The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Community Bake - Baguettes by Alfanso

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Community Bake - Baguettes by Alfanso

This Community Bake will be featuring one of our very own; the "Baguette Baker Extraordinaire", Alan, aka alfanso. He is among a handful of fine baguette bakers on TFL who have spent years concentrating on baguettes, alfanso's favored craft, and his baguettes are consistently outstanding and consistently consistent.. Consistence and repeatability, coupled with breads that visually signify a particular baker are the hallmark of excellence. When viewing an image of any of Alan's baguettes, those that have been around for a while know exactly who baked the bread. We are fortunate to have him on the forum.

We have extracted the bakes of 4 participating bakers and present it in PDF form

Attention New Readers:
Although the Community Bake started some time back, it is still active. New participants are welcomed to join in at any time! It's constantly monitored and help of any kind is still available.

For those that are not familiar with Alan and his baguettes check out his blog.
 
   

    

Since the Covid Pandemic many new bakers have joined the forum. For those that are not familiar with our Community Bakes (CB) see THIS LINK. It should give you an idea of the concept and how things work.

Alan supplied the following information as a guide line to the bake. There are links below with additional resources. Alan's choice of baguette for the CB is Pain au Levain with Whole Wheat, by Jeffrey Hamelman. Jeffrey Hamelman recently retired as Head Baker at the King Arthur Flour Company. His book, "Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, 2nd Edition" is considered a "must have" by most of the bakers on this forum.

Alan writes:

I’ve attached the formula and some photos of my most recent bake of this bread.  It is another really easy to manipulate bread that has a fantastic taste, but is not too heavy on the whole grain side. 1250g is a nice amount to create 4 "comfortable sized" baguettes.

I’ve simplified the formula a little by converting it from a 60% hydration to a 100% hydration levain.

Mr. Hamelman uses the term “Bread Flour” but in our realm this really means a standard AP flour with a similar protein profile to King Arthur AP flour, 11.7% protein.

This dough can also be mixed mechanically if you have neither developed the skills nor have the desire to mix by hand."

NOTE - for those using home milled flour a tweak may be necessary.  Whole grain (100% extraction) will absorb quite a bit more water than white flour as well as commercial whole wheat flour. Since I used home milled grain, it was necessary to add more water before the dough became extensible enough to slap and fold. I estimate the water added was approximately 28 grams which brought the hydration to ~72%. I should have taken my own advice and measured the additional water, but I didn’t. For those using home milled grains, if would be helpful if you reported the extra water necessary to do the Slap & Folds. See THIS TECHNIQUE.

   Additional Resources

 

Everyone is welcomed. Both expert and novice can learn and improve their baking skills by participating and sharing their experience. Make sure to post your good, bad, and ugly breads. We learn much more from our failures, than we do from our successes.  

Danny 

A late addition -

In Alan’s reply below he reminded us that this is not a competition. The goal of every Community Bake is to learn from one another. There are no losers, only winners. Each and every participant should become a better baguette baker with the help of others.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

When you pat and/or roll the dough, you distort the pressure field in the crumb and probably cause some cell consolidation in the process. Two cells that are separated by a very thin wall may coalesce into a single larger cell.  This further distorts the internal pressure/force distribution.  I don't know what the radius of influence is but it could be larger than you think.  For drilling holes in solid material the general rule is that beyond 3 diameters the stresses are pretty much back to what they are in the unperturbed material. Not sure how that translates to foams.

Benito's picture
Benito

duplicate sorry

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

These are perfection! Wow...

On the subject of pizza flour...I found this Walmart brand of pizza flour (photos above).  Is it possible that it has 17% protein??? I've never seen a flour with such high protein %.  Also, with all the talk of trying to find a lower protein % flour in Canada, wouldn't a high protein % pizza flour be a negative for baguettes?

 John

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

That's a mix (mixture) not just flour.  If you look at the ingredients list, there will likely be something extra to boost protein.

Another thing to be aware of... where no decimal places are given on the nutrional label, they round the figure.  "5" grams of protein could in fact be 4.5 grams rounded to 5.  4.5 / 30 = 15%.

Update:  After checking... it has brewer's yeast (look under Nutritional Info), which can be high protein.

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Ahh, understood.  I still dont think I have ever seen a 15% protein flour before. Mixed with boosting ingredients or otherwise.

John

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Levain    water    flour          salt
  247    532+40    888 +10    18
Design point:
 PFF    levain hydration    net hydration    salt    total dough wt
12.0%       100%                     69.0%       1.8%    1725g


Made 252g levain (30g seed + 111g 13% protein bread flour + 111g water; 10 hr @ ~82°F).
Combine 532 water + 888 10.5% protein AP flour  + 10 DM, mix for 5 min @ speed 1.
Autolyse for 10 hr @ 40°F.
Bassinage in 247g of 82°F levain (252g as mixed - 3g of CO2 - 2g of bowl and scraper losses) + 43g 99°F water w/0.703g IDY dissolved in it, followed by 18g salt.
Incorporate levain, then water/yeast, then salt in 8 min as part of 10 min @ speed 1.
DT=64.1°@10 min on speed 1.
DT=67.2 after an additional 2 min @ speed 4.
Very extensible but it feels a little granular when pulling a window pane (don’t know why)
BF– ~2:00 (to 120% of initial volume according to aliquot jar with 30g of dough + 10ml water) with folds at 0, 20, and 60 min (objective is full gluten development at end of shaping).
Divide into 4 x 424g pieces (handles better than with a longer BF), used very little flour on silicone baking mat which assures that dough sticks and re-integrates during shaping.  There was a fair amount of flour on the couche to keep dough from sticking to the scale pan.
Preshape to 10” logs, rest 20, min, final shape to 20” (one baguette took two stages to roll to full length).
Counter proof ~1:00 @78°, already feels slightly overproofed.
Retard @ 47° for ~2:30 to chill and delay bake to 1500. {next time run retard @ 40°F for 1 hr, then raise it to a higher temperature in an attempt to re-saturate the liquid phase of the dough with CO2 before baking}
Slash wide and long, bake 17 min (8 min @ 500°F w/ steam and low fan, 9 min @ 340°F, 20 % humidity).

Results:
Seems to have been a little over-proofed. 
Diastatic malt did add a little color  to the crust.
Almost no ear.  Suspect high hydration due to multiple small additions (6g to wet BF container surface, wet hands for three folds). {note to self - reduce hydration and reduce final proof and see if ear reappears}
Shaping is OK; longer scoring and wider separation and a little more overlap worked fine with no obvious lumps along the length and less obvious twisting of the loaf.
Crumb is irregular but uniform with no obvious places where it was crushed during shaping.
Crisp, almost bell-like snap which I now attribute to lower protein flour - gives the feel of a thinner crust (crumb/crust closeup below)

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Looks great to me!  You even got the party paper thin membrane in the hole structure.  The inspiration of this forum to bake more baguettes and having brie in the house is going to be the death of me...

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Hey all.  I am in the process of my 2nd attempt of last week's baguette bake.  I just did the final shaping and found the dough to be too slack...the opposite of my issue last week, where the dough hadn't rested enough and fought me during shaping.  I do know I added approx 15g extra water by mistake to this dough, which would put it at approx 80% hydration...so let me guess...an overly high hydration dough would probably not be a good thing for baguettes, correct?  VERY difficult to shape.

John

Benito's picture
Benito

The highest I went was 75% and that certainly was more challenging to shape than under 70% hydration.  But of course, your skills and local conditions may make higher hydration more possible.  I think you’ll probably want to pre-shape as a boule fairly tightly and have more resistance to stretching when final shaping.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/fstr/22/6/22_841/_html/-char/en

This is a little technical but the information content is rich. It is about the choice (or random draw) of flour. There is an optimum amount of water for each flour.  And it is a function of flour protein level and other factors. Lower protein flours need a lower hydration.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

If you are using a low protein flour, then there is little you can do. You might try shortening them a little or shaping them very cold.  Of course if they are cold you will also need to wait longer to get them to relax so that you can shape them.

I have enough trouble rolling 425g baguettes to a 20" length when they are made with 10.9% protein flour and mixed to 69% hydration.

Benito's picture
Benito

I’m using the Dan method for marking % rise in the aliquot jar today and Dan you’re right, it is way easier.  The rate limiting step for me was having a way to more precisely add water to the comparator jar.  I brought home a 10 cc  syringe yesterday and that makes it super easy now.  Thanks for the suggestion of using the mass of water to calculate % rise.  I no longer need to use painter’s tape unless I want to mark multiple % rise on the jar.  But for the baguette dough I’m aiming for 25% so no need for multiple markings.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

At 65% hydration, these come in a full 10% lower than my prior seeded version of this formula.  95% AP, 5% Rye.

Still experimenting with the 3 stage levain build.  This had a total of 90 French Folds split in 2, and two gentler Letters Folds during bulk.  2 hrs. BF, divide and pre-shape, 20 min rest before shaping and then retard for ~14 hours. 

Just two complaints here.  I had one bad pre-shape and it is obvious that it carried downstream and I couldn't correct it during the final shaping, the miserable little whelp.  The other issue is that I'm still used to four scores per baguette, and that I'm not adjusting my score lengths to accommodate an additional 5th score. 

Other than that, I'm adjusting to a new world of longer baguettes and improved, or what I think is improved, dough handling (whelp excluded!). I purposely made these just over 400g each to allow me to adjust to a longer length.  No problems rolling these out to this length.

I'm still happily a troglodyte when it comes to no temping or aliquoting, still watching the clock instead of the dough, and so far successfully avoiding a myriad of other techniques along the time line.  

And when I say the name aliquot in my head, it reminds me of that horrid song, if you want to call it that, from the early-60's.   It even had a dance named after it.  Aliquot = Alley Cat, by the Danish pianist Bent Fabric (pronounced bon fabree). Then the simplistic song plays in my head and I have to make sure that I don't have any sharp instruments around to poke myself with in order to help remove the song from my cranium.   And if you don't know it, you can be thankful.  But if you want to be bummed out 1962 style, here it is.

And a peek inside the oven close to the finish line

I would have appreciated a more open crumb, one of my distinct areas for improvement, but at 65% hydration with a tad of whole grain, I think this falls into the acceptable range.  This was from the mangled baguette, so perhaps another will yield a better crumb.

For those who say that a levain bread is incapable of getting as thin a crust as commercial yeast bread, I offer these two pictures.  The crust is incredibly thin and crisp with a definite snap to it as it is is bitten into.

 

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Now that crust does appear to be quite thin Alan, but not sure it is Don thin ?. You are still getting your usual amazing ears and grigne with every bake, it is amazing how consistent you are with those.  How do you like the flavour of these with the 5% rye in them?  Do they have sour note to them?

alfanso's picture
alfanso

and have baked it many times, seemingly always with success.  My breads are virtually never sour, anything beyond mild sour notes borders on vinegary to me - and I'm a person who can eat forkfuls of horseradish and wash it down with swigs of Frank's Hot Sauce on occasion, so it isn't strong tastes I have a problem with.  Just true sour bread.

This bread has a wholesome flavor, for lack of a better term.  It doesn't have the sparkly clean almost sweet taste of a Bouabsa, and there isn't enough of another grain in here to sway the flavor otherwise.

There came a point quite a long while ago where I had faith in my scores opening as they do.  Once the dough is loaded into the oven I don't ever bother peering in through the glass door, because I pretty much know what to expect.  It's those unusual mixes of ingredients that I am not familiar with that gives me even the slightest tinge of anxiety about what will come out.  And even then I don't take a peek until the steam is released.

thanks, alan

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

What a beaut!  Very inspiring.  I need to lower my hydration and get my shaping down before I try 75%...my last 80% was a mistake...ended up being VERY difficult to shape.  Quite a mess.

This shows you don't need the higher hydration point to acheive a very nice finished product.

John

alfanso's picture
alfanso

in bakers have hydrations below 70%, more like 67-68.  There are a number of breads in the Hamelman book Bread that have hydrations below 70%, a place where I tend to be.

Thanks, alan

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

Graceful tapers and burnt ends. It looks like the the fewer folds are allowing the grigne to open up more and the crust to be thinner. That's purely projection on my part but no harm in doing even fewer folds next time to see where it leads. I remember the Alley Cat song thanks for the ear worm. In the future it would be my preference if displacement theorists and fluid dynamics buffs` would use the term small jar with piece of dough in it.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Another day, another iteration.

PFF    levain hydration    dough hydration    salt    total wt (g)
12.0%       100%                    65.0%            1.8%    1725
levain    water    added 10.5% AP flour      salt     IDY
248         548           889 + 10 DM               18.6    0.7g
Made 254g levain (lost 3g to CO2 and 3g to bowl and scraper)
Combine 548 water + 899 flour  + 10 DM, mix for 5 min @ speed 1
Autolyse for 10 hr @ 40°F.
Bassinage in 248g levain 0.73g IDY sprinkled on levain + 18.6g salt (1449g net wt of autolysed flour + water + collected condensation)
Incorporate levain, then salt in 8 min as part of 10 min @ speed 1
DT=~62°@10 min on speed 1
DT=66.3°F after an additional 1 min @ speed 4
BF- ~2:30 (to 120% of initial volume according to aliquot jar with 30g of dough + 10ml water)
Cut one slice of dough and minimally shape. (bottom loaf in upper photo, on the right in crumb shot)
Cut a second slice and fold lengthwise then immediately roll out to 20” in two stages (second loaf from bottom, second from the right)
Divide remaining dough into 2 ~equal pieces, preshape into 10” logs and rest 15 min. Roll out to 20”. (top two loaves in upper photo, left two loaves in crumb shot)
Counter proof at 81° room temp for ~1:00; plan for an additional 30 min of effective proof time as it chills in the retarder
Retard @40°F for 2 hr. Check proof progress to avoid over proofing
Dough temperature was 45°F @ 2:00
Slash wide and long
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven program (preheat to 525°F, bake with steam and low fan speed for 8 minutes; reduce temperature to 340°F and humidity to 20%, reverse loaves and bake an additional 9 min)

Changes from last bake:
● Lower hydration (65% vs 69%),
● Fully chilled before slashing (45°F vs 55°F), and not over proofed.

Improvements:
● Lower hydration and not over proofing combined to make BIG EARS.
● Lower hydration made shaping and slashing easier
● Fully chilling the dough before baking may have further contributed to ease of slashing (cuts were clean and there was no drag and there was no obvious slicing open of alveoli).

