Improving burst
I recently tried some suggestions on the forum for burst improvement by using a foil pan to cover loaves. I'd heard of this before as well as the science behind it (apparently more steam is trapped which prevents the crust from forming too soon) and so, promptly went out and purchased a large foil pan. The results did indeed help and I began to see much more expansion (see attached) but still would like to have even more expansion. It seems I usually get about 2-3 bursts out of 5. I start baking at 550 degrees knowing that some heat is lost with a domestic oven when opening the door and prepping everying. I do put a ceramic pot on the oven floor and fill it with water and, also spritz the walls and throw a little water on the oven floor but that seems to just produce a quick cloud that vents out immediately. Any ideas on how to really aid this initial expansion? I'm pretty happy with results at this point and just wondering if anyone can provide other tips. Ps as for scoring I do score at a shallow angle never really deep. Dough hydration is usually between 70-75%. Tia !
you are already achieving exceptional oven spring (what I think you mean when you write 'bursts'). You really shouldn't expect much more than what your front baguette is getting. That baguette look great As does the crumb that you show.
as for generating steam, forget the spritzing of water on the oven walls and floor. As you note, that gives you a few seconds, at best, of steam which will dissipate by the time you close the oven door. Search for Sylvia's Steaming Towels and for Lava Rocks in the TFL Search box. These are two tried and true ways to get continuous steam throughout the first phase of the bake.
i do think that your initial baking temp is too high. You don't say what you are baking on, only that you are covering the dough with a foil pan. Consider getting a solid platform to use for your baking deck and have that heat up in the oven for a long time prior to loading the dough. You will be able to also completely eliminate using a foil tent.
Hi and thanks for the comments and ideas. To answer your question, I bake at 550 degrees and usually do a couple of batches. About 10 minutes in, I usually open the door for 30 seconds or so to cool the oven down but of course I have no idea what the temp is lowering to. I use a large basalt stone that is 22''x12'' (Cost $17 at the local stone yard) with plenty of space behind to allow heat to circulate up. I'm sure the interior temperature is significantly lower due to the amount of time the door is open however, I did notice that the second batch usually springs better (Yes I mean spring but I also mean burst as in the surface of the scores bursting open). The second batch is probably better since the stone has had more time to heat, I usually don't wait and start baking as soon as 550 is hit. I agree that initial spritzing and dumping water does nothing as I can see the steam come right out through the vents. Great idea with towels / lava rocks.
As for the current product, I'm quite happy with it. It took a long time to get to this point with many failures and discovering especially how malt with diastase can help crust at the expense of crumb and so now I use mainly non-diastatic malted wheat which is quite tricky to find but tastes much better than barley malt. It's quite tricky to get all things to work and there's nothing more disappointing than a crap loaf but when it works, 6 loaves are consumed very quickly !
I think you point to a number of answers to your own questions...if the second batch is better because the stone has more time to heat, you might consider waiting until the stone heats longer to begin the first batch. If you have a thick piece of basalt, I would wait at least 30 minutes after the oven is up to temp (and I would agree with Alfanso in suggesting you start with a lower temp, like 500-520).
The pics you show suggest plenty of steam, but do play around with other options. I like the pan cover because it is so simple.
As for increasing the burst/bloom, again, the pics look really great, but there isn't much of an ear present, and deeper slashes might be in order (one of my own ongoing challenges).
Nice work
You nailed it - its the ears I am wanting (along with the burst). Actually I dont like the pan so much mainly because I dock the baguettes sideways and use the entire width of the oven in order to max out the length and on occasion the pan lands on the ends of the loaves due to the lack of free room to work with. For some reason I just can't accept making them too short as its such a to have practically full size baguettes. I'll usually vary slash depth to try and learn what works best but never remember which one was deep and which was shallow but if you think deeper is better ill give it a shot. In a way it seems experience wins. Long ago quality in general was crap and it just seems to be a slow and gradual improvement. Tks !
Score one baguette 4 (or 5) times, another baguette 5 (or 6) times. One gets a deeper score, the other more shallow. Or one gets a sharper angled score the other less angled. Then write down which got which. If you are looking to get a baguettes that approximates the real thing, then you must have a very wide oven. Baguettes are generally 26 inches long (66 centimeters). Just call them demi-baguettes and leave it at that. All of mine are limited to the depth of my oven, so they max out at 14-15 inches, the depth of my baking deck. I don't hear many complaints either...
