Overnight Country Blonde Ken Forkish
Hello everyone,
So I’ve been successful in all the Ken Forkish recipes that I have attempted until this one.
So my dough after final mix and folds is about about 1.5 liters in volume using the Cambro 12 quart. It then rises overnight ( 10 hours this time ) to slightly under 5 liters - nearly tripled in size. The dough is doming and producing huge bubbles. I used the dough at 10 hours. Shaped it - balls not as tight as they should be. Proofed it - watched carefully - lots of poke tests - none seemed over proofed. Poke tests revealed that it was ready to bake. First loaf was an improvement over previous attempts at this challenging recipe but rise could have been much better. Second loaf on the right in picture was a disaster. As soon as I put it in the Dutch oven it collapsed. I must say - the flavors of the bread are incredible despite their sorry appearance. Looking for suggestions. Feel like I’m very close to getting this. I like to give a way a loaf to a different neighbor each time I bake so disappointing that I can’t share. I just won’t give away these sad things. ?
On the other hand - I’ve had great luck with the Tartine County Bread Recipe.
Comments
What is the temperature of your overnight bulk fermentation? From what I understand Forkish has pretty cool overnight temperatures therefore he doesn’t over proof overnight. If this is a sourdough formula you baked you won’t want to have much more than a 50% rise.
your finished loaves do look overproofed to me. They are flattish and don’t hold their shape well. I cannot see the crumb very well on my phone but based on your description it has overproofed. You’ll need to proof at a lower temperature if doing it overnight or shorten the bulk time. Other options would also be to decrease the amount of levain but you’ll have to compensate for the reduction of water and flour contributes by the levain lost.
I just had a similar experience this morning. After making almost all of Forkish's recipes in FWSY and loving their very reliable outcomes, I was surprised that last night's first try with Overnight Country Blonde went so badly. In fact, my disaster was even worse than yours: the fermented dough, although impressively risen this morning, was the consistency of pancake batter. No amount of folding or coaxing changed the inescapable fact that my dough was horribly over-fermented. I scraped it into the trash.
Wondering what went wrong, I went back and scoured the recipe for something I had missed. Forkish is always very precise. If he means for you to ferment or proof in the refrigerator, he writes this in the recipe. But he doesn't say "ferment in the fridge" for OCB and so I went ahead and, with slight misgivings that I managed to suppress, fermented the dough for 12 hours at room temperature. It's very warm here in Virginia but the air conditioning was on during the night and so it was 75 F in the kitchen. This is slightly outside Forkish's definition of room temperature, but apparently enough outside to make a difference. Next time I'll try fermenting at least partly in the fridge. Would love to hear your own plans.
By the way, there's an excellent discussion of this recipe and the issue of over-fermenting by dmsnyder right here on TFL, http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/34188/overnight-country-blonde-flour-water-salt-yeast
Hi Steve,
Because my ferment the morning was like 4 times the size I’m going to try fermenting during the day and watching it carefully. I have a super vigorous starter that may be the issue. Also - I’m going to try one initial shape but then another for the final shaping if necessary. I’ve had great success with the Regular Chef ( check youtube ) recipe but that is way more controlled using a homemade proofing box ( also in regular chef videos ).
I gave up on this for several months and finally came back to it after developing some better skills in sourdough baking. I also want back to using Central Mills Bakers Craft Plus which has proven to be a very easy flour to work with. I also watch the bulk ferment more closely and proof tested the loaves once shaped. It was interesting though. One loaf came out better than the other. The better loaf spent some time in the refrig while the other loaf was baking. The second loaf / better loaf came from the bottom of the bulk ferment and lacked the gas the first one had but surprisingly it came out much better. Not sure what to think about all this. Anyways the Central Mills Bakers Craft plus four is a joy to work with. It shapes incredibly well.
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Many places in FWSY, pages 28 & 65 and more, he says his daytime room temp is 70 F.
On page 66 he says his overnight house temp is 65 F / 18 C.
So that's why an overnight "room temp" bulk ferment or proof throws people off.
--
It's an example of why we need to read most cookbooks from the beginning, and not just jump straight to a formula.
Yeah - my house temp is like 70 at night. So going to try bulk ferment during the day.