Insights:
● It is clear that you don't need super high hydration to get an open crumb (Trevor Wilson makes that point strongly; this is some supporting evidence). 
● Every flour has an optimum hydration level which maximizes loaf volume, and a lower protein level in the flour generally has a lower optimum hydration as well. The right dough texture for handling should be the objective when setting the hydration.  And every flour is different, to the point where two flours with approximately the same protein level may need significantly different amounts of water (up to ±1% hydration) to deliver the dough handling qualities you want. 
● You need the right surface to shape on, and the right amount of flour on the surface to provide the necessary friction for shaping and rolling.
● Lower protein flour seems to produce a more crispy ("thinner") crust, perhaps for the same reason that soft wheat flour is used for crackers.
● While shaping really is about shaping, the openness of the crumb is much more heavily influenced by the steps that occur before the end of bulk fermentation (e.g., flour selection, hydration, autolyse, gluten development/mixing/folding)

Crumb shots of all four baguettes included below for comparison

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Very good experimentation!  And it answers my question and problem with shaping 75+% hydration baguette dough.  Time to dry it up a bit!

John

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

Bites the dust. Another one and another one and another one bites the dust.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

That I instantly know who baked what by the pics.  Doc the crumb is beautiful ! 

gavinc's picture
gavinc

I enjoyed reading this post. Your insights (conclusions) to this experiment resonate and give me food for thought as I consider how far to push my local flour of 11.5% protein. 

Great read.

Cheers,

Gavin.

Benito's picture
Benito

Wow Doc, there are a lot of pearls of baking wisdom in your post there.  Your ongoing pursuit of baguette perfection is really paying off big time and will help anyone who wants to take up the baguette challenge.  I think we would agree that lowering hydration isn’t a hindrance in attaining an open crumb and you’ve just put out another example that shows that in spades.  You have shown good evidence that lowering hydration may be one factor in getting better ears and grigne as well, this is something I’ll have to try next time I start a baguette dough, but too late for this weeks baguettes which are in the cold retard now. But this too makes sense since a slightly stiffer dough flap will not collapse as readily once scored.  

Lower protein flour requiring less hydration also makes sense.  You shared with me a formula for hydration and protein content of flour. hydration = ((1.5 * protein%) + 43.6)/100 That would make your 10.7% protein flour optimally require 59.35% hydration, I must be missing something in my calculations, can you shed further light on how to use the formula?

 

 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

I went back to your first baguette post on the CB just over two months ago. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/64622/community-bake-baguettes-alfanso#comment-461355 .  The level of skill has been upgraded significantly.  Aside from experimentation, controlled or otherwise, there is nothing like practice and paying attention to the process and details to usher improvements like this.

Great post, alan 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I had not (still have not quantitatively) made the comparison but that was my first entry so a fair place to start. 

What I see is a slightly lower hydration, but a substantially different flour, a long cold autolyse was added, and a tiny bit of commercial yeast.  Current temperatures are cooler by 20°F but the timing is not hugely different. I have reduced the amount of flour on the surface when I divide and shape, and I use a quite different approach to pre-shaping. Oven cycle is different, with 10g of diastatic malt added to a batch to improve crust color.  Mixer is different so mixing is different too.  The trajectory from then to now is a long series of (mostly single parameter) incremental adjustments so it was not a direct path by any means.

And I am clearly not done.

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

It looks like to me that the IDY and low protein flour has helped to open up your crumb a little more.

However I take exception with your gross mischaracterization of Trevor Wilson's Open Crumb Mastery. Besides only mentioining baguettes anecdotally in reference to handling proofy dough. There is no mention of IDY in relation to achieving open crumb. After he explains that open crumb in sourdough is as much about fermentation and handling and that just adding water will not do it until you are ready for it. I copy and pasted this from my second edition in his words

Alrighty then. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, let's look at some legitimate reasons to use a wet dough:

• It can open up your crumb. I know, I know. I just got finished ranting that wet dough isn't the solution for bakers who can't get an open crumb. That's still true. But for bakers who can achieve an open crumb, making a wetter dough is the next logical step to achieving even more openness. We'll get to the reasons a bit later, but increasing the hydration of your dough can certainly make for a more open and irregular texture if that's what you're after.

The chapters that follow that statement are

Section 3: Working With Wet Dough...............................................................................................213

Just What Exactly is Wet Dough? ..................................................................................................... 218

Effects of High Hydration in Dough .............................................................................................. 219

Characteristics of High Hydration Bread ...................................................................................... 224

Mixing Wet Dough.....................................................................................................................227

Revisiting “Stretch and Fold” and “Rubaud Method”.......................................................................229

Building Structure in Wet Dough ...................................................................................................... 233

You scientific bakers can get a little too self assured about outcomes and start wielding it like a club.This is not the first time I have witnessed it from you. You seem to pounce on every post I make. As the lone wolf pariah of high hydration I am having to defend the merits of adding more water to flour as everyone seems to be looking for a reason to avoid sticky dough. Now two more are thinking that turning off the spigot and throwing in the towel on water is the way to go

I am sorry everyone, for ranting on this epitome of politeness forum but declarative statements have always gotten my hackles up. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

You found exactly the paragraph from Trevor Wilson that I would have pointed to as encouragement to develop an open crumb capability before pushing up the hydration to further open it up.  I interpreted his guidance as "don't depend on high hydration to achieve an open crumb, though it will be a contributing factor".  And the 65% experiment was just that, an experiment to assess the impact of reducing the hydration.

The experiments of Tom Cucuzza demonstrated pretty clearly that the steps prior to bulk ferment are where the open crumb comes from, so the results in my case are more personal confirmation of his results than new information.  But I found it interesting to observe all the same.

While I now use a tiny bit of commercial yeast, that is a relatively new addition (motivated by Benito's spectacular results) as I resisted it for a long time because I didn't want to introduce another variable into a set of designed experiments. And sometime next week I should get to the trial where I repeat either the 65% hydration or a 59% hydration experiment with the deletion of IDY just to see how much of a difference it makes.

I encourage feedback from anyone who thinks that I have made an experimental error, or misinterpreted a result or a writing by someone else (Trevor Wilson in this case). And I am appreciative of well designed experiments that we all can repeat to verify a result or a claim.  That is how knowlege is gained. The other side of that coin is results that attempt to replicate mine and don't.  Those become the error signals that drive better experiments. My objective is to better understand the science so that design can lead more directly to better results. And I am available via PM if anybody has a particular bone to pick.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Doc, your top halves (like mine) have tighter crumb than the bottoms. What suggestions do you have for a solution?

Great Bake! It seems the shape of a baguette makes it prone to open crumb. I am wondering if even heat from all sides is the key to perfect crumb. I bet we could get decent crumb at 60%. 

It is also interesting to note that the crumb of the first loaf that was not shaped is the worst of all. So, what does shaping do to improve the cell structure?

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I suspect that the openness of the crumb is set by factors other than the heat of the oven.  The unshaped loaf has a more irregular crumb than any of those that received more manipulation, so there is perhaps some redistribution of cells in the process of shaping (either by elimination or by consolidation). The process of cell consolidation is one that fascinates me but mostly because I don't understand it.

The photo below shows a sectioned baguette (it looks like two - one on the left and one on the right) that illustrates the random distibution of holes in the dough (these were about to be made into bruschetta).  I don't see an obvious difference between cells below the middle of the slice and those above.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Baguettes, moitié-moitié. Regardez-moi, critiquant les boulangers professionnels! Sourire...

Benito's picture
Benito

I can’t believe I’ve made 15 sets of baguettes.  I’ve never repeated any other formula so many times.  Thankfully we really do enjoy the flavour of these baguettes.  I am still doing Abel’s formula and nothing has significantly changed there.  The hydration must be around 67.5% so I haven’t dropped the hydration to see if the ears would improve.  However, I did change the bulk rise.  This time I ended bulk at 25% rise in the aliquot jar (sorry to those of you who hate that word but it reminds me of organic chemistry and biochemistry labs which are much worse memories for me than any song might be for you).  The dough went into cold retard for 24 hours in bulk.  I pre-shaped as a loose roll, rested 20 mins and then shaped again using the method Abel used in his video.  I’m pretty happy with his pre-shaping and shaping overall it is fewer steps than what I was doing and I don’t see that much of a different in outcome so far.  After shaping I put the baguettes en couche into the fridge and at that time started the oven.  I wanted to try to stop any further fermentation since I was going for a lower bulk this time and didn’t want to add much extra fermentation while the dough was at room temperature.

I really meant to change just one variable at a time and it was supposed to be bulk rise, but unbelievably the last bake the bottom crust was a bit underdone, so this time thinking about Dan and Geremy baking hot I decided to pre-heat and bake with steam at 525ºF.  Then continue without steam at 500ºF.  

As far as scoring goes, I now agree that I do not think I needed to score deeply, I am now scoring with about a 45* angle to the dough surface and maybe 0.25-0.5 cm depth.  Also the dough was much more enjoyable to score being less proofed and cold.  The scores were done quickly with pretty clean cuts.  This time I am getting what are good ears and grigne for me.  I think the issue all along has been I was pushing bulk fermentation to the limit.  Past the limit really if one wanted to have ears and grigne and a good cross sectional profile to the baguette.  I’m glad things are coming together gradually.  Overall I’m pretty happy with how these look on the outside, I’ll cut one to have with dinner and hope the crumb is still as open as the previous ones, but I suspect that it may not be since I think that it was pushing bulk so far that was getting me that crumb.

Benito's picture
Benito

So the crumb, pretty good, there are some areas of higher density that I didn’t have in the past.  I think we have successfully answered the question of how I was getting such great open crumb, Don said it earlier somewhere.  It was because I was pushing bulk fermentation.  With this bake only going to 25% rise and then limiting bench rest during shaping I went in the opposite direction.  The crumb is still fine, but just not quite as impressive as previous bakes with bulk pushed to 30-40%, but those were done at the cost of not having good oven spring, ears and grigne.  What do you think, is this a good balance now?

Benito's picture
Benito

If someone could explain to me how to get rid of tight crumb areas like this circled below, I’d be very grateful.  Is it my dough handing during shaping?  Bulk fermentation?

kendalm's picture
kendalm

I am just offering observational notes to self.  I would be willing to bet that this highlighted section was cloae to a neighboring loaf.  I have said this before - often times I believe tight crumb represents areas of your loaf that heated up slower than than the rest. I think in this case the other side was on outer edge of the oven deck thereby receiving the bulk of the hot air and springing up more efficiently.  You might verify this by observing the crust color in both locations.  Probably darker where the crumb is more open.  

The reason I believe this is that often the case goes back to the many bakes I did with my old domestic oven.  With sideways loaded loaves, the ends would usually spring up first, and once done, resulted is better crumb (and burst) at the ends.  

Often times members pose this question with boules and batards complete with diagnostic photos of loaf cross-sections.  In so many cases their loaf is open near the top and ends and dense at the base in which case I imagine their stone is not doing as much work as the surrounding hot air.  In your case my best guess is again, due to the position of the loaves.  Maybe next time you can take note of how your loaves were situated and see if the dots connect to the above hypithesis ;) 

 

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Interesting hypothesis Geremy and one that I’ll need to investigate.  One thing though, I do rotate the baguettes to try to get them to brown evenly.  I just remembered now that I forgot once again to switch to convection after streaming to try to help even the browning.  However, I should still be able to some variation in the depth of browning.  I’ll take note of this with the next baguette I slice open.  

kendalm's picture
kendalm

I was going to mention rotation but figured it muddy up the general message.  after 5 minutes rotation will not have much influence on the interior - so yeah ohly the crust and when I siad that inspecting the crust as a queue I thought about qualifying that statement.  Either way I thinknits something worth checking out. 

Benito's picture
Benito

I should probably have been more specific after steaming is done, then 5 minutes later I rotate for the first time.  By that time the crumb should be set.

Benito's picture
Benito

Geremy, I heated up the last of the more recent batch of baguettes I baked.  I think that the crumb did seem to be tighter on the side that wasn’t quite baked as darkly as the other darker side.  You are likely correct in your thinking that the side that might not get a hot while baking might not open up was well as the sides that do reach a higher temperature.  I’ve just started an overnight levain build for another set of baguettes.  I will pay more attention to the degree of bake the sides get and look actively for any correlation between that and tight crumb, but I think you’re onto something.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Said before and again, your game is top notch.

However, I want to stop the clock and call a time out.  Unless I'm misreading the conversation there is chatter about  grigne and high vs. low hydration.  The pretense that good grigne and ears are the product of low hydration, - i.e. you can't get good ears from higher hydration doughs is just plain false.

Rather than blather, here are merely a few of many links to high hydration baguettes with what I consider good ears.  They all happen to be mine, so I think I know what I'm talking about here.

I could go on.  If you feel that I haven't proven my point with differing formulae and differing dough mixes, I think I'll need convincing.

In summary, hydration has little to do with getting a good grigne and ear.  The majority of the task is within the baker's hands and skill set.

Benito's picture
Benito

Alan with all the help around here how can a guy/gal not figure it out eventually?  I do feel I have a much better handle on what I need to do to produce good baguettes now.  I think the biggest thing holding me back from producing ears and grigne was the bulk fermentation and proofing.  In relative terms I was going too far.  Having cut  back on both bulk fermentation and final proofing I’m finally getting there.

Without having increased the hydration, I don’t know if that would hold me back from getting ears or grigne.  Based on the evidence you produce bake to bake to bake, I’d say I agree with you.  You certainly produce amazing ears and grigne with every bake high or low hydration.  Going forward I’ll have to decide on my next steps to further improve.  I’m thinking along the lines of Don, slowly increasing hydration might allow my dough to be more extensible and allow me to get to the maximum length of my baking steel 16”.  I am still challenged by even getting to that length and nowhere near the 20 plus inch baguettes you guys are producing.

I feeling much more comfortable shaping the dough now especially with the shortened bulk and I think I can now try increasing hydration especially since I am not working with finicky French flour.  However, once again I am out of the 10% protein flour I had been using.  I have found a Canadian flour from Quebec that is also 10% so I will be working with that next time.  Hopefully since they speak French when farming and milling this flour it will be more like the stuff from France.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Beyond the basics, I'd be the last to admit to taking a scientific approach to this whole baking thang.  You likely know that I watch the clock and not the dough. So there is no way that my input would provide any break-through wisdom.  As such, my bulk fermentation knowledge is somewhat tribal and not particularly based on any other means.