Mine are 22 inches long. I have a stone that I made from a basalt tile from a stone yard. The shortest length of a real baguett is 56 cm - I'm a couple cm why of that so their closer to a full than a demi. Good idea I think doing one at 4 and the other at 5 is a great way to remember which is which !
I've noticed that often times the shorter full size baguettes are shaped more often with pointed ends and bloated in the middle, almost as though it's a long batard. Knowing that the minimum length was 55cm was the reason I went out an sourced a stone that would allow baking sideways. Usually if I shape to 22in (~56cm) they end up at 21in (~53cm) - close enough!
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.compagnons-boulangers-patissiers.com/crebesc/baguette-tradition/&prev=search
If you wish to take a look on my blog entries at some of the baguettes I've baked, you'll notice that while frequently "chubby", they really don't resemble batards at all. Just short baguettes.
However, the batards do look like batards ;-)
Update: these just came out of the oven minutes ago. 340g each. Length is 13.5 inches. Generally straight as an arrow. It can be done...
Yeah you definitely have some beautiful ears and shape there. How about a picture of the crumb! How's the flavor ? I made a batch yesterday and tried deeper scores but still the same. I'm beginning to think I should go a little lower on hydration and maybe let the final proof expose to a little more air as I usually prefer a thinner crust. Btw yesterdays were all 22 inches long (gotta love longer baguettes - you should try baking side-a-ways and show off 5 beautiful bursts ! (so l ong as you have a stone long enough :)
Do you add malt? Your crust is quite golden. I ask as used to add a pinch of diastatic barley malt but came to realize I prefer non diaststic since I can add a little more and improve flavor without sacrificing crumb structure. Just a little too much enzyme activity and the structure starts to suffer and for me that's really important. I experimented with so many malts and finally found that malted wheat is a lot more pleasant creamy flavor profile. So there's a challenge between crumb and crust that formidable !
Here's a look at the blog entry with a picture of the crumb. This is a pretty low hydration dough for me, coming in at ~68%. Even with a good oven spring the crumb it is only moderately open.
I can try, just for the fun of it, to roll out longer baguettes and load them in sideways, which I've never done. My oven stone can take something up to ~21 inches long if I do that.
I use pretty generic flour. In the US the brands I stick with are Gold Medal AP or WW, and Pillsbury Best AP or WW - unbleached. And when a formula calls for it, Bread Flour (same brands). But they are both already malted, so I don't want to add any more than what's in there already. I've read that too much malt will render the crumb gummy.
I bake "dark" so the crust tends to take on much more color than something that might just hit 190dF inside (I also don't ever temp anything).
alan
Very nice!. I agree, most flours are preloaded with malted barley and eventually the same reason for my discarding of adding more. However, I do have a problem with American flours - they are just so bland and having not grown up here, as a teen the first thing I noticed upon arriving here is that food is just flavorless in general - it's a real shame. As for bread, american bread, sorry to say generally speaking is just energy. For that reason, I'll ofen add about 2% fava flour and a touch of soy flour which along with the autolyse makes a big positive different on the flavor. As for malt, I think it's fine to add additional non-diastatic at small amounts as another dimension to flavor subtleties.
Btw, here's a photo of yesterday's deep score attempt about 6-7 minutes in just after removing the pan. You can see the crust is quite thin - hydrations is around 72-74%. For a sourdough at this hydration, ears are more common, but this being a commercial yeast just gets so hard to bust. Your ears are fanstatic, nice and dark on the edges. I really think lowering hydration and letting the final proof dry on the surface a bit should help. Until the next bake !
Just realized you are using a levain which actually I dont have too much of a challenge developing spring and ears. There's a certain reailiance too sourdough and for me I find commercial yeast much more challenging (at least for well structured loaves - not for simple white bread). The result of a good yeast baguette is just my preference as I just dont love the 'complexity' of sourdough flavors - to me they mask other intriguing tones. Are you able to get these results from a levure based dough ?
