing the crumb will be fairly open and will taste fantastic. I think you just over hydrated the dough a bit and the additional whole rye was not as good a choice as wheat, spelt or emmer would have been. Baguettes aren't as hydrated as boules proofed in a basket and DO baked would be and why the original SJSD 11% whole grain was only 72% hydration. At 25% whole grain you should be at no more than 75% hydration and 74% would be better. 78% hydration would be 40-50% whole grain. 40% whole grain should give you the best of all worlds.

The other thing to remember is that no matter what, as the whole grains go in, the blisters and spring come out. But the taste , health and nutritional values go up. I think the baguettes came out exceptionally well for such a high hydration and can't wait to see the crumb and get you impression of the taste
.
Well done and happy baking Alan. I won't let Lucy out of the hole until she learns English and stops tormenting the weak minded bakers among us:-)

alfanso's picture
alfanso

retaining it is another gig entirely!  Here's where my still being wet behind the ears shows up.  I agree that had I been more judicious with the hydration and erred on the lower and safer side, that I wouldn't have experienced nearly the difficulty that I did.  But I guess that my lack of clear understanding of expectations with OTC WW flour and rye reared its little head this time.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The baguettes opened up decently, nothing to write home about, but they did open up okay in the crumb.  As far as the football, er, batard with no bloom, no open crumb either.  Still makes some mighty toast and sandwich bread.  

I've made a few different baguettes and batards with hydration in the upper registers of the 70s including a big time favorite around TFL, the FWSY Field Blend #2.  Now with this new understanding from you I may just yet try it once again, but this time drop the hydration down a few points.

Thanks for the tips, alan

armato's picture
armato

:D

Jane Dough's picture
Jane Dough

Thank you, gentlemen, for a most entertaining read.  It really spiced up my morning coffee.  

I'm sorry, Alan, that you are not satisfied with your bake.  But it is definitely a good read for those of us that won't even read a recipe/formula like that - never mind tackle it.  I am afraid I wouldn't get past the first attempt at folding. However your post fills me with hope.

Really those baguettes look lovely.  I'm sure they taste very good also with the flour blend and the development.  

Poor Lucy.  I hope that doesn't cause her long term loss of self-esteem. 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Hi Jane,

I guess dbm and I both share that same RYE sense of humor.  It wasn't so much that I was disappointed with these (except a little on the scoring part), but dbm has led me down this path before.  The dough was more difficult to work with than I was used to, so the challenge although a little frustrating, was nonetheless enlightening.  I'm still in the toddler stage of home baking, so while I can typically produce some good results, there is still soooo much to learn.

 As we are almost all floating on our own separate islands in the internet while trying to get better at this craft, we do have our collective TFL brainpower and experience to rely on for a crack resource, aside from the endless bookshelves of published works.

I've mentioned before that I'm more of a copycat than an originator.  I find stuff out here on TFL that piques my interest and then try to reproduce it.  After which I might try to finagle with something or other about the formula.  I've also mentioned, that aside from the tasty aspects of what we do, to me it's a hobby.

I probably will take dbm's respected advice about whole grain and hydration, drop it a few points and give it a go.  Just because...

As for your "I am afraid I wouldn't get past the first attempt at folding...", sure you would.  If not the first time than the second.  There are very few things in life that I do well, so if all thumbs folks like me can, so can you.

Thanks for your comment.  alan