Could I be a better baker if I got more analytical or changed to a different plan?  Get a better open crumb structure?  I can't deny that something, maybe many things would work toward that outcome.  But the question I've already answered long ago is, am I happy with what I can produce now with just the occasional change?  

I wish there was some insight that I could provide, but from what I state above, my methodology is my limitation.

GlennM's picture
GlennM

I followed the “Benny” method for the second time. I did have one end of one baguette blowout due to too much flour when shaping. No ears to speak of but good oven spring with 30% increase in the bulk. This seems to be an excellent method to work on. I need to be more careful with shaping and I’m not sure that it helps to brush with water?

 

 

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Glenn, cool to see someone else working with Abel’s formula.  I forgot to brush with water this time and in fact I don’t think I had fewer small blisters without the water.  You certain got great colour to your crust and great oven spring.  Do you like the flavour of the baguettes, will you try Abel’s formula again?

Edited:  corrected to Glenn.

gavinc's picture
gavinc

Benny, they are not mine. They belong to Glenn.

Cheers,

Gavin

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Oh duh, facepalm ?‍♂️ sorry Glenn and Gavin, reading comprehension issues happening.

GlennM's picture
GlennM

I really like the flavour.  I think the addition of a little yeast helps with that. Oven spring is great and colour is excellent (thanks to the malt). I need to work a bit on the shaping with a little less flour on the bench. It seems I use a different method of shaping on every baguette ? 

Can someone give me a link to the original formula?  I want to make a couple of small adjustments and try and get this down

Benito's picture
Benito

Here is the post that Alfanso kindly shared his interpretation of Abel’s baguette formula. It has been the basis of what I have been baking with adjustments. Abel’s formula 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

 Sicilian salami with provolone cheese, hot red peppers, olive oil, and  red wine vinegar. On a home made fresh (from frozen baguette.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

PFF       Levain hydration   Dough hydration   Salt     Total dough wt
12.0%            59%                    59.0%           1.8%        1725g

Levain (59%)                 Water          AP flour            Salt
203g (27+68+116)          557g    934g + 10g DM    19.3g

Made up stiff levain (59%) and let it ferment for 9 hours
Mixed flour + water at 59% hydration and autolysed at 40°F overnight

Dough:
1496g cold autolysed flour and water (including condensation)
203g levain
0.728g IDY sprinkled on levain
19.3 salt added during first 6 min of mixing
Mix 10 min at speed 0; final DT=71.1°F (up from ~62°F for the 65% hydration batch)
BF'ed to 125% of original volume based on 30g sample in 100g aliquot jar
Divided into 4 parts and preshaped, rested 30 min, final shaped
Counter proof for 2:30 at which point they were still a little under proofed; decided to go to the oven and bake without any retard
Baked using BAG-STM2 program (slashed using Benny's guidance - lame rotated 45° CW - produced great ears but I don’t know if that was technique or just the stiff dough).

Process changes from last bake:
● Lower hydration (59% vs 65%)
● A little more bulk fermentation (but I think not enough)
● Dough was not chilled before slashing

Results changes:
● This dough was really a pleasure to work with.  The best comparison I can make is with the dough that Martin uses in this shaping demo
● And strangely, this dough was amazingly extensible (which I did not exptect) and each baguette was almost trivial to roll out to 21 or 22" and had to be somewhat compressed to get them to fit within a 20" wide couche. Two baguettes were folded lengthwise to shorten the doughpiece before pre-shaping. After a 30 min rest, all of the dough was fully relaxed and was then easily shaped without resistance.  I can't tell after the fact which ones were folded and which ones were just cut and rolled after a 30 min rest.
● Lower hydration probably contributed to big ears and more oven spring (enough to break the straps separating the gringe in many places)
● Lower hydration again improved shaping and slashing
● Lower hydration may have contributed to more browning as well, but the crumb was not as moist as it was with the 65% dough
● These came out darker than prior batches and the crumb is not as open as it has been in the past.
● The less open crumb I attribute to an insufficiently long bulk fermentation, so next time I will step up the target volume increase to 50% and perhaps also extend the final proof a little.  The fact that I did not need to chill the dough before going to the oven says a lot about the dough texture at that point.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Doc, you are headed on a path that very few travel. I find it extremely interesting. 

How would you describe the affects of the cold autolyse?

Is the low hydration making the baguette more chewy and dense? 

Observation -
My last batch used DM (0.75%). It gave the baguette an obviously sweet flavor. A dark roasted Non-diastatic Malted Barely may give me the dark crust, although the crumb will also be darker. May try this, I’ve had good results with it in the past.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I found the crumb to be more dense, though I am hesitant to assign a cause because of the strong suspicion that there was insufficient bulk fermentation. The next batch will hopefully be a better basis for making a critical assessment.

As for the cold autolyse, my current sense is that I am seeing some passive gluten formation and perhaps an increase in extensibility, but I have not attempted a side by side comparison of a short (20 min) warm autolyse and an overnight cold autolyse.  That would be a good thing to do after I have done a suitable number of runs with the long cold autolyse.  When I do that, I am thinking that I probably need to use very cold water and perhaps pre-chilled flour so that the dough temperatures for the two batches are similar.  So I guess that comparison would be a short cold autolyse vs a long cold autolyse.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

And if you have that spiral mixer, ice chips to add to the mixing bowl.  Won't get anything colder then that.

Benito's picture
Benito

It really surprises me that lowering the hydration made your dough more extensible.  You would never predict that if you’d never actually tried to stretch out baguette dough with low hydration based on your only experience with French folding lower hydration dough.  I am interested to see how this looks when done again with low hydration but with bulk fermentation pushed farther to see how open a crumb you can get.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

bagel hydration territory.  I don't see your standard bassinage - I suppose the dough would be way too stiff for that.  

The progression of scoring results from top to bottom is noteworthy.  Are you scoring them differently?  the bottom baguette is closer to the "ideal" baguette scoring than the other two.

Do you take a pre and post bake weight to see what the percentage of water loss is?

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

At 59% there is just enough water to get the flour fully wet with nothing left over to incorporate after gluten development. When I plugged 59% into my design sheet for final dough hydration, I discovered that unless I changed the levain hydration, the autolyse was going to be at 53% hydration which is way on the far side of bagel dough.  So I had to mix the levain at 59% just to make enough water available.

I did take a shot of the post-slash/pre-bake baguettes (below) and I don't see any obvious difference, but would certainly appreciate any comments/critique of what you see that I have missed. Two baguettes were shaped from strips that were cut off the long edge of the dough mass without any effort to shorten them prior to rolling to length, while the other two were folded lengthwise as a minimal pre-shaping step. Both sets rested 30 min before final shaping. After I had put them on the pans I thought about which one was which and could not tell by looking and did not remember the order in which they were shaped, couched, then transferred to the pans.  The wrinkling of the dough at the slashes is probably associated with not chilling them before baking.

Weight loss was 420 - 345 (within 2g) for all of them so ~18% which is a little more than the 15% that I would use for planning if I expected the weights and measures inspector to drop in.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Because there's so many good things going on in your scoring here.  Those serrated scores are hard to avoid with soft and warm dough although a quicker but unhurried score could mitigate that somewhat.  I also always dip the business tip of my blade in the slightest puddle of olive oil before each set of scores.  I've tried it both ways with basically no difference, but old habits are hard to break.

So...being hypercritical and looking for things here.  The tip to toe scores are the ticket, for sure, as well as the overlap between scores.  If anything, perhaps you are traversing the score a little too much from west to east.  I'm also seeing the distance between scores as being a tad too far apart giving you a wider band of crust between the blooms.  The alternative is too narrow a gap where the bloom violates the band and bursts right through it.

At this point it's all nitpicking and I see that you are doing a better job or parsing out the scores evenly to accommodate the fifth score better than I currently am.

I don't know if this would make a difference, but my physical position in relation to the dough is neither sideways nor head on.  I rotate the baking peel so that the dough is slightly offset and I have a better "approach", similar to how the pros score dough on the canvas conveyer belt.  As such...

Here are four different formula breads and what the scoring looks like pre-bake.  Perhaps you can glean some additional knowledge by checking them out.  I'll leave them full size for your easier investigation. 

 Hamelman based Potato Bread

 Hamelman Pain au Levain

 Maurizio's 75% hydration baguette

Mystery Guest, may be a Hamelman Vermont SD

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

They all look like they were scored cold.  And it appears that you are scoring straight down with a straight blade rather than applying a rotated slash with the curved lame that I thought you used.

Your posture and orientation match what I naturally do.  My perforated pans are 20-7/8" long so it is a lot easier to rotate them 45° and slash on an angle. And I too use my left hand to stabilize the dough and act as a guide.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

And although it looks to be a straight downward score, the wrist is actually rotated slightly and the blade enters at an angle.  Here's a close-up of my sophisticated lame holder...http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56948/better-lame#comment-413766

Yes, mentioned with regularity that I almost always score cold dough.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

that clearly show the angle of the score.  I found a few and enlarged them to show you.  Had the score been directly down we would not see either side wall inside the score.  Or see both side walls.  Bt we see one, which shows the angled score.  These were taken from directly above the oven peel.

 

As you can see, the angle does not need to be great, and the wetter the dough, the slightly sharper the angle.  If you recall, Benny was having problems with scoring recently because his scores were "filleting" the dough with too sharp an angle.  Since corrected.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...
DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

This was a quick experiment. Used T65 and a cold autolyse. Mixed water and flour by hand to avoid any gluten development. The dough rec’d a total of 5 min mixing at slow speed in the hope that the lightly mixed dough would not be oxidized and consequently taste better.

I can’t really say that the flavor benfited from the above.

The BF increase by about 12% and was then retarded at 50F for 4 hours until the dough looked like it had completed the final proof. The dough had risen and looked ready. It was scored and baked cold. For that reason the loaves were shortened to fit my retarder.

The results didn’t seem worth the effort.

The stone was elevated one position higher in hopes that the heat coming from the top might open the crust on the top of the loaf. BUT, the bottom is still more open than the top.

 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Danny - I am watching for more photographic evidence of what Geremy mentioned above - that loaves close together in the oven can inhibit heat transfer to the side(s) and create dense crumb. Do you remember whether the side with the more dense crumb was next to the other loaf or next to an oven surface?  The difference (top to bottom) is notable - you could run a line down the middle of the loaf and declare that each side was from a different mix.

I see a broken strap and better ears on the darker loaf which seems to be the result of more oven spring. Any thoughts? Maybe just a different scoring pattern?

And I wonder if cutting higher in the loaf would reveal a different pattern.  I see that in your crumb shot the inverted upper half is shadowing the bottom so seems thicker - perhaps indicating that you cut below the vertical mid-line. Or maybe it was just rotated in the photo so that it appears that way.

Benito's picture
Benito

It is really strange how the crumb in the upper half of Dan’s baguettes is tighter than the bottoms. I bake my baguettes on the lowest rack so the bottoms get a lot of heat hoping for the best oven spring. But I have not noticed less open crumb in the top half of my baguettes. 

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Open crumb at top of loaf = hot air (at the top of the oven) doing most of the work.  Open crumb at the bottom = stone doing most of the work.  That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it.  

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Doc, I am careful to make sure each loaf has lot of space in between. Don’t know about the broken straps. Looks like that particular loaf sprang more. Just discovered that my ven is cooler near the vent at the top right side.

It seems that all of my horizontally split loafs are thicker on the top. The top is rounded and the bottoms are flat.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

or 'Batettes' - whatever floats your boat.  Great crumb.  I can see (per docs request below), that somebody might be breaking out magic markers soon.  Its ok cyril hitz already did that during a scoring lesson, actually baked the loaf and was so thoughful to warn viewers to not eat a loaf with magic marker on it.  

Dan for flavor - if you 24 hour plus cold-retard this flour you should get a good flavor boost. 

 

kendalm's picture
kendalm

I stand corrected, it was not Cyril Hitz but some deranged fellow at the San Francisco baking institute -https://youtu.be/1ebKpEG0tBM  

alfanso's picture
alfanso

As George Costanza said "major shrinkage!".  Not in the oven but on the couche.  The lengths vary from 16-19 inches.  

Methodology:

  • 20 min. Autolyse,
  • bassinage in small stages with salt already dissolved in it, 5 min rest,  
  • 20 French Folds, 5 min rest, 20 FFs.  
  • Gentle Letter Folds at 20, 40 60 min then retard fo 20 hrs.  
  • Soft "Albel" pre-shape, 20 min rest, shape, couche.   For whatever reason, maybe the changes in mixing and folding, these seemed to be a little stickier than I recall from the last time - now long ago.  
  • Bench rest for 30 min, refrigerator rest for 30 min.  
  • Bake at 480 steam 13 min, rotate 13 min more, vent 2 min.
  • Would have liked to roll these out more and had the length hold.  Dough a little too sticky to get tapered ends.  Crust surprisingly thick for an IDY, probably due to length of bake.

Overall, I'm pleased with this bake - but it should have been 2-3 minutes less time in the oven.

 

325g x 3 baguettes

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I have decided to throw out all pervious baguette bakes, and start building from here. Last weeks bake, in person, had better oven spring and color. 

Changes:

1. Lopped off 15 minutes off the B.F.

2. Less aggressive shaping, ala the last video I posted to the thread. 

3. I lopped off a full hour off the cold retard/proof, to 7 Hrs.

They still look way good! I am not disappointed at all. At this fledgling point in my development, it would be unrealistic to expect consistency. Fingers crossed for an improved crumb. that would be the cherry on top! 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Will, you have definitely stepped up your game!

Those are beauties... What an improvement in your last 2 bakes.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

But I think that out of all the participants in the CB, from each participant's starting point, and we've had some heavy artillery come around, you have come the furthest with this bake .  These are really great looking.  Bravo!

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Unless I missed a bake, the top image was Will’s second to last baguette bake. Up until then, this is pretty much where Will plateaued. The bottom, his latest. 

WOW!