This time after months of perfecting my skills I came back to this recipe and kept the temp down and watched the ferment carefully and keeping the temp down to 66. It worked. But since I was up at 4 am to shape the loaves I am going to schedule this very differently starting with feeding the levain at 11:00 am and mixing final dough at 7:00 pm and shaping at 7:00 am but watching very carefully.See above for flour comments. Thanks for all your help.
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Paul glad it worked out, the cooler temperatures seemed to be the ticket for during bulk fermentation. I do think that the earlier bake was over proofed based on the changes made and your wonderful recent bakes. Awesome looking loaf.
Benny
Thanks so much Benny ! There are a few things I still need to perfect but feel that progress is being made. I spent most of my time balking Pain De Campagne . I can now do that one in my sleep after at least 50 loaves. Bull fermentation and proofing in the refrigerator overnight is simpler. Proofing for PDC is still a challenge for me. This loaf actually did better with some proofing in the refrigerator as the other loaf baked. The 2-4 hour proof and using the finger poke test is challenging fir me. Any suggestions?
PS : the flavor is wonderful!
paul
I'm not quite clear on what you're describing/asking. Are you asking about bulk fermentation for 2-4 hours or actually final proof using the finger poke test.
I don't typically do a finger poke to decide upon the end of bulk fermentation. Typically you look for signs of good fermentation, bubbles, jiggliness of the dough etc. For final proof at room temperature the finger poke is a good test. If you do a final cold retard in the fridge, then the finger poke isn't a good indicator because chilling the dough firms it up and throws off that test.
The bulk fermentation for 12- 14 hours is going ok though it is different from the Pain De Campagne. The bubbles, jiggle quality all existed prior to shaping. I like your idea of relying on the poke test for the bulk though not sure how that would work. I also like your idea of using appearance and for determining when to shape. There was a distinct difference between the two loaves and I am unsure why. After easing the dough out of the Cambro container I noticed a difference between what came out initially and the final part of the dough. The initial part of the dough was much grassier and full of bubbles whereas the last half was less so. I divided the dough and began shaping. The final section was shaped first and found it easy to shape. The last section was full of gas and bubbles and more difficult to shape but still had great surface tension and held it’s shape as did the first one. I honestly thought the gassier one would provide a better rise. It did not. The less gassier one ( the one I placed in the refrig for twenty minutes or more while the other one baked ) rose higher. The other one was adequate and was great tasting as I kept that one and gave the pictured one away to a neighbor who took that picture. Here is my picture of that loaf. Pictured below is a picture of the almost devoured loaf that did not rise as well as the other one, Still pretty good crumb but smaller in size. This was the first loaf to bake and had the most gas and bubbles during shaping. The first one to bake with less gas had less of a proof time -confusing. Thanks so much for your help. Any suggestions are much appreciated.
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Paul T “ I like your idea of relying on the poke test for the bulk though not sure how that would work.”. I think you misread what I wrote. I do not use the poke test for ending bulk, it can be used to determine the end of final proof if done at room temperature or warmer but not for a refrigerated final proof.
Paul T “ I noticed a difference between what came out initially and the final part of the dough. The initial part of the dough was much grassier and full of bubbles whereas the last half was less so. I divided the dough and began shaping.”
OK that is very confusing and I’m not sure I follow. I read this as the top half of the dough from the Cambro was more filled with gas than the bottom half of the dough in the Cambro. This isn’t hat unusual since the weight of the upper half makes the lower have have a harder time expanding.
Paul T “ The final section was shaped first and found it easy to shape. The last section was full of gas and bubbles and more difficult to shape but still had great surface tension and held it’s shape as did the first one. ”
Again, I think you are saying that the bottom half of the dough was shaped first? “The last section”. Is that referring to the top half? A bubblier and more gassy dough is more challenging to shape until you’ve done it a lot.
When you place a dough in the fridge it will continue to ferment, it may takes hours to get down to <4ºC where fermentation might come to a full stop. So eventhough it was in there for sometime it would have continued to ferment and thus might have ended up being more fully proofed and thus make a better loaf.
By the way, I noticed that you are using an ipad with the magic keyboard, I mostly use my iPad Pro with a Magic keyboard and love it.
Benny
Paul T “ I like your idea of relying on the poke test for the bulk though not sure how that would work.”. I think you misread what I wrote. I do not use the poke test for ending bulk, it can be used to determine the end of final proof if done at room temperature or warmer but not for a refrigerated final proof.