I just went through my sheets of formulae and out of about 30 (excluding specialty breads like croissant, babka, ciabatta, etc) only two came up as using commercial yeast. Wow, who knew? I never would have imagined that I had so few commercial yeast doughs because while I was trying to get my chops together, that was all I did, so I must have done a ton of them over and over to get the hang of it all.
Bouabsa style: This first is my first real success when I started baking at home a little under three years ago, and about as easy as the come. This link is what they look like as baguettes and this second link has the formula. A more recent bake of them is at the bottom of this post, as well as some others in the same posting.
Baguettes a l'Ancienne Gosselin are part of this early post and the formula can found here .
BTW I also don't like very much tang in SD breads, so the levain that I rely on is quite mild by comparison.
Your blog entries are amazing - thanks for all that content and I think I found a youtube you made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYvORu_oLYc. Funny that good tutorials are tricky to find as there are so many people advertising how they make the perfect baguette or french bread then do insane things like pull our a rolling pin! Many of these videos you know their bread tasted like cooked flour. I'm quite amazed you get such good ears on even high hydration loaves. I've been a home baker for a long time but did a lot of short crust pies (mostly savory) as well as pizza (probably made 10,000 pizzas and not exaggerating). So bread has become my main staple recently. This weekend I'm going to try for some ear action - currently got about 1.5 kg of dough on cold retard right now and will report back later. Plan is to use only the couche to cover (I usually cover with plastic and think that's causing to much moisture in the crust). More later...
Btw, glad to hear someone else feels the same about sourdough. I understand how people become fanatics since it is such a shockingly springy dough but commericial yeast really does produce such a beautiful product when it's been treated right. I don't think it get's enough credit (at least in usa). In france it quite common for a baguette au levain to include some extra yeast.
Well this weekend I mad two batches of long baguettes trying ways to get more defined ears but made the mistake of using instant yeast. So the exercise turned out to be just that, an exercise. I tried lava rocks and also did the final proof with seams up. I got more defined burst and some ears but boy does that yeast make the crumb a fluffy mess ! Oh well :\
Okay (cue to gloves coming off). At this point "I know a thing or two about a thing or two"*. IDY does not suck. It, like most other things that we home bakers are trying to "master", is just another tool in the toolbox that needs to be used correctly. Just like different hydrations and differing flours in relation to hydrations, etc.
Don't take any of this personally - In the 70's I had a boss who would occasionally say "a poor worker always blames his tools". It is just human nature to shift the blame onto some blameless thing.
While not having given up on trying to make pizza dough approximate something round, it is a skill that still eludes me. It ain't the dough that's the problem. It is my insufficient practice and lack of quality skills at fault. I'm certain that it is a skill that at this stage is way beyond second nature to you.
In reference to IDY, it is just another component to learn to use correctly. Which doesn't lay any blame at the doorstep of your formula, mixing technique, shaping, nuttin'.
You already have a lovely oven spring and your scoring looks to be consistent as is your shaping. Maybe it is the angle or depth of the blade in relation to the hydration. Something. But if you are able to get results such as what you originally posted, it isn't the commercial yeast that is creating the problem. There are lots of bakeries that make outstanding breads with commercial yeast and the finished look is frequently magnificent.
Just my two cents...
alan
* a favorite line copped from Robert DeNiro.
Believe me I have a huge appreciation for commercial yeast and was otherwise just venting. I don't use the instant very often and so don't really feel I know the product well. I imagine with correct treatment it can be coaxed to produce nice results but what I find is that it tends to produce a foamier type of crumb and I imagine that this can be controlled also (probably with more folding). Of course a lot depends on the type of bread you are baking. For me baking has a lot to so with reading the dough and adjusting slightly as needed and in this case sort of rushed things.
Btw if I do a sourdough there's usually much more of an ear present. In the above case these are commercial yeast baguettes. Personally I dont love the sourdough product like some fans bit I can understand why they do when it comes to the texture as it just seems so much tougher. In my opinion however commercial yeast bread tastes better and has much more delicate qualities with none of the tang (which kind of annoys me even a little tang covers up all the wonderful nuances of flavor). for me getting ears on plain yeast baguettes is the challenge the rest I am pretty happy with (flavor, crust and crumb etc)