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Oh man, I wish I had a cross-section of that first baguette! Anyway, looks like they just missed opening up! What do you guys think of this crumb, slightly under proofed, or a shaping issue? I am going to say proofing issue? 

 food and indoor

 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Will, send a link or the writeup for your formula along with temps and timing. I think you’ve achieved the hardest part, a decent crumb should be an easier fix.

Despair not... You are on a great trajectory!

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

 addendum:

Room Temperature -  74 degrees F.

Dough Temperature, straight out of the Bosch - 80 F

refrigerator Temperature -? 

B.F. 1 Hour. % rise?

Cold proof - 7 Hours % rise?

Disregard the shaping procedure, a kinder gentler method was used.  

 Traditional Baguettes

( l'ancienne)Bosch specific method By: Will Falzon (The Brooklyn Maltese) Ingredients Flour 100% 1000 Grams Water 65% 650 Grams Barley Malt Syrup 1% 10 Grams Salt 2 % 20 Grams Yeast .25% 2.5 Grams Total 168% 1680 Grams Bosch specific Method  In the bowl of the Bosch, mixer Combine the water & malt syrup  Add in the dry ingredients and mix at speed #1 (5 minutes)  Remove the (still slightly sticky) dough to a fermenting container  Rest at warm (74F) room temperature for 75 Minute.  At 75 minutes, the dough will have expanded by 25%  On a lightly floured surface, scale and divide the dough into four 420-gram  Pre-shape the four portions into blunts, using just enough dusting flour (rice) to keep them from sticking. Rest the pre-shaped blunts covered for 20 Minutes.  Using the palm of your hand, degas and flatten the blunt into an approximately 3” by 2” rectangle.  Pull the top long side of the dough into the center of the rectangle and seal with your palm or fingers.  Turn the dough 180 degrees and repeat the last step on the other side.  Turn the dough 180 degrees again and pull the top of the dough tightly into the center. Seal the seam.  Turn the dough one more time, this time pull & roll the top of the dough tightly on to itself, all the way down to meet the bottom of the dough. Seal the seam well with the palm of your hand.  On the lightly floured bench, with lightly floured hands, roll the now tight skinned blunt, starting from the center with both hands, into a 17” slightly tapered snake.  Move to a floured bakers couche seam side down.  For the above shaping steps use enough dusting flour to keep the dough from sticking and damaging the product. However, do not overdo it.  Retard the baguettes overnight (8-9 Hrs.)  Pre-heat your oven to 500F (as high as it goes) with a steam tray  Move the cold baguettes to the baking pan or peel, slash in the appropriate baguette pattern, finishing with an odd number of slashes.  Place the baguettes in the oven and add 1 cup of water to the tray.  Bake at high temperature for 12 minutes.  Open the oven, vent, and remove the steam source.  Turn the baguettes 180 degrees. Lower the oven temperature to 480F  Bake for 4 minutes  Turn 180 degrees. Bake for four minutes  Continue to check the doneness and turn the baguettes every four minutes, bake at 460 degrees, until the desired color is achieved.  Once you are satisfied, turn off the flame, and crack the oven door. Allow the baguettes to cool in the oven for 15 minutes to set the crust.  Remove to a wire cooling rack for at least 1 hour before cutting.

Benito's picture
Benito

They had great oven spring and ears, that along with the tight crumb I’d say that they are somewhat underproofed.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I went too far in the other direction. I will retreat to my lodge and smoke the Peyote

 pipe and contemplate my next move. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

With a 60 minute BF I suspect insufficient bulk fermentation, but without a lot more data it is hard to diagnose from afar.  Could be a yeast issue - is your yeast fresh? Was it dissolved in warm water before being added?  Or just sprinkled on the flour (or water)?

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

An hour 15 minutes at 74F of BF sounds way too short for that amount of yeast. My guess is that the CY was not allowed enough time to establish active fermentation. 

Did you use Instant Dry Yeast or Active Dry Yeast?

Take a look at this link. It may be worth testing the activity of your yeast.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/65009/tip-commercial-yeast-testing-expiration-storage

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

It is instant dry yeast. I'll have a look at the link. I am leaning to a little more time at room temperature. 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

It lives in my refrigerator and seems to work a treat. This bake used the same .25% yeast as last week's bake. I did knock 15 minutes off the bulk ferment, from 75 minutes last week, to 60 this week. Then I think due to the dough being cold, and a little dry too, I miss read the poke test. I cut the cold-proof short by one whole hour! Ah, the yeast procedure. I dissolved the yeast in the room temperature water, malt syrup mixture.  Thanks for reading Doc. I appreciate your help.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Unlike ADY, IDY yeast can be added to dry ingredients and does not have to proof first.  Also less IDY than ADY  - 1 g IDY = 1.35g ADY.

Dan found a test to determine whether your yeast is still useable or shot.  

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/65009/tip-commercial-yeast-testing-expiration-storage.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Thanks, Alan.

I got the link from Danny. I am going to do the test. 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Will, the freezer is a better place to store your yeast. If you buy it in bulk (1 pound), you can pit some of it in a zip-lok bag for immediate use and then store th remain in a vacuum sealed bag. Both should be kept in the freezer.

Benito's picture
Benito

Yes I agree with Dan, I have a bottle of IDY in my freezer that I’ve been using for quite a long time.  It seems just as potent now as it did when new.  

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I already got my money's worth out of this batch. Next time I hit the big box store, will restock and...

 

 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Ah, espèce de baguette maléfique, pourquoi me nargues-tu, avec tes quasi-ratés!

Benito's picture
Benito

Wow Will your improvements are incredible. All of a sudden your baguettes look incredible. You have nice even shaping with excellent tapers on the ends, awesome ears and grigné. You’ve even done some seeds on the exterior. Really really great progress you’ve made first rate. You must be so proud and pleased. 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I am very pleased. I gave the best of these four away already. I asked for a crumb shot. I am not going to cut into these two I have here just now. (too much bread this week!)

 Alan, I am honored to take most improved player! Thank you! Smile...

OMG! I really am busting! From mediocre at best to OUTSTANDING! 

Note for next bake: I can afford to dial down the heat just a notch or two. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Today I did a repeat of the prior batch but allowed it to bulk ferment to 140% of post mix volume.  This batch has a little better crumb, but it seems that I still didn't wait long enough for it to fully proof (note broken straps where oven spring just pulled them apart. For some reason the dough was quite a bit colder at the beginning of bulk ferment (65.8°F vs 71.1°F) and to get to 140%, it took 3:50 with one fold after 20 min.  The crumb is not really tight, but it is not as open as I would prefer so I may make a few more runs in this vicinity to poke around and see if I can figure out what is going on.

I thought this next photo was cool so I include it here for that reason alone.  It looks like I need to overlap the slashes a little more to get increased uniformity along the barrel, and clearly a longer proof.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I would be satisfied with that crumb! Thanks for explaining your tweaks. Baking baguettes is so addicting for me. I feel like starting a batch tonight, for an early morning bake tomorrow. We will see how my day goes. Oh, That reminds me, I need AP flour. I am going to try the store brand this time. Not to save anything (Manhattan prices,) but in the hopes of a lower protein percentage. 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

and anticipated protein percentages.  During the rush a few months ago to find any flour, I picked up some Walmart branded flour - the only thing on the skimpily stocked shelves.  No indication of protein percentage on the package nor on their website.  On a Walmart Q&A page Walmart states that they buy flours from different contracted mills and then packages them under the store brand, so there are differing protein percentages.  There is a telephone number provided where one might get the answer based on some code on the packaging.  

The point being that there likely is no reliable way to determine from a package that uses the same method for their own brand (like TJs, Gristedes, Whole Paycheck, etc.) unless stated on the packaging.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Good to know.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I remembered this morning that since the aliquot jar is small and the batch of fermenting dough is big (relatively) they don't track each other from a temperature perspective.  One result is (probably was for me yesterday anyway) that the aliquot jar sample was somewhere between a little and a lot warmer than the fermenting dough. So when the aliquot jar sample got to 140% volume increase, the dough was at some lower number.  Today I am going to try sticking the aliquot jar in the dough to try to thermally couple them together in hopes of more accurately tracking volume growth.

Benito's picture
Benito

Yes that is always a concern with the aliquot jar, I always keep them together in the proofing box next to each other but you could stick it inside the dough.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

I lightly grease the aliquot jar with oil and place along side the dough it in the same container. It releases from the dough easily. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

And by then the dough was within 2°F of  room temperature so I took the aliquot jar out and left it on top of the BF proofing container, did one fold and flipped the dough over. The BF was quite long today (probably because I deleted the IDY) 5:50 from start of mixing vs 3:50 yesterday though today I let it run a little longer (150% vs 140%) but by the time it gets to that stage things are moving pretty fast.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Shinny masonite material. 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

 

Duplicate Post.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

My hand peel AKA flipping board is a piece of cut down laminate flooring, the oven peel is either a cookie sheet or my much more recent masonite sheet, found in the closet, and cut to oven size for the larger horizontal baguettes.  Baking stone, a piece of scrap granite.  Lame holder, an old flexible serrated saw blade wrapped in blue masking tape.  Don't need me no Cambro, Bro.  Just a tupperware-ish container with lid.  Couche rests on a jelly roll pan for the long batards, on  "custom-built" pieces of cardboard taped together for the longer baggies.  Never lived anyplace where the tap water wasn't top quality, even here where there may be many places around the state with calcium in the water, so no fancy water in the mix for me.  Flours not still in original bags are in tupperware containers as well.  Probably another thing or two as well.  A pretty inexpensive set-up and hobby.  Tasty too!

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

These Plastic hard pretzel containers.  The Fuggi water was a gimmick, NYC water is A- Oaky by me!  what I do want to try sometime is carbonated water! 

 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

it ain't a pretzel.  To me.  On both the plus and minus side, they aren't sold down here.

Why stop at carbonated water.  Why not make the leap to prune juice?  If it's fizzy you're after, can't do better than that!

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

You know, I never knew prune juice has fizz. I may have tasted a sip at some point in childhood, However, I never really drake prune juice! Somehow prune flavored baguettes do not sound appetizing! That being said, T minus a 1/2 hour or so, till my latest hero! 

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta

my second attempt, or was it 3rd..? 

went with a more basic formula recipe just to have less variables.

50% WW 50% AP 100% hydration levain (200g)

CY poolish 100% hydration (200g)

50% AP and 50% Bread Flour (12%) in final dough (500g)

water 250g

salt 21g

CY in final dough 2g

This is the first time in my making baguette that the dough felt right and i was able to shape them properly. 

Didnt get much of bloom on the scores and only 1 ear in each of the baguettes. the crust was thin and crispy and the crumb was soft.  a little bit more chew than I like.  i think i'll go with more AP than bread flour next batch to see if that'll improve.  i might also decrease hydration slightly to see if i can get better ears.  when i was scoring, the cuts didnt hold vey well. 

I'm happy with the very round cross section when i didnt even use a baguette tray. just baked on stone with a loaf pan with towel for steam.

i think the characteristics are much more like a commercial yeast baguette than a sourdough baguette. but i think i prefer that more delicate texture.

i also forgot to spritz the loaves before they went in. i hope if i do that next time i'll get more blisters on the crust.

 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

If nothing else, and there is plenty else, this CB has been a petri dish and proving ground for an incredible amount of testing and configurations of many differing formulae. And techniques.  And one thing that seems to be quite clear is that "bread flour", meaning flour labelled bread flour on the bag vs. AP is the absolutely incorrect flour for baguettes - unless another component is so weak in gluten that it needs the strength of the bread flour.  Being pedantic here for a reason.

The bread flour's strength, its protein percentage, is such that it creates both unwanted elasticity and a tighter crumb.   What we've determined is that we are after a softer more extensible dough where the crumb, when handled with an appropriate mix, BF and kid gloves, provides a more open crumb and a rolled out baton that will be limited, if at all, in shrinkage on the couche or in the oven.   The bread flour is also responsible for the amount of "chew" in the bread.

*Mr. Hamelman refers to "bread flour" in his book - what we know is that he means white (KA) AP flour.

A lot of energy has been expended on figuring out the baguette de tradition.  As I and others like to dabble in differing combinations of ingredients and flours, the "rules" are expanded a bit - but not by much!

Your dough has a hydration of just over 64%, a little on the low side for baguettes, although recent tests by doc.dough have shown a significant ability to have an open crumb at 59% hydration.  But that is after many iterations of careful and controlled testing by the doc.

The shaping is good and with the exception of the scoring needing work, you have a fine finished product with a nice open crumb already.

Something you mentioned is important - the dough felt right.  There is nothing like gaining the facility to read the dough with our own hands.

Keep trying and improving.  The CB will eventually drift off the top of the list, but neither it nor any of us are going away.  This is a pretty tenacious bunch here.

And if you are like some of this crew, the baguette bug will bite pretty hard and you'll be inclined to change your handle from ciabatta to baggie! 

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta

Thanks for the feedback Al.  I think my AP must be around 9- 10% and my Bread Flour is 12%.  I liked the texture and no problem with elasticity.  last time i went with all AP and it was too elastic (or maybe just too much water). 

I don't know if i my crumb would be considered open or not. but i see many have much larger holes and I really am not sure if that's what I want.  That seems to me more like a soft and creamy texture, am i right about that?  How would you guys describe the texture of the crumb you're going for?

I always think more in lines of airy, light and delicate for the crumb.

my ultimate goal is a seeded baguette that is super light and crispy and super nutty in flavor. one i had years ago from a tiny bread shop in a very small French town that i can no longer remember the name of.

-James

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Wow what oven spring, they are almost circular in cross section James.  Excellent 2nd or 3rd set of baguettes.  Your steam set up seems to be excellent to get that spring.  I totally agree with Alan, high protein flour works against the extensibility that baguette dough needs to stretch them out.  I’ve settled around a 10% protein flour and I think most are in this vicinity +/- 1%.

What kind of rise did you aim for in bulk fermentation?  Many of us are aiming for around 25% now, higher than this (35-40%) I found compromised the oven spring and ears.

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta

I think you're right on, Benny.  I was aiming for 25% but before i knew it. it was closer to 40%. the shaped sticks were very fragile. Not like the ones i seen posted here. Will work on that on the next set.

also what do you do with the bit of dough from the aliquot jar? do you mix it back in at shaping? i forgot to. and ended up with a extra tiny baguette.