Thanks for clarifying this.
Paul T “ I noticed a difference between what came out initially and the final part of the dough. The initial part of the dough was much grassier and full of bubbles whereas the last half was less so. I divided the dough and began shaping.”
OK that is very confusing and I’m not sure I follow. I read this as the top half of the dough from the Cambro was more filled with gas than the bottom half of the dough in the Cambro. This isn’t hat unusual since the weight of the upper half makes the lower have have a harder time expanding.
Thanks for clarifying. I struggled with this description.
Paul T “ The final section was shaped first and found it easy to shape. The last section was full of gas and bubbles and more difficult to shape but still had great surface tension and held it’s shape as did the first one. ”
Again, I think you are saying that the bottom half of the dough was shaped first? “The last section”. Is that referring to the top half? A bubblier and more gassy dough is more challenging to shape until you’ve done it a lot.
The bottom half was shaped first - which was the less gassy one. I should rephrase. Difficult probably wasn’t the best word to use. Different rather than difficult is perhaps a better word to use and actually somewhat therapeutic to hear and feel all that lovely gas while shaping.
When you place a dough in the fridge it will continue to ferment, it may takes hours to get down to <4ºC where fermentation might come to a full stop. So eventhough it was in there for sometime it would have continued to ferment and thus might have ended up being more fully proofed and thus make a better loaf.
I think your right - perhaps I put the first one in the oven too soon but my finger test experiment ( it’s been awhile since at was required to use it ) was I think telling me it was ready. Need more practice and experience with that.
By the way, I noticed that you are using an ipad with the magic keyboard, I mostly use my iPad Pro with a Magic keyboard and love it.
YES! It is great but wish it had a Siri search key. Have you found a way around that. Love the backlighting but no way to dim or brighten unless you go to settings. Volume control ? Not use why they left this out.
FYI - I love Central Mills Baker’s Craft plus. It’s incredible the way it shapes so quickly.
I never use the backlighting so it isn’t an issue for me, but if you use it a lot then it would be a PITA. For Siri, I just say “hey Siri”.
I have that feature turned off as it reads my wife’s name as a request. Also have several devices with that feature activated. Would prefer just to hold down a key. There is that little keyboard symbol on lower right of screen that has that feature but heck why not a key.
I’d just hold down the lock screen button then if it were me.
I’d rather complain - but good suggestion.
Good Morning Benny,
So here is a picture of the upper half of the bulk ferment that just came out of the oven. Not bad. It was interesting - the upper half again was much more gassier than the bottom half. Testing it’s proofness an hour after shaping said it’s ready to go but I gave it another hour and it still passed the proof test. So getting less anxious about the proofing. Regarding the bulk ferment - It was done at 12 hours in a kitchen at about 65 degrees. I used your method of watching for that jiggle and gas.
Paul
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The top crust certainly looks great. I would be helpful to see the bottom and the crumb.
I just sliced it open at the end.
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Very nice Paul especially when you compare it to the first one at the top of this this thread. Hi
Benny
Thanks Coach - your tips really helped. So also went back and looked at how Ken Forkish gets the dough out of the Cambro. He dusts the entire circumference of the Cambro and then goes around the edges of dough snd separates the dough from the edges to avoid. Then he eases it out and avoids ripping the dough. Going to try this next time. Although both loaves turned out fine I suspect I can improve upon the bottom half of the dough. This was’t an issue with Pain Da Campane. Curious - what part of the county do you live in or perhaps your from a different county? Thanks again.
Paul
Yes I did the same, although I don’t have a Cambro, I demonstrate that in my shaping videos as well. This really helps to release the dough without losing too much of the hard earned gases you produce with bulk fermentation.
Oh I missed your question about where I live, I’m from Toronto Canada.
Benny
Cool - my parents are from Canada. Still have relatives that enjoy that country. My brother was able to get dual citizenship because of my parents. Going to do the same myself. Please share your videos if you don’t mind? YouTube?
You weren’t born here then Paul?
My videos are under “bread md” on YouTube. If you like them subscribe, they are generally pretty short. Hopefully you might find them useful to you.
Benny
I was not. I will look up your videos. Thanks!