I have many ideas, this may be a good one - estimating BF
I am interested in your thoughts about this idea.
We are all aware of the importance of the degree of fermenting a dough during the Bulk Ferment. It is a difficult thing to communicate in the recipe instructions. But how about this? Once the dough has completely fermented the author of the bread could mark their bowl. Then after the dough is removed the bowl would tared out on a scale and then filled to the mark. The weight of the water would be shown in the instructions. Then those wanting to learn to bake the bread would tare out their bowl and then fill with water until the proper weight was reached. Then place a mark on the bowl to indicate the high water mark for the BF. Although there are many variables in bread baking, this should get us in the ball park.
I don’t see why it won’t work, but maybe I’m missing something. Your help is appreciated!
OH! We will be hosting a new Community Bake within this next week. The bread baked will be Maurizio’s Fifty-fifty Whole Wheat Sourdough. Hopefully this bake will be of interest to many. I hope we get the same great participation that we had for Trevor’s Champlain SourdoughTrevor’s Champlain Sourdough. I know I learned a lot and others did also.
Danny
I think there are too many variables in bowl sizes and flour and room temps etc. I like using a standardized marked cambro and then I can really be pretty sure about the BF amount.
The purpose of marking the bowl or trough at the water weight capacity level is to duplicate the rise volume of the author’s dough.
Let’s say we’re using quarts (volume) instead is grams (weight). Either way would work, but grams are more precise. And I want to tell you exactly how much my dough rose before shaping. If I mark the height of the rise of the perfectly bulk proofed loaf, and then when the dough is removed I pour 5 quarts to reach the mark. Now You take your empty bowl and put 5 qt of water in and mark the level. You now know exactly the volume of my bread at complete BF.
Am I missing something?
BTW , Caroline. You have forever converted me to Graniteware. I have run many test using an infrared heat gun and Graniteware beats out Cast Iron every time. I always mention you when trying to “convert” others :-)
Dan
"Now You take your empty bowl and put 5 qt of water in and mark the level. You now know exactly the volume of my bread at complete BF.
Am I missing something?"
I believe so. My dough in the winter, during cooler temperatures and generally lower humidity, will behave differently and not rise quite as much as during the summer with warmer temperatures and often higher humidity. Nonetheless, in both instances I can have an optimal bulk fermentation, and in both instances the level in my Cambro tub will be different. (I also do not have dough that levels out during bulk fermentation. The process of stretch-and-folds gives strength to the dough, retaining a somewhat roundish shape as time passes rather than spreading into a uniformly deep mass.).
I think your urge to develop a mark on a tub to signal the end of bulk fermentation is too much like watching the clock and not the dough. Learning how to judge fermentation during a variety of changing conditions is part of learning how to bake.
Thank you and I am glad that the graniteware has worked so well for you. Most bakers can't be converted :) Oh well such is the world of baking. It is certainly fun to learn new things.
You are always so innovative I look forward to your posts. c
before BF as after and how much it rises in the bowl has nothing to do with how much it weighs. It weighs 8oo grams no matter what in fact it should weigh a bit less after fermenting since CO2 is lost.
What you can do is use math instead - oh now not that! It is the bowl that is the problem and being able to estimate where 75% rise should be. This is the problem with proofing baskets too.
If you had a straight sided container for bulk and since every recipe is different and specifies how much the rise during to expect, just mark where the dough starts and then mark where you want it to go. No weighing of water or anything is required.
For proofing you can just make some extra dough and put it in a straight sided glass and mare where 90% rise would be and when it hits it the dough is proofed . Eventually you will know where 75% to 9% rise in your baskets really is and you won't have to use the glass anymore.
I could tell you how to use math for your bowl and weighing water if you want but it is easier just to use a flat bottomed and straight sided container to ferment in same with proofing baskets too - makes bread baking easier and bread making should be easy except for Lucy's crazy recipes devised for the demented.
The way to do it is to know what the dough weighs ahead of time and know what you want it to rise to during bulk ferment. If it is 80% for a whole grain bread then take the weight of the dough times 1.8 and put that much water in the bowl and mark that level before the dough goes in for BP. It is sort of the reverse process of finding out how much dough goes into any pan for baking. it depends on the how much the dough is expected to rise and how much water fits into the pan.
This idea was born when I was preparing the 50/50 Community Bake. I realize this method is not definitive or exact. I am hoping to be able to help new bakers get an approximate idea of the increase in volume of the BF. Not all bakers use straight sided containers. Maurizio tells me that 107 oz. (3034 grams), in volume not weight, is close to full rise for BF in his kitchen. If the new baker follows the formula the total dough will be 1900g. If the baker tares out the mixing bowl and adds 3034 grams of water and then marks that level, it should give them a ball park idea of the rise at completed BF. Of course, experience is best. I wanted to give them a level in their bowl to consider when attempting to judge their BF. This mark would be an aide, not an absolute goal. Once they attain that mark or somewhere near it they can reference the visual look and the feel of their dough. They can shake the bowl and see how much it wobbles. The ultimate goal is to help them learn by experience when a particular BF is complete.
I still think it could make a useful learning tool for those new to baking, and also those unfamiliar with the formula.
I am teachable, but have not been persuaded against it YET. I am still very open to learn the pros and cons of this idea.
Dan
Sometimes I can be hard-headed, but I aggressively strive to learn the truth of all matters.
that weighs 800 g and you want a 90% BF all you have to do is take 800g times 1.9 and get1520 g and put that much water in your bowl and mark that level before you even mix the dough.