 

Benito's picture
Benito

I know some people add it back to their main dough, but I haven’t done that.  I haven’t developed the small dough in the aliquot jar like the rest of the dough so I didn’t want that confusing matter when assessing the quality of the bake.  Dan is keeping it adding it to the next bake as one would do with a poolish.  I have mine in the fridge and depending on when I prep for another baguette bake I may actually try adding it to the next bake.  I’m not sure though, is a week old dough OK to use as a poolish to add to a new dough?  Is it too old and acidic?

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

It is just like old starter.  Of course if you used commercial yeast it isn't exactly the same but should work just fine.

I have developed the practice of putting the mixed dough into my Cambro fermentation tub and putting the tub on the scale.  Then tare the scale and remove 30g of dough (which is easier than putting an unknown amount of dough into the aliquot jar and then futzing with it to get the weight right).  Then I can drop the 30g doughpiece into the aliquot jar and push it down one side to eliminate air bubbles, whack it a few times on my hand to settle the dough and let it sit for a few minutes to seal itself to the side walls of the container.  Then I add water up to the 40ml line and base the volume growth on the 30g (assumed to be 30ml).  I have observed that by the time the dough has expanded to about double (water sits close to 70ml mark) the dough badly wants to float and there is nothing I can do to stop it. But by then the top is so soft that it doesn't really poke up like a mountain above the water line and the dough by that time has been shaped and is into final proof so the utility of the aliquot jar is declined to zero.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

PFF       levain hydration dough hydration   salt      total dough wt
12.0%            59%                59.0%            1.8%       1725g
205 (27+69+118) levain    557 H2O    934 AP + 10 DM    19.3 salt
Make 213g stiff levain (59%) and 59% hydration autolysed flour/water (mixed at speed 0 for 6 min then kneaded a few turns to homogenize) at 40°F overnight starting at 2115

0620 mix
1496 cold autolysed flour and water (including condensation)
210g net levain
Omit IDY
19.3 salt
Mix 10 min at speed 0; final DT=64.4°F
Take 30g for aliquot jar. + 9ml H2O =39ml
1 fold @ 3:20
BF to 150% of original volume
BF time =~5:50 from start of mixing (this is probably a result of deleting the IDY)
Divide into 4 parts (425g)  and preshape (7 min), rest 30 min, final shape (5 min) [first baguette pre-shaped was cut long then final shaped immediately without a pre-shape step]
Counter proof for ~4:00 (aliquot jar is now at 100ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 60ml expansion so 200% dough volume growth and dough is floating on the added water)
Retard 2:00@40°F to make it easier to slash
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle
By the time the loaves were baked and cooled, it had been 13:30 since mixing.

The crust is thin and crisp, the ears opened nicely, lots of oven spring, but crumb is again tighter than I would like it.  I am speculating that it is a combination of a very stiff dough and the omission of the commercial yeast that kept the crumb from opening up during BF.  There was some loss of gas when pre-shaping but not a lot, however final proof took forever and I suspect that a lot of CO2 leaked out due to high internal pressure (stiff dough) and just a long time on the bench.  Two hours of retard was insufficient to add much dissolved CO2 to the dough and as a result there were no significant blisters on the surface (perhaps another effect of the long proof).  Again the dough was very nice to handle and shape (quite extensible after the 30 min rest).

So on the basis of this result I will put the IDY back in and run another 59% batch in a couple of days with a little longer BF and also a longer final proof than I used last Friday (and hopefully not as long as today).

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

It is possible that an interesting fact was learned during these bakes. Both bakes used KAAP flour and CY only. My supply of T65 is dwindling. Bake #29 was 70% hydration and 5 grams of chocolate malt was used for crust and crumb coloring, and also an interesting note in flavor. The goal of both bakes was to develop the gluten up front via machine mixing and secondly to BF until doubling. Both doughs were aggressively degassed to facilitate efficient shaping. The thought was that even though the gas was somewhat pressed out, maybe the cell structure would become re-established during the final proof. Sadly, this was not the case. In both bakes the crumb was relatively even and closed. Bake 29 was so sticky, that an additional bake was decided upon with the hydration reduced to 68%. Here is where I think I learned a valuable lesson. Is it possible that a CY only dough is by nature stickier and more slack (than a similar SD version) because the tightening affect of the SD levain is not present? It was surprising how sticky, slack, and wet the KAAP doughs felt. It was until a number of slap & folds were performed on each dough that the dough started to behave. What a marvelous tool is slap & fold! Even though Bake 30 was 68% hydrated it was still slack and sticky.

Anyway, here are the results. Even though the crumb was not open the crust and crumb texture was very much to my liking. Crisp, thin, with a soft crumb. Flavor was fair for American flour.

The loaves at the top were Bake 29. They are easily distinguished by the dark color that was produced from the chocolate malt.

Again, the darker crumb is bake 29.

For many, failure is the price of admission that enables one to stand upon the pedestal of success...

Benito's picture
Benito

What is the cause of the white line running essentially parallel to the crust in the chocolate baguette Dan?

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

benny, I have no idea. I’ve seen this before, but never figured it out. The dough was thoroughly machine mixed. Maybe the 100g of “old dough” caused it.

Benito's picture
Benito

I kept the aliquot jar dough from last week and added it to today's dough like a Biga.  The new dough will have a higher hydration over 70% probably ending up around 71% once I calculate the water added with the final coil fold.  I'll be interested to see the effects on extensibility with the higher hydration.  That being said, I'm once again using a new flour, this is the one from Quebec with 10% protein, I'm hoping it will be like French flour, if that is the case the higher hydration might be a problem.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Benny, how much old dough are you adding? I ask because when 100g of old dough was added to bake 29, I think the dough got too extensible. 

I know that Nutritional Yeast is made from dead yeast. Wondering if the 5 day old dough had enough dead yeast to seriously slack the dough.

Benito's picture
Benito

Interesting point, my old dough was 7 days old so may contribute even more to extensibility.  But because it is at least in part sourdough, it may also contribute an acid load, depending on how high an acid load it might either tighten the dough or lead to some proteolysis and more extensibility.  I only added about 42.3 g of old dough.  I will say that this dough did seem quite extensible during coil folds, but I’m also using different flour so wasn’t sure it that was the “Biga” or the new flour.  I’ll know tomorrow when I shape and bake.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

that there was some raw flour was incorporated during the shaping phase.  More likely to occur when dealing with sticky doughs where one is more apt to flour the bench to make the shaping more workable and dough more compliant.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Alan, that sounds like a logical explanation. The area of the white streak could have been formed during shaping. I’ve seen this before with the addition of chocolate malted barley. Since it darkens the dough considerably the raw flour could stand out.

Thanks for the info...

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Where the CB all began.  With changes gleaned within the CB.

  • 70% overall hydration
  • 75% KA AP,  20% KA WW,  5% stone ground rye
  • 100% hydration AP levain - 3 builds over 16 hours
  • ~12% Bassinage with salt mixed in
  • 15.5% PFF

 

  • 30 min autolyse w/Levain
  • bassinage/salt incorporation,   5 min. rest
  • 20 French Folds, 5 min. rest, 20 FFs
  • gentle letter folds at 50, 100, final 40 min rest.
  • divide, pre-shape Abel style, 20 min rest, shape
  • 15 hr retard on couche 
  • 480dF preheat, 460dF bake.  Steam 13 min, release steam, rotate 10 min, 2 min. vent
  • 410g x 3 baguettes

 Easy rollout and fairly good shaping, easy scoring from retard.  This dough sheds a lot of moisture on the couche overnight.  Dough kept extensibility at 19&20 inches.  Thin crust with snap, soft crumb.  But underwhelmed by grigne and only a somewhat open crumb.  I understand that incorporation of some of these changes may take a few more bakes to see further improvements, but so far unconvinced that all changes are contributory to final product vs. prior to changes.  We shall see.

Also unconvinced that levain doughs produce thicker crusts than CY doughs.

 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

In my humble opinion, once the point of a reasonably fermented dough is reached, (nether under or over-proofed)  there is a good deal of personal interpretation. I am a big fan of open but not very open crumb. I also like this color a lot. I also like the darker crusts. Nice bake! 

 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

but the Bouabsas from a few days earlier baked about 2-3 minutes too long and were darker than I wanted.  So I erred on the cautious side yesterday.  

Big open crumb never meant much to me except in a bread like a ciabatta or pan de cristal.  Bouabsas also have a built in tendency toward a very open crumb.  Stated so many times over the past few years.  I'm also in the camp of a moderately open crumb, which is where my breads usually land.  Getting the crumb to have that extreme degree of open seen in the CB was never in the playbook for me.  Tight crumbs are something worth addressing.  

However, as the focus in the second half the CB has been on getting a more open crumb, I joined the party.  In doing so I've modified my approach to dough handling from almost the get-go.  Some with a fair amount of fruition, others with no perceivable benefit.  There is always still more to be learned.

I've used the word grigne to refer both to the bloom as well as the lift from the dough surface.  If I'm wrong then my wife's Parisian cousins have yet to correct me.  

thanks, alan   

Benito's picture
Benito

These sure support your findings that you don't need CY for a thin crust.  The crust does look thin and your baguettes have your usual great ears and grigne (whatever the definition of that is).

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Hello, friends.

 I was a bit confused by the exact meaning of the word, "Grigne."  [pronounced (more or less) la green-yeh] Here is what I was able to glean from the internet.

Gringe: In French, translates to bloom. (The way bread opens along the slashes marks.) 

Ear (Oreille): Refers to the little lip of crust that pulls away from the body of the bread right along the slash marks.

Thoughts? 

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta



adjustments:

- reduces hydration from 65 to 62.5%
- replaced AP flour with “soft” AP flour

- added 2g of diastatic malt powder .3%

result:

- softer crumb

- flatter loaf

- darker nuttier crust

analysis:

- softer flour takes less water here. So my hydration adjustment didn’t do anything due to flour change. Still easy to shape difficult to score

- still not popping open at scores. Likely not enough steam and maybe over proofed. I make them skinny. And the crumb is great. I wonder if it’s already expanded all it should. 
- will try to bake under cloche with a steam tray inside next try to see if that helps any. I might just need to make them girthier. And likely proof less. 

 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Before you go nuts with devising more ways to steam. Work on what you keep coming bake too, and I assume your gut feeling. Mine looked very close to yours and they were very hard to score. Reason over proofing. If you want to be methodical, stop your bulk ferment at 3/4 of the current % of the rise. Me, I would go straight to 1/2  the current rise. Then adjust up or down from there. 

Edited to add.

I would stick with 65% hydration.

 

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta

Yeah. i liked the 65% hydration with the other AP flour better.  though this one is a bit softer, more delicate crumb, the other had better structure.  i really do think the steam will help it open up nicer.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Don't make big changes now that you have produced a loaf with an open crumb and good color. We know pretty conclusively that the crumb openness is deterimined by things that happen before the end of bulk fermentation, and that seems to be about where you want to be. That is not to say that you can't shorten it a little if shaping is causing you to lose a lot of CO2, but you are in the ball park.  For each flour there is an optimum amount of water so you may need to move the hydration a little if you change flour.  I use 1% malted barley flour so you can increase above your 0.3% if you need to without fearing significant adverse consequences.

Now consider the other dimensions you can control: how you divide, how you pre-shape, how long it rests, how you final shape, how long it proofs, if/how long you retard/chill before scoring and baking, how you score, oven temperature and time, and steam.  That is a big list of things that all interact to impact the final result.  So change one thing at a time, see if things get better (or not). Then try something else.  Continue until dawn.

Remember that you are very close to where you want to be, but the terrain is complex and you are mostly working in the dark. You get one look when you slice a loaf open.  Then the darkness returns.

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta

I am actually fairly happy with the crumb.  i feel decent about the shaping. bulk and final proofing time is where i am not very confident.  i think that impacts scoring for me.  also i cannot fit the shaped baguettes in the fridge to cold retard.  who has a fridge that wide?? and mine are only 18 inches long. 

i have some steam boxes i just ordered. i think they'll work great in my whole oven cloche. will be able to try that next week. i think that'll get my scoring to open better and put blisters on the crust.

thanks - james

 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

If you are going to develop some distinctive ears you are probably going to have to reduce the hydration somewhat (at least that was my approach).  62% may be enough, but without retarding you may want to under-proof a little so that you can score without doing too much damage.  It will be easier in the winter when you can just put them outside for a while to chill them down before going to the oven.

Blisters is a different phenomena. My theory is that blisters result from trapped CO2 dissolved in the dough that become supersaturated after the surface starch cooks and becomes gas tight. Then when the CO2 comes out of solution it can't diffuse to the surface and escape and just makes a blister under the now cooked surface starch. See crusticks photo below for an example of what you can do with the right process.  This is another example of a way to maximize the surface area to volume ratio for bread.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

PFF          levain hydration     dough hydration      salt        total dough weight
12.0%                59%                     59.0%             1.8%             1725g
209g levain (28g seed +69g H2O +118g bread flour);  557g H2O ;  934g 10.5% AP + 10g DM + 0.7g IDY;  19.3g salt
Make 214g stiff levain (59%) and 59% hydration autolysed flour/water (mixed at speed 0 for 6 min then kneaded a few turns to homogenize) at 40°F overnight starting at 1940

Combine 1496 cold autolysed flour and water (including condensation)
209g net levain (5g net loss to bowl + scraper)
0.7 IDY sprinkled on top of levain just before mixing
19.3 salt (added during the mix after 4 minutes and before 6 minutes)
Mix 10 min at speed 0; DT=63.0°F
Then 1 min @ speed 4; DT=65.6°F (so 1 min @ speed 4 adds 2.6°F to this dough)
Take 30g for aliquot jar. + 10 g H2O = ~40ml total
1 set of folds just after mix
BF to 150% of original volume
BF time =~5:00 from start of mixing (this is ~1:00 less than without the IDY so there is some speed up but not a huge amount.
Divide into 4 parts (425g), rest 30 min, final shape
Counter proof for ~3:00 (aliquot jar is by now at 100ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 60ml expansion so 200% dough volume growth and dough is floating on the added water)
Retard 1:00@40°F to make it easier to slash
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle

Results:
Big holes in crumb are probably an artifact of folding strips of flabby dough during pre-shaping.  I think the way to fix this is to cut the dough into more rectangular pieces and just roll them up, cinching them occasionally.  Objective is a very symmetric preshaped log. I may back off on the BF just a little to make the dough easier to handle (maybe 140% vs 150% volume increase). The dough continues to expand during the post divide rest so this can be accounted for as part of bulk fermentation. A neighbor who received an uncut loaf sent a photo showing that the loaf she got had a better looking crumb than the one I chose to slice open.
Flavor was good (mild sour with lots of toasty notes from the dark bottom crust) and the crust was delicately crisp.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

I think this batch has the best and most consistent scoring for you to date.  No weaknesses from loaf to loaf.  What seems odd though is that your crumb doesn't display the openness of previous bakes, although the neighbor's report is positive.  I like the idea of an immediate post-mix fold to nurture developing strength.

