The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Full Proof Baking lamination technique, is it necessary to get great bread?

wvdthree's picture
wvdthree

Full Proof Baking lamination technique, is it necessary to get great bread?

Hi all,

        I want to preface this post by saying I've watched Kristen's video (several times) of her technique for baking her style of sourdough and it is concise,well thought out and she clearly gets great results! I have been chasing this style for eight months and am not getting this oven spring and open crumb although I am improving. Currently I am generally using Forkish/Robertson approaches.

      My basic question is this: do you really need to do this extensive technique combining coil folds and the lamination technique in order to get this quality of bread? He lamination technique and I wonder if she has created it herself or if it is used by others? In my community we have several SD bakeries who produce bread on this level and clearly they can not afford to take the time in a production bakery to do these involved techniques to each individual loaf yet they end up getting great results as well. I've read enough on this site, other sites and books to know that there are many different ways to end up with a great loaf of bread. What techniques are production bakeries using to achieve the same end result?

     I have great respect for Kirsten's (Full Proof Baking) efforts and know she has many followers and for good reason. If anyone has any insights as to how bakeries get these same great results while producing bread in volume I would love to hear about those techniques. In the mean time I know that Kirsten's recipe is the next Community Bake and I may very well have to give it a whirl!!! Thanks in advance for any responses.

Best,

        wvdthree

BobbyFourFingers's picture
BobbyFourFingers

I’m not really sure what is achieved by laminating lean doughs if you have already maximally developed your gluten. The technique runs the risk of over-hydrating your dough too as you mist the counter and spread the small amount of dough across this wet surface. 

Your community bakers are probably using spiral mixers to develop the gluten and fully incorporate ingredients. 

To me it’s kind of fun to laminate dough but I think it comes with some risk and isn’t necessary.

I do like coil folds because of how gentle they are and there’s something about letting the weight of the dough provide its own tension that appeals to me. I also like the feedback I get from doing them. Gentle S&Fs would work as well.

I think there are three things that are key to that “IG crumb”: strong bread flour, super gentle handling, and regarding the dough overnight in a fridge.

wvdthree's picture
wvdthree

Hi Bobby,

              Thanks for the thoughts regarding lamination/coil folds and good crumb structure. The image included is of my most recent, most open crumb shot and is a bit of a one off. I would like a more "regular" open crumb structure with more medium...ish holes and a bit lighter in nature. I think maybe the larger holes in my example are a sign of under bulk fermentation? I am slowly coming to realize that judging BF, final proof and gentle dough handling techniques do have an effect on crumb. I am currently making my loaves with 75% hydration and 85% bread flour, 5% WW, 5% rye ad 5% spelt. I've struggled with overnight retarding. It's nice for the schedule/work flow but I've discovered that because my frig is at 38 degrees I get very little to no rise overnight. If I do do a overnight retard these days I'll let it final proof for 20-30 minutes at room temp before putting it in the frig. I'm going to my local bakery where I took two SD classes this past early winter to buy some micro perforated bags to use when I give my bread away. I'm going to show the owner/instructor some photos of my bakes and see if he can offer any trouble shooting. Thanks again and happy baking!!

 

Best,

         wvdthree

 

 

 

 

BobbyFourFingers's picture
BobbyFourFingers

I'm probably the last one to analyze crumb structure. I haven't seen enough extremes to be able to do that. Nevertheless, it doesn't look over-proofed.

The 20-30 minutes out of the fridge probably has a negligible result when you consider the mass that must get to a temperature where the yeast starts rising again. IIRC, Kirsten has a very cold fridge and lets her bread proof an hour before adding it to the fridge. I'd suggest playing with proofing times before retarding to get the crumb you are after. I think everyone who retards has to play with this variable. Then place the loaves in the oven directly from the fridge.