If you are making a 100% Spelt bread that weighs 600 g and expect a 70% rise then you take 600g times 1.7 and get 1020g and that is how much water you put in the bowl and mark that.
So no matter what the recipe or size of the loaf or kind of bread you know exactly how much the dough should rise in the bowl before you even start. It is a great idea you had but a bit more difficult than it had to be.
OZ and grams cannot be volumes.
Happy baking
Let’s consider your example of an 800g dough. For your analogy to be correct the following would be true. Take the 800g of dough and level it out in a straight sided clear container, then mark the height. Remove the dough and then put 800g water in the same container. Do you think the level will match the mark? Also what if you let that same 800g dough ferment until it doubles. The mark will now be twice as high. Where will the 800 grams of water be in relation to the double risen dough?
I realize that grams are not a measure of volume, I think ounces could be used for volume or weight. I use grams because I think it is most accurate.
I must not be communicating the concept clearly. I’m trying my best, because I see value in this idea. If anyone gets what I‘m trying to say, please clarify this. I am no genius by any stretch of the imagination, but I managed well in life using mostly common sense :)
I am trying to communicate volume using grams. I choose grams because it is very accurate. Two people mix the same dough using equal weights and one person wants to communicate the final rise of their dough in volume to the other baker. Bread dough expands. The same weight of dough could be X volume, or it could be double that volume of triple the initial volume. But 1000 grams of water will fill the same volume of space anywhere in the world. If I know how many grams of water it will take to displace the volume of their fully fermented dough, wouldn’t the idea be ideal to communicate the volume of a risen dough?
8 ounces (weight) of water = 227 grams AND 8 ounces (volume) = 227 grams.
Whether you agree that the idea is useful or not, do you understand what I am trying to communicate?
I mean no disrespect. I love you, Dab :)
I believe this idea has value, but if I am wrong I sincerely hope someone has the patience to help me understand.
Danny
”inquiring minds want to know”
Hey Dan,
This is kind of my field: I'm a fluid dynamicist.
Your method makes perfect sense to me. Essentially, you are giving people a unit of Volume to expect (in ml) from an initial amount of mass (the dough weight). Of course, there will be variables such as humidity as Watertown mentioned. I think we can expect a different level of rise for different flour combination and baker experiences. If the goal is a super open crumb, you might need a relatively experienced baker that can really push the bulk to a high volume without degassing it during shaping.
It is 7 months past this discussion. Today I may have learned something that taught me a lesson. Dab’s idea of weighing the dough and then calculating the percentage of expected rise makes sense to me. My former problem with his method dealt with the idea that a cup of water and a cup of dough would weigh the same. I didn’t think that was the case. I am no longer sure about that.
Today I was setting up a glass with 100% growth rates useing the water weight displacement method. So I placed the small starter (50% hydration) dough in the glass and then covered it with water. I marked the high water level and then removed the dough ball. The glass with the remianing water was placed on the scale and tared out. Then water was carefully added until the high water level mark was raeched. The weight of the additional water was 15 grams. And then a light came on. I knew the starter was composed of 2g starter, 6g water, and 6g flour. I often go a fraction over. So the starter balled weighed ~14g and the dispaced water weighed ~15g. That’s pretty close. This will be confirmed or rejected when I use this method to calculate a >=500g loaf at some time in the future.
It will be super convenient if it is determined that the weight of a given dough is close or equal to the volumn of the same weight of water.
Being wrong is great, once you discover your error...
Danny
weight in a basket they are familiar with will know exactly what is should look klike when it is correctly fully bulk fermented, 30-200% and there is no need for weighing or measuring anything. As I have said, the hardest thing for newbies to learn is what is the correct % of bulk or proof for their recipe and what does it look like in their basket or mixing bowl?.
Since they do no know in the beginning all they need to know is the wieght of the dough in the recipe and what is the proper BF % required or final proof %. Then all they do is multiply it out, weigh that amount of water out and mark the level in the bowl or basket (put a plastic liner in the basket because it will leak otherwise), Can't get esier than that and it works perfectly every time for bulk or final proofing. Using a straight sided cotainer works easier by far by=ut this is pretty easy for those that don't have one.
So how many CC's is that 645 g of dough? No one knows. One is weight and one is volume. They are niot the same but we have no way of measuring volume buit we can approximate it very acurately using weigt. Way easier to say I have 500 g of dough I want to double for BF so I will weight out 500 times 2 = 1000 g of water and see what it looks like in the bowl and mark it. When my dough rises and hits the mark - I am at double and time to move on.
Your method would only be correct if dough had the same density as water, which it is not. Dan's method is essential one in which he measures the density of the dough and then uses that to mark on the bowl where the volume is increased enough. So it should be pretty good, for fermentation with no folding or other degassing.
V_init is starting volume, Rho_init = density of unfermented dough, V_fin = final volume of dough, fac = rising factor (V_fin = fac * V_init), M_init = mass of dough (assumed to stay the same),
V_init = M_init/Rho_init, mark the volume in the bowl. Weigh the water that occupies that same volume. The water will weight Mass_water_matching = V_init * Rho_water. Rho_water is 1 gm/cc, but that doesn't matter, it drops out of the calculation.
If we double the mass of the water, we double the volume also, because the measuring water all has the same density. We really could use anything - water, oil, rice, small marbles. Let fac = amount of rise desired (fac=2 is doubling), then
Mass_water_for_desired_volume = V_fin * Rho_water = fac * V_init * Rho_water = fac * Mass_water_matching
So put fac*Mass_water_matching in the bowl and mark. Dump out the water and put back the dough and wait for it to expand to the mark.