"Objective is a very symmetric preshaped log."  I've been preaching this for a long time.  Downstream errors are often the result of earlier problems and more costly (in business) and harder to repair.

I feel like a proud "instructor", watching the students catch up to, and surpass the teacher.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Thanks Alan.  Still work to do.
If I can fix the pre-shapeing today I have some small adjustments to incorporate going forward.
The plan is to slowly work up the hydration axis and the first thing I want to do is to pre-dissolve the IDY in some warm water with just a pinch of sugar and then bassinage that in after the levain and the autolysed flour have become mixed. Perhaps next, I want to switch to a 30 minute autolyse at room temperature and observe the difference.  The spiral mixer really wants to do gluten development at ~60% hydration (at least stiff enough to develop substantial shear force in the dough mass) and this shows up as dough temperature increase during mixing.  Your suggestion about freezing the flour, using cold water, and adding ice chips if needed is added to the tools on the belt to arrive at the desired dough temperature.

I am wondering if downsizing the baguettes would reduce the tendency of the straps to break during oven spring.  The strain at rupture has historically been around 15% (higher on over-proofed dough and also on higher hydration dough), so a smaller loaf diameter would subject the surface to less strain while still supporting decent ears.  It is on the list of things to try.

Benito's picture
Benito

I really haven’t baked any other bread as much as baguettes now if you count individual loaves.  My 16th set using a new 10% AP flour from Quebec, I’m hoping it’ll taste French.  It certainly behaved French being more extensible, however, there were a couple of other factors that may have also contributed to the extensibility.  For this set I increased hydration to 71.5% hoping to improve extensibility.  As well, as per Dan’s suggestion I kept and added last week’s aliquot jar dough and used it like a Biga.  The dead yeast in this may have increased extensibility. Finally I was more patient and allowed a full 30 mins bench rest between pre-shaping and shaping.  In any event, I was able to stretch these to a full 16” with little to no contraction during couche rest.  I again limited bulk rise to 25% in the aliquot jar.

I have decent shaping and fair ears and grigne.  I wonder if the ears aren’t quite as pronounced because of the higher hydration or if the longer bench rest in between pre-shape and shaping may have allowed more proofing than expected.  If the crumb is still good I might try cutting back on bulk rise all the way to 20% and allow a longer bench rest to “catch up” a bit without going too far with proofing.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

You are now fully under the spell!  I see that you've co-opted my favorite photo angle in the fifth image.  Yeah, good grigne will do that to you.  These are seemingly darker than you like them, but very much to my liking.  It's getting harder and harder to lend any further insights or knowledge to you and our recent cadre.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I am wondering, with such care taken in the shaping phase and the obvious proper overlapping, what could have caused the bulging at the sides? I breathlessly await the interior composition. They really do look fabulous! I would pay $5.00 American for a 16" of this caliber! 

Benito's picture
Benito

The unsightly bulges at the sides were probably bubbles that formed during pre-shaping and shaping that I didn’t anything about.  

I think next time around I will delete the Biga.

Benito's picture
Benito

The crumb has taken a step backwards in openness with this bake, I am unsure why.  One thought I have is whether the addition of the “Biga” could have affected it.  I don’t think I did a good job of working it into the dough very evenly though out.  If the other baguettes have the same dense areas then that is obviously not it.  If this is the only baguette with that characteristic then that is what I’ll point towards.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

strength, poolish for extensibility

Benito's picture
Benito

Sorry for stealing your camera angles, but they are too good not to steal Alan.

This “Biga” though probably isn’t a standard Biga being 1 week old.  I have no experience with bigas whatsoever, but this was such a small amount of dough compared with the levain or the main dough.  In any event, I didn’t do a good job making sure it was worked in well enough and it may not have dispersed throughout.  I certainly didn’t want the biga for strength that’s for sure.

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta

Much like a ciabatta crumb!

How much do you guys target to deflate during shaping?  i do give them a good pat down but not to the point of popping all air bubbles and i'm quite forceful on my roll and press to try to prevent large pockets.  

On your next sets can you include a shot of the scored loaf if possible (i know, we try to get it in the oven asap after  scoring) or maybe even a shot of par baked after steaming phase, please?  That would help me out.

Also, anyone tried tangzhong in baguette?

-james

Benito's picture
Benito

I give a pat down, but not too aggressively, this time obviously I should have been a bit more aggressive.  You can really see the bulges from the larger alveoli just under the dough’s surface.

I haven’t tried tangzhong in a baguette before.

Here’s a scored photo from today.

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta

Thanks. That helps a lot. I’m not scoring them correctly. Too straight in the middle and too close together. 
I have that exact tray you’re using there. That’s what I use for loading the baguettes too. 
I don’t think I can bake baguettes more than once a week. We’re just not going through them fast enough. I still have my other breads. Are you eating them all?

new steam box coming in today though and I’m excited to try them out. 

Benito's picture
Benito

Glad to help James.

Believe it or not with just the two of us in the house we are eating almost all the bread other than those loaves we bring over to friend’s places which doesn’t happy much anymore.  We’ll always eat one on bake day then the other two are frozen and eaten with a meal that is usually quite light on two other occasions for dinner.  The other breads I bake we usually have for lunch.  I used to buy lunch at work but since I’ve been baking weekly I’ve just been eating my bread.

That oxo tray works really well for launching baguettes onto the baking steel.  I bought it for that purpose and haven’t baked anything on it yet, but it’s good that it could be used for other baking.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Been there.  Done that.  In my experience it comes out looking like Wonder Bread. Very fine, uniform crumb.

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

I like the profile a lot and the color on the bake. I think the large air pockets are what kept the crumb next to them denser by taking up the space. Not denser dough or some remnant biga. The extra water created a little more unruly crumb but it is nothing you can't tame

Nice to see you keeping up the steady improvements. I checked out for a few days to visit with grandkids and I come back and everyone else seems lost in the weeds or off the rails. Dan is wrestling gluten into submission, Doc is working with bagel dough! Alan has ended up back at the starting line, and everyones crust goes snap, crackle, pop! Will is now using words that sounds like Greek to me;-)  Nice to see some new baguettiers in the ranks.

Benito's picture
Benito

Hope you had a good visit with your grandkids, family is so important nowadays.

Interesting your comment on the denser areas.  It will be interesting to see what the crumb on the other baguettes show.  I don’t recall having those large bulging air pockets before, but certainly higher hydration will make fermentation go faster and the dough definitely fermented faster than usual.  I thought that it might have been related to the addition of the old aliquot dough, but maybe it was simply the higher hydration.  I was quite happy that I was able to shape the higher hydration now without any problems.  The higher hydration may also have been why I was able to get the extensibility I did today to finally get 16” baguettes.  

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

This crumb to me is the holy grail! I really mean it these are window display-worthy, at the very least!  I think I may have mentioned this before, you have a good photographic eye. The salads look quite appetizing too! 

Benito's picture
Benito

Thank you Will, that is kind of you to say.  I’ll slice another baguette tonight with another miso marinated roasted vegetable salad so I’ll have another chance to examine this bake.  I do like photography, but of course the best photo of the bunch was done borrowing Alan’s classic perspective.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

PFF       levain hydration      dough hydration      salt      total dough wt
12.0%            59%                        59.0%           1.8%          1725
209g levain (28g seed+69g H2O+118g bread flour);    557 H2O;    934 AP + 10 DM + 0.7 IDY    19.3 salt
Make 214g stiff levain (59%) and 59% hydration autolysed flour/water (mixed at speed 0 for 6 min then kneaded a few turns to homogenize) at 40°F overnight starting at 2015

9 hrs later (levain fermentation time is the same as the cold autolyse time but at ~84°F):
Combine 1493g cold autolysed flour and water (including condensation)
209g net levain (5g net loss to bowl + scraper)
0.7 IDY sprinkled on top of levain just before mixing
19.3 salt (added during the mix after 4 minutes and before 6 minutes)
Mix 10 min at speed 0; DT=62.7F
Then 2 min @ speed 4; DT=68.4°F (so 2 min @ speed 4 adds 5.3°F to this dough)
Take 30g for aliquot jar. + 10 g H2O = ~40ml total
1 set of folds just after mix; press dough down to uniform thickness in 5L rectangular Cambro container
BF to ~150% of original volume
BF time =~4:00 from start of mixing
Divide into 4 parts (425g), pre-shape into uniform 10" logs, rest 30 min, final shape by rolling out to 20"
Counter proof for ~1:30 (by that time the aliquot jar is at 80ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 40ml expansion so 130% dough volume growth (230% of post mix dough volume) and dough is not yet floating on the added water)
Retard 2:00@40°F to make it easier to slash
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle

Results:
This was a pretty good bake.  Crumb is not as open as some higher hydration loaves, but it is fairly uniform, and everything worked the way it was supposed to.  Could have proofed a little longer but these are fine. I started using the aliquot jar to track volume increase during both the rest after dividing and proofing. Because the dough starts cold and CO2 production is by its nature an exponential process, it really accelerates after it gets to 120% of initial volume.  Added an extra minute of high speed mixing (up from 1 to 2 minutes) to see if the gluten development was negatively impacted (it was not) and to increase the dough temperature a little (saw the same 2.6°F increase per minute of mixing that I observed yesterday). Excellent crust, nice flavor, overall very good bread.  But it can be better.

The next set of experiments will increase hydration and examine a few minor points along the way.  First, an effort to get the yeast off to a better start by dissolving it in some warm water with a tiny bit of sugar then bassinage it into the 59% dough and in the process raise the dough hydration to 62%.  Second, move up to 65% total hydration and see how the results compare with the previous batch run at that hydration.  Third, a big change to eliminate the overnight cold autolyse and observe what happens with a 30 minute room temperature autolyse (again at 65%) and the other changes that have accrued over the last few weeks.  I am just about out of diastatic malt and my new supply is being shipped via USPS so we will see whether I have a batch or two without any added DM.

The weather is supposed to get really hot over the weekend and I don't want to run the a/c and the oven simultaneously so I may or may not skip a few days, but I should be through this next series by the end of next week.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I have to take my hat off to you, and the other very methodical bakers participating in the C.B.  It is fun to watch how controlled and systematically, tiny adjustments are made to reach a defined goal. 

 Where did you order yore diastatic malt powder from? I am pretty low too and have not ordered yet. I usually get mine from Stan at the NY Baker. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I picked this one from Amazon.  They happen to ship from Claremont CA by USPS which means that I get it four days before their earliest potential delivery date. It also is a Red Star product with a 12 month shelf life (though the pound I am just finishing has been doing a fine job since August of 2011).  The enzyme activity level on the new bag is indicated as 60° Lintner.

I think this may be the least expensive (Barry Farms) which is the source of the last batch I purchased. But they ship from Ohio.

 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

If you can get to a home brewer's store they likely have diastatic M.B.  Twice at two different home brewer shops in Portland OR years part, I found it, and it is really fairly cheap at the source.  Your shipping costs are use of shoe leather.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I will have a look at both links. 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Lots of other goodies too! Too bad, I don't use enough B.M. syrup to order that 22oz! 

Benito's picture
Benito

I also order from Amazon and this is the one that I have.  Hoosier Hill Farm Old Fashioned Dry Malt (Diastatic) Powder 1.5 lb. https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B008T9LX3C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_VsPuFb4A4S203

Yes it is the Canadian store, but the product I believe is US.

How are you guys storing your diastatic malt?  It’s shelf life isn’t very long, can it be stored and last longer in the freezer?

Benito's picture
Benito

Your scientific methods are excellent Doc, we are learning a lot from your small changes each time.  I would have run out of flour weeks ago if I tried anything like you have been doing so meticulously.  Thanks for posting all your experiments so we all can learn from them.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

With NYU opening for in-person learning. My building is beginning to repopulate. That in turn repopulates the work order queue. Nothing I can't handle, but it did preclude sneaking in a midweek bake.

 I decided to go back to the 75-minute bulk @ 74f I used in bake #1. I will also go back to my fumbling Hammalman, method of preshape/shape. Lastly, following Doc, I will dissolve the same .25 grams of IDY in the water and barley malt syrup mixture at 90F.  I will also keep my fingers crossed. Luck does play a roll in my method of baking...Smile. 

I hope to have this bake in the bank, around sunrise tomorrow. 

 

 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Time for a fresh bake! Oh yeah!

Fried chicken cutlet with hot peppers, red onions, and polish mustard!

Benito's picture
Benito

Oh that sandwich looks awesome Will.  Now I’m hungry.

Benito's picture
Benito

Here is the crumb from the second baguette from yesterday’s batch and the crumb is much better than the first. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

That is very nice indeed!  Random but uniform. Not quite fractal.  With many of the characteristics of an English muffin.

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

Sometimes when things aren't working, it is better to give it a rest and come back to it. I finally have a brief pause in the action around here so I can get back to baking. I will be returning to fishing guide work soon and that means a lot of bread for boat lunches. Covid torpedoes be damned! To make up for lost time and stock up for the future I did a double batch from a single mix.

  • 1000 grams Wheat Montana AP It really is a nice baggie flour if you see it on the shelf
  • 750 ml water 20 grams salt 1/2 tsp IDY 
  • Mix flour water yeast autolyse 20 minutes add salt add 50 gr water (held back) mix a couple of minutes by hand rest 10 minutes mix again for a couple more minutes  2 coil folds spaced apart by 40 minutes divide after 2 hours and refrigerated for 18 hours It was really dry here so I probably ended up closer to 76 or 77% water overall
  • Take out of fridge divide into 290 gr pieces and letter fold rest 15 to 20 minutes then shape and proof for 45 minutes
  • Bake at 480 with steam for 10 minutes and 14 more minutes, rearranging in the oven as necessary.

pre-bulk

 This is ready for bulk retard. The dough had risen to middle rim overnight which is more rising than I like see. I should have folded it again in the fridge last night. As a result it was very elastic and strong and fought back after being rested for only 15 minutes. The second dough was rested longer and was easier to elongate. I take the second dough out 30 minutes after the first repeat the same steps to make sure the oven is ready for them. It is easier for me than retarding the shaped ones.