Having cold, dense air in the alveoli helps produce that Kirsten and other big crumb bakers are famous for. The cold dense are expands in the alveoli when heated allowing the alveoli to expand much more than they would if proofed at room temp. A cubic foot of cold air has more gas in it that a cubic foot of hot air. When you start cold, that trapped air expands as it warms, leading to big open crumb.

The 5% of spelt is not much but it won't contribute to your goal as it has very little gluten.

Cheers

wvdthree's picture
wvdthree

Bobby,

            Thanks for the further explanations! I appreciate the response and will try to experiment with final proofing times, room temp times/retard times in the the frig.

Best,

        wvdthree

BobbyFourFingers's picture
BobbyFourFingers

I'd be remiss if I didn't say that you have a perfectly nice loaf there that you should be proud of. The Instagram crumb fetish is preventing a lot of us from enjoying the treasures we are baking. Crumb envy reminds me of weightlifters envying the unnatural looking mutant bodies of unclean lifters.

You have a beautiful loaf there. But I also understand wanting to go to extremes, if for nothing more than experimentation. :)

wvdthree's picture
wvdthree

Thanks Bobby for the compliments!!! Yes, generally I have become fairly happy with this style of loaf that I bake. I try not to get too caught up in the whole IG worthy super dark, super open, super blistered loafs everyone reaches for and drools over. What I would like is to get something a little less dense and a little more open to give the bread a little different and for my taste, a better mouth feel. As you mentioned there is something to be said about the idea of simply experimenting to discover what different results can be achieved by tweaking certain techniques, flours, starter type/stiffness etc.. It is a great, interesting, tasty and cheap hobby!!!

BobbyFourFingers's picture
BobbyFourFingers

One think I'll say about that kind of  crumb is that it has a magical look to it, kind of like fungi or spiderwebs. I think that is the draw. It's not terribly functional but the look is fascinating

jey13's picture
jey13

I’m a fan of lamination and coil folds, mainly because they’ve worked for me. My best loaves have been coil rolled, as compared to stretch-n-folds (okay, but not great), and slap-n-folds (disaster!). I do think it’s a good idea to try the others and see what results you get. It might be that slap-n-folds are your golden ticket as coil folds were for me.

Getting back to those coil folds: I, also, like how gentle they are, and how they really give me time to feel and see how the dough is developing. 

As for lamination, as far as I know, it’s meant to be done only once at the beginning, as a kind of 1st coil. One of the lessons I learned from a video by Chef Rachida is to to press the dough gently out from the middle to stretch it (like pizza dough), don’t pull from the sides or corners. The task of lamination is to improve dough strength and structure. Ditto, I suppose, with coil folds. Certainly works for me.  

Check out these two videos (note, Chef Rachida’s video taught me about coil folds, and I really like watching it. That said, she adds the levain after autolyse—I prefer dissolving it in the water and making it part of autolyse—, she autolyse for 3 hours [?1], I autolyse for 1 hour tops, she only shapes the final loaf once, which I don’t think is usually a good idea, and I don’t agree with her liberal use of flour...I’m in the “Spray water on the counter” camp in order to manage the sticky dough (just like wetting your hands to coil/stretch it). Flour should be used only on the top of the loaf before bench resting it, and then flipping it for the 2nd and final shaping, thus keeping the floured side on the outside. Why? Because shaping requires that the dough stick to itself. Flour “unsticks” it, making it harder to get a good, tight shaping.  

Neither lamination nor coil folds are in the second video featuring Sarah Owens. But check out how she does the final shaping. I don’t know if you’re doing it like that, but it works a treat!  Note the beautiful interior you see when she scores the loaf, displaying the benefits of performing a kind of final “coil” on it. 

Oh, and finally recommendation...you might want to keep your dough in the refrigerator for a tad longer. No, it really wont’ rise more than it was when you put it in, but I’ve found that a refrigerator “rest” that closer to 16-20 hours gives me better results than 12-16 hours. Again, your mileage may vary. 

Chef Rachida: https://youtu.be/OAH28Hm81FQ

Sarah Owens: https://youtu.be/sZP3TKWlGnA