6 times

The straps held together a little better for some reason this time.The lower torpedoes where from the dough that had a lot of resistance and the slender version was rested longer with less tension in the pre-shape. 

crusty ears

Grigne from ear to ear. I was pretty pleased with this bake overall and while the flavor and crust was not on par with the french flour it was within shouting distance.

crumb

I stretched these hard enough for the bubbles to come to the surface while rolling and I did not expect the crumb to survive but it reabsorbed them and they stayed intact. Go figure

Benito's picture
Benito

Those are awesome Don, you must be pleased.  The crumb is what I always expect from your baguettes nice and open and irregular as it should be.  You always get nice thin raised straps (can I call those grigne) and as such because they are so thin and delicate they break sometimes, which don’t bother me one bit.  All around great bake.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I especially love the delicate ears! Tell me more about these fishing trips? I love fishing. it's in my blood. Both granddads were fishermen. I think the place I am most at peace is the Hudson canyon 100mi off the coast of NYC. Nowadays most of my fishing is from the beach.  

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

We trout fisherman use row boats and ply clean mountain rivers with fly rods. Forty years of it and I am looking at the end of the line. It's almost exclusively catch and release so my filet knife gets little use. Fishermen are like poets they are born that way and not made.

fishing

I have to provide the lunches so they get a lot sandwiches with my bread. Three boats next week so 9 lunches a day. I could use a guy like you with your sandwich expertise.

Benito's picture
Benito

Wow that is quite the service you provide Don, they are lucky people to get to have sandwiches with your homemade bread.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

I can fish...

Bread is par excellence, as always.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Bluefish in caper sauce.

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

A handsome lad of science. Is that a fluke and a flounder? Just guessing, I don't know what that one in your right hand is.

I think I figured out where my inspiration for baguette shaping comes from. 

fish

It doesn't hurt that my hands are permanently cupped for shaping batons from pulling on the oars either.

Benito's picture
Benito

Jealous of you all who fish!  

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Speckled pike? 

Left-hand Fluke, Flounder would have the eye on the other side. I am going to guess porgy in the right hand? 

 

 

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

Salmo Trutta for those fluent in Latin

alfanso's picture
alfanso

piranha for 2 hours near Manaus in the Amazon, that was my singular fishing expedition in Aug. '65 - I know that date because "I Got You Babe" was #1 on AM radio then.  Fluke or flounder, I dunno.  This was out on Montauk point, at the tip of Eastern Long Island, where my father and his father would go by train back in the 30's.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

This trip Originated in Montauk L.I. destination the Hudson canyon, at the edge of the continental shelf. 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I am loving the view from your office window! The breaded flounder filet was added to the mix for my wife's benefit.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I was hoping to have this batch tucked in and to bed by 10:00 PM. for a 6:00 AM bake. No such luck, looking like 9:00 AM at best. I am thinking to split the workload more evenly today, by putting the dough to bed still in bulk. However, too much of a leap right now. I'm stubborn. So I'll stay up to get the baguettes shaped, couched, and into the cooler.

No photo description available.

Boy, you guys are going to turn me into a scientist yet! At the 75 minute mark, the dough crest is slightly above the 25% mark.  Now directly into pre-shape and a 20-minute rest. 

 The baguettes are fully shaped and put to cold ferment/proof. Time: Just shy of 1:00 AM. Looking good for a 9:00 AM bake. Timer set for 7 hours. Good night!

At the halfway mark of cool retard/slow proof, the baguettes are looking good as to strength and elasticity. Aesthetically, not my best shaping job.  Fingers still crossed, I have had on occasion seen worse shaping rescued by a nice grigne (bloom) That being said, rushing the process is never a good idea. 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Is the window from slightly under proofed to over-proofed really this small? 

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

Next time you should try a retard in bulk. Get a good nights sleep and then shape, proof, and bake. Just to see if it works for you like it does for Benny and I. I also would recommend proofing seam up to help with scoring and crust. MTCW or my two drachmas worth

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

That will be the plan. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I am curious.  What was the flour and the overall hydration?
And how much IDY was in the mix?

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Gold Metal AP

65%

.25%

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

The crust:

The Grigne, (bloom) was disappointing for sure. That being said I was able to achieve a crisp, crackly, and well-set crust. The color is pleasing without being obviously burnt. 

The crumb:

The light yellow crumb is reminiscent of hand-worked artisan bread. Nothing to complain about there.

The openness, I am more than satisfied with, considering my skill level and the relatively low hydration. 

Conclusion:

There is no denying, aesthetically these baguettes are not as appealing to the eye as bake #1 & #2. That being said, my personal opinion is that the dense crumb of bake #1 & #2 is a far more glaring defect, than is the lack of bloom in this bake #3. The dense crumb is a major defect that has ramifications on the palatability of the baguette. The lack of bloom in no way affected the palatability. Therefore, I have to score this an overall improvement over the previous two bakes. 

kendalm's picture
kendalm

might I suggest trying 2 at a time.  My domestic would see a significant drop in burst quality after 3 at a time.  just a thought :) 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I have observed that after adding the cup of boiling water to the red hot tray, the oven struggles to hold 450F. Then once the oven is perged at 12 minutes, the temp shoots back up, north of 500F

kendalm's picture
kendalm

on my oven thread.  Your oven is converting that water to steam of course that drains the heat.  Unfortunately 12 minutes later is not going to help burst them.  I think you right on the fringe for real popping loaves and just feel this is worth a try.  also if you can raise your deck (I dont know if its in the middle or what), but the higher up the better 'IMHO' 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

One at a time of course

1. The same steaming method with only two baguettes.

2. Four Baguettes with only Sivias towel and sprayed dough. No flashing water to steam. 

So just so we are on the same page this is a late 1990's vintage gas oven. The burner is on the bottom. That being said you still like my rack high?

Thanks again, If I feel up to it I just might whip up a batch tomorrow! 

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

Is always a good thing. Another sandwich masterpiece. That is the business you should consider looking into. Was there adequate steam for these during the first part of the bake? They kind of look like they wanted more steam to burst fully. I will be looking forward to seeing your next attempt after retarding in bulk. 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I don't think so. Same same. On opening the oven I am greeted with a face full of steam. At some point, both of these elements will come together. On that day the sky will open confetti will fall along with accolades! smile...

Benito's picture
Benito

Nice improvement in crumb Will, I agree with you, that is more important than ears and grigne.  As always, your sandwiches look amazing.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Okay, I messed something up big time today! I mixed a dough this morning same old same old. I bench B.F. till 25%

(or so.)Now here is were we enter uncharted territory. The plan was to retard in bulk, I was thinking the same 8hrs. I poped the dough into the cooler and off to shopping. When I returned, 2 hrs. later Boom! the dough is near the 4Lt. mark! New plan I shaped the Baguettes back to chill while I preheat the oven. I am thinking? I should have retarded directly out of the mixer? Who knows. Anyway news flash my old G/E range has a smaller top oven. Today I will split the load between both ovens! Nothing much to learn here. However, I will push forward! Mush!!!

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

What I learned today:

1. The top oven leaks steam like a Mofo! Now I remember why I stopped using it! 

2. Halfing the load in the oven seems like the direction I will be exploring further. 

 

 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Will, your baguette scoring has improved by a quantum leap...

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

That much dough will chill slower than a smaller batch. You might try folding it again after it has been in the fridge for an hour to even out the temps in the dough. It shouldn't double in the fridge. Your oven being leaky  is a tough one to overcome. I thought the covered pans would help. Maybe more fine tuning will get you there.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

PFF     levain hydration    dough hydration     salt         batch weight
12.0%         60%                       65%              1.9%          1748 net after mix

202 levain (28+68+112 bread flour)  +   555 H2O + (53 H2O + 0.7IDY)  +  926 AP + 10 DM + 0.7 IDY  +  20 salt
Make 208g stiff levain (60%) and 60% hydration autolysed flour/water at 40°F overnight starting at 2000 (mixed at speed 0 for 6 min then kneaded a few turns by hand to homogenize before refrigerating)

Combine:
1474 cold autolysed flour and water (including condensation)
201g net levain (5g net loss to bowl + scraper)
0.7 IDY + 53g (100°) warm water + pinch sugar - mix a few minutes ahead and bassinage in at end of slow mix
20 salt (added during the mix after 4 minutes and before 6 minutes)

Mix 10 min at speed 0; mix in salt; bassinage in yeast + water
Then 1 min @ speed 4; DT=67.6°F
Take 30g for aliquot jar. + 10 g H2O = ~40ml total
1 set of folds just after mix
Fold again at 2:00 (2 sets)
Fold again at 3:00 (1 set)
BF to ~150% of original volume, finishing ~4:00 from start of mixing
Divide into 4 parts (430g)  and preshape (5 min), rest 30 min, final shape (5 min)
Counter proof for ~1:05 (aliquot jar is now at 80ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 40ml expansion so 133% dough volume growth and dough is floating on the added water) (233% of post-mix volume)
Retard 1:00@40°F to make it easier to slash
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle

Crumb is better and ears are not a good as they have been.  I think this batch was slightly overproofed, in part because it is warm here (82° in the kitchen this morning and even though the dough started out cool, it was near kitchen temperature when it was divided) and I should have put them into retard sooner so they accumulated another ~30 min of proof time while they were cooling down.

I am now routinely using Abel Sierra's approach to pre-shaping and it gives good control and it is relatively easy to produce a symmetric preshaped baguette. A 30 minute rest give enough time for the dough to completely relax so that final shaping is easy, though at 65% hydration and warm it was delicate (but from the photo it looks successful).

For some reason this batch has a more assertive acidity which is unusual for this starter.  I would like to better understand how to replicate that.  The flavor is excellent.  I tasted the residual dough that was in the aliquot jar and it was really tangy which matched the finished baguette flavor.

Even with the one hour of pre-bake retard, the scoring was a bit ragged (which is why I judged it to be overproofed) and deflated some surface bubbles. As usual, when that happens, the ears are not good and this case made that point again.  My suspicion is that this flour (at 10.5%) really wants to be mixed to a lower hydration (maybe 62-63%) so next time I will probably go there but repeat the long cold autolyse.  Since the viscosity is a strong function of temperature, it may be possible to go to a little higher hydration when the weather is a few degrees cooler.

Mixing the IDY with warm (100°F) water and a pinch of sugar seemed to get it off to a better start even though there was very little IDY in the batch (0.065%).

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Photos are self-explanatory

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

   PFF       levain hydration    dough hydration      salt      batch size
12.0%              62%                     62.0%              2.0%      1755
208g levain (28 + 72 + 116 AP flour)   + 584g H2O +    932 AP + 10 diastatic malt +    21.40 salt
Make 216g stiff levain (62%) and 62% hydration autolysed flour/water (mix at speed 0 for 6 min then knead a few turns to homogenize) then knead in IDY and refrigerate at 40°F overnight starting at 2000

Combine:
1518g cold autolysed flour and water (including condensation)
[0.7g IDY kneaded into flour and water and included in the autolyse]
211g net levain
21.3 salt (added during the mix after 4 minutes and before 6 minutes)

Mix 10 min at speed 0;
Then 1 min @ speed 4; Dough temperature=67.0°F
Take 30g for aliquot jar. + 10 g H2O = ~40ml total

Fold just after mix (1 set)
Fold again at 1:00 (1 set)
Fold again at 2:00 (1 set)
BF to ~140% of original volume (~3:30 from start of mixing)

Divide into 4 parts (~434g)  and preshape (5 min), rest 20 min, final shape (5 min)

Counter proof for ~0:45;  aliquot jar is now at 68ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 28ml expansion so about double dough volume growth and dough is floating on the added water)

Retard 1:45@40°F to make it easier to slash

Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle

Insights:

Reducing the dough hydration to 62% improved dough handling marginally, but the ears now are robust enough to pick up a  baguette by its ears.

Incorporating the IDY into the cold autolyse had no observable impact. There was no indication when the autolysed flour and water (and IDY) was removed from the refrigerator that there was any yeast in the mix. After mixing, the dough was quite extensible, though somewhat sticky for the first two folds. The resulting dough had adequate strength after the third set of folds and was sitting high at 3:30 into bulk fermentation and the aliquot jar indicated that it had expanded to ~140% of post-mix volume. Shaping was easy though the dough was soft.  45 minutes of counter proof was enough, so I was comfortable with retarding at that point for 1:45 to stiffen them up to improve handling and slashing.

The slightly stiffer dough produced nice ears, though among the 20 slashes there are multiple examples of both good and bad. And since it was all the same dough that has to be related to an inconsistent lame operator.  Maybe inconsistent blade rotation. After they were out of the oven I noticed that most of the straps had not broken which is an indication that there was somewhat less oven spring. Color is good indicating that my new batch of diastatic malt has about the same activity as the last batch.

Next I am going to shorten up the autolyse to 30 min, but incorporate the levain and the yeast (but not the salt) when the components are combined, then mix in the salt after the 30 min autolyse is finished.  With the omission of a cold 10 hr autolyse, the dough temperature will be higher and I expect the bulk fermentation will want to be shorter. I will use the aliquot jar to determine when to divide (probably @140% of post mix volume).


And Alan's classic shot (to emphasize the fairly nice ears on this batch):

alfanso's picture
alfanso

which can work for as well as against us.  Complacency doesn't seem to be in big demand around here!  The scoring is really consistent here.  And the replication from bake to bake is noteworthy.

"After they were out of the oven I noticed that most of the straps had not broken which is an indication that there was somewhat less oven spring." OR, just maybe the distance between scores works out to be on the money.

Kinda cool seeing Benny & you adopting the "money shot", which I'm certain that I appropriated from someone else.  To me, if ya wanna impress the neighbors and relatives, this is the photo!  In fact, I have one printed out on canvas and hanging in my kitchen.

Something I'm just starting to play around with, as MT and Abel do, is to proof the batons seam side up on the couche.  I don't know whether you do or not.  Not advocating it as I'm just getting into the sandbox now, but worth a consideration.  

When this CB is finally put to bed, anyone down the pike who can put themselves through the evolution of the crew's output on these pages, should be impressed, professional or not. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Thanks Alan.  At some point in history I began to proof seam side up, more likely because I saw it in a hieroglyph than in a YouTube video, but I only think about it when I can't find a seam.  That means that I have to roll the dough over, then roll it onto the transfer peel, then roll if off onto the pan, but there is a rhythm that goes with that too.

Benito's picture
Benito

I’ve been proofing seam side up all along because I find it easier to track where the seam is that way to ensure that it ends up seam down when baking.

Your most recent baguettes look great Doc, your work on the ears and crumb is paying off.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

I’ve tried everything imaginable, but often have problems finding the seams. Don’t roll them much, so you would think they’d be visible.

Since many pros couche seam side up, so do I.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

I think we've chatted on this before Dan.  I begin the rolling with the seam facing up, and there really is never a true roll.  It is a rocking motion back and forth as the cupped hands move from center to ends.  In theory - and in actual practice if I never perform a true roll around the entire circumference of the baton, then when I end, the seam is still facing up.

Sure, there is the recalcitrant stubborn kid who refuses to abide, but that is really quite few and far between.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Don’t know why I have this on-going problem. I’ve tried all recommendations. ...just don’t know.

Today, I rolled out Able’s (Benny’s version) baguettes with the seam side up. Rolled according to Alan’s instructions. Seams were barely, and some parts partly visible.

I wonder if it is the fact that I don’t use much, if any, additional flour when shaping.

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

I do the pre-shape and the proof seam up to allow the dough to relax more. I roll out seam down and don't make any full rotations until the very end of shaping. The seam is usually obvious because I hardly compress the barrel when rolling because it is already the right diameter after shaping. Mostly I just stretch and taper the ends trying not to put a spiral into the seam. I can always find the seam but lately it requires reading glasses. My favorite part of the whole exercise is the final welding of the seam.There is something so satisfying about pulling the final fold over and hearing it pop against the bench. I envy the pro bakers that get to roll out dozens at a time. After my usual three at a time I feel like I am just getting the hang of it and there is no more dough.

Benito's picture
Benito

I just recently with my last bake, stretched and rolled with the seam down as I saw Abel doing and that did seem to work quite well for me.  So Don you’ve been rolling seem side down as well.  How about everyone else?  Until recently I rolled seam side up.

Then was we have discussed, seam side up in the couche.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Doc, that crumb is very uniform and plenty open enough for me. I am super impressed with your persistence. It has definitely paid off...

It is evident that all of the bakers that seriously applied themselves to this CB eventually produced excellent baguettes. Every one of them.

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

Benito's picture
Benito

Awesome sandwich Will.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Benny, is it possible that the shape of your baguettes are helping the crumb?

Are they larger in diameter than the skinny sticks that some of us are shaping?

I know Doc's baguettes are larger than typical.

 

Benito's picture
Benito

That is certainly possible Dan, they are usually about 290 g of dough for each and I try to get them 14-16" in length sometimes more successfully than other times.  But if the baguette is more open crumb then more volume of air then it might be greater diameter as well no?

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

So, assuming 15” long @ 290g. 

Side loaded baguettes ~21” long.

15/21=71.4%

How would you determine the dough weight with a relative circumference if the shaped dough was 21” long?

Benito's picture
Benito

So at 290 g for 15" that would give us 19.33 g/inch.

So for a 21" dough at the same 19.33 g/in 406 g.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Thanks, Benny. Simple math solution.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

It is a little tempting to go back to the formulas that produced stellar visual results for me, but the search for perfect taste and texture continues to dominate.

For this bake KAAP was used to bake Abel’s hybrid baguettes. The hydration, including the oil was 70.5%. 3% olive oil was added with the idea of softening the chew. It seems that was successful. 

Notice the difference in the ears on both loaves. The top baguette was scored with a very low angle to the dough. Somewhat similar to filleting a fish. The bottom bread was scored in a more (but not totally) straight down angle.

Conclusion - oil does in fact tenderize the bread.

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Good demonstration of the effect of blade angle and ears Dan.  Did the 3% oil only soften the crumb, did it soften the crust too?  I wouldn’t particularly want to soften the crust unless the intention was to use the baguettes for sandwiches.  How prominent was the flavour of the olive oil at 3%?

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Softened the crumb, but not the crust. I didn’t notice a taste difference, but it could have been slight. I did use a light olive oil, though. The light version doesn’t have a strong taste.

Benito's picture
Benito

Here is my take on Alan’s Sesame Semolina Baguettes.  I used his formula generally but made a few changes.  I added 0.07% IDY and also did an overnight Saltolyse and levain build.  I forgot how low hydration this was going to be so in the future I wouldn’t do the overnight saltolyse and would  instead just mix the levain IDY water and flours in the morning then add salt 20 mins later.  I ended bulk at 25% rise in the aliquot jar and placed the dough en bulk in the fridge until the next afternoon.  26 hours or so after the start of cold retard the dough was divided and pre-shaped and left to rest in loose rolls for 20 mins.  Shaping was a bit of a mismash of different shaping techniques but I think I like shaping ala Abel the most and will try to stick to that in the future.  These were very easy to roll out to 16” and in fact with the first one I had to cut one end because it rolled out to 18” way too long for my steel.  It was a challenge to roll these on the wet towel and roll them in the sesame seeds, each time I felt like I was degassing them a bit and then stretching them as well.  I wonder if the next time I was to make these again, if I should proof to 20% and then after shaping let them have a bench rest at warm room temperature to try to bounce back a bit from the shaping, wetting and sesame seed applications.

Having never baked anything with semolina to such a high percentage before I didn’t know what to expect, but the dough was nice and extensible. The flavour of this baguette though, for a sesame seed fanatic is just outstanding.  I’m not sure what the Semola Rimacinata is contributing for flavour but this is my favourite tasting baguette I’ve ever made.   I dare say that it tastes better than the sesame baguette I used to buy at my favourite local bakery Blackbird.

The crumb has a lovely yellow hue from the Semola and is nice and tender without too much chew.  The crust is very crispy with that amazing sesame flavour.

I have a line of dense crumb near the center of the baguette that when I examine it closely, I can faintly see white flour.  I suspect that the dense crumb section is because of raw flour that got into the middle of this baguette when pre-shaping or shaping.  I’ll need to be a better job of brushing off the excess flour.  If it wasn’t for the yellow hue of the semolina I would never have seen this line in the dense area.  I wonder if this causes some of the density in baguette crumb we see?

Anyhow, these baguette taste so good I just downed one plain no butter or anything for dinner.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Along with very few others, these rank right up there for me too.  You did a fantastic job on these.  Great scoring with lovely dark coloration to the crust and a nice open crumb.  I think you'll find that semola r. just doesn't adapt really well to a very open crumb, but these are just dandy.

It's funny that I've never had the degassing problem when rolling on the wet towel or in the seeds.

If they last as long as breakfast tomorrow, you'll find that the toast is every bit as good and maybe even better.

(I may have to start charging royalty fees for the "wave-form" photos)

Benito's picture
Benito

Thanks for sharing your formulas with us Alan, this one I really LOVE.  I didn’t know that I shouldn’t expect such an open crumb with the Semola R, that is good to know so I won’t be too disappointed when it isn’t as open as the other baguettes.

I do find that the dough feels very delicate so when picking it up to transfer to the wet towel, then a bit of a roll on that, then picking up to transfer to the cookie tray with the sesame seeds to try to get a good coating of them, then picking them up yet again to transfer them to the couche, I felt as if they were getting degassed.

I think when I make these again, and I definitely will because I REALLY like them, I will stop bulk at 20% and then after shaping give them some bench time to puff up a bit.  That way they might recover from my manhandling.

I’d be happy to pay royalties for your stolen photo angles if I was somehow able to monetize my photography.   I’ll let you know once I’m making $ off the photos.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Curious what the formula was that you used, aside from the IDY boost.  40/60 AP/Semola r. with 67% hydration?  As simple as pie.  What was the individual weight of these beauties?

Benito's picture
Benito

I otherwise followed your formula with 60/40 Semola R/AP and the 67% hydration.  Each baguette was about 325 g each or so.  Have you tried it with higher hydration Alan?  I wonder if we could get it to open up a bit more with more hydration?

alfanso's picture
alfanso

www.thefreshloaf.com/node/60723/weekend-bakery-semolina-and-sesame-baguettes-alfanso-style

This has the reverse percentages of AP & semola r. but I used the T150 whole grain tritordeum instead of the semola.  72% hydration.  I'll suppose that had I used true semola it would have opened up a little more.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

It is going to be a while before I get around to trying that, but they are beautiful.

I might be tempted to retard the shaped loaves then coat them with sesame seeds just before baking since they should be stiff at that point if they are fully chilled.

Benito's picture
Benito

I was thinking of that, but I would have to flour the dough/couche sufficiently to prevent them from sticking once shaped and in the couche and back in the fridge.  I guess I’d need to brush off the excess flour, then wet the surface of the dough and then roll in the sesame seeds.  Cold dough would definitely be easier to deal with though.

I think I also just need more practice as this is only the second time I’ve ever applied seeds to the outside of dough.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

A Big Change!

This bake was a typical New Orleans Po Boy bread. It is the Cajun rendition of the Baguette. It is similar to the baguette in shape, but the chew, crumb, and texture is quite different. My wife likes these.

The formula can be SEEN HERE. A Frenchman might pass out! It calls for vegetable shortening and sugar... But it do make a mean shrimp PoBoy. I have the spreadsheet with ingredients in grams if anyone is interested. They can be made easily in a morning.

Hey Will, you might like this bread.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

I suppose that they are meant to be soft and spongy and to exhibit a pale color and dense crumb.

This should further dispel the notion that IDY's get thin crusts and Levain based breads are doomed to thick crusts.  Both your bake #3031 ;-)  and Benny's bake just above this are Levain bakes with very thin crusts.

Yep, there are no rules that crusts must be crunchy and crumbs are destined to be open.  As many variations of breads as there are regions of the world.  As my father would say "that's what makes the world go 'round".

Benito's picture
Benito

These might make a mean bahn mi as well Dan.  Have you guys had banh mi before, so delicious.  The crust is super thin and shatters.  In fact, there are usually fractures in the crust.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Never had Bahn Mi before, but I understand there is an outstanding Vietnamese bakery southeast of New Orleans. They claim there is often a waiting line for their fresh bread.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Other than the fact that you didn't use lard, it sure looks like a Cuban bread recipe.  Maybe it is a vegan Cuban bread.  If I was going to open the crumb up, I would start by deleting the fat and maybe the sugar.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Doc, how does fat and sugar work to reduce open crumb?

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Go read about it in "Bread Science". See the bottom of THIS LINK

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

This worked fine, but there are certainly better ways to get to this end point.

PFF       levain hydration    dough hydration      salt      total batch weight
12.0%             77%                  62.0%               2.0%           1755g
227 levain (28 seed + 88 H2O + 119 BF -8 losses)  +  565 H2O  +  932 AP + 10 diastatic malt  +  21.40 salt
Make 235g stiff levain (77%) by including in the levain all excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 60% hydration

Combine:
565g cold water (refrigerated)
932g AP flour
10g diastatic malt
21.3g salt after 4 minutes and before 6 minutes
Mix 7 minutes at speed 0
Refrigerate 2 hr then take out and let it autolyse 9 hr overnight at room temperature (72°F)

In the AM - Mix 10 min at speed 0 to incorporate:
autolysed flour, water, salt + 227g net levain
0.7 IDY

Then mix 10 min @ speed 4; DT=80°F

Take 30g for aliquot jar. + 10 g H2O = ~40ml total

1 set of folds just after mix +
folds at 0:20, 1:00, 1:30
BF to ~125% of original volume (48ml on aliquot jar)(2:30 from start of mixing)
Very little gas lost during preshaping; dough handled easily

Divide into 4 parts (~430g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 30 min, final shape (6 min)

At the completion of shaping, the aliquot jar was at 55ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 15ml expansion so about 150% dough volume increase) and dough was not yet floating on the added water though within a few minutes it did break loose and float with the top of the dough above the meniscus).

Counter proof for ~0:45
Retard 2:00 @40°F to make it easier to slash - with significant volume increase during the retard.

Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle.

The slashes were all at a shallow angle per Danny's demo and the ears are more pronounced than on some prior batches when the slash was more perpendicular to the surface of the dough. Also tried to score in a more narrow lane down the middle of the loaf to reduce the circumferential extent of the slash, and the most visible consequence seems to be that none of the straps are broken!  I will attempt to confirm this result in a future bake.

Bulk ferment was to 125% of post-mix volume (according to the aliquot jar though the dough temperature was probably a little above that of the aliquot jar so perhaps the real end point was a little above 125%. In this case there was no obvious bubble popping or deflation during pre-shaping.  The loaf that is sectioned below was the most resistant to extension at final shaping with some larger alveoli which I have come to expect when I can feel bubbles in the dough as it is rolled out.

Getting the 77% hydration levain and the 60% hydration autolysed flour/water/salt to combine required a substantially longer mix (10 min @ speed 4 vs 2 min @ speed 4) than I was planning, and as a result the dough temperature climbed to over 80*F before it was satisfactorily smooth - and it still took multiple folds over the first 90 minutes of BF before it felt right. But after that it behaved very well.  I don't know if the need for additional folds was due to the warm dough not mixing completely because of the lower viscosity or because the salt was in the dough for the warm autolyse or for some other reason.  This did not seem to be the case when the autolyse was done in the refrigerator without the salt.  It may be better to mix the levain at 60% hydration then after it is mixed with the 60% hydration autolysed flour, bassinage in the additional 21ml of water needed to bring the dough hydration up to 62%.

PS - everybody who received one of these reported that it was one of the best ever (which was my assessment from a flavor and crust texture perspective). So both stable, and in a good place.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Doc, thanks for taking to time to post your thorough writeups!

” Counter proof for ~0:45 
Retard 2:00 @40°F to make it easier to slash - with significant volume increase during the retard.”

Would you happen to know the DT after the 2 hour retard?

Also of interest. You mixed your dough a very long time in the Famag. Up until reading this post I assumed long mixes would make for uniform cell structure, but very small cells. You’ve shown that not to be the case.

 

Side Note -
Strange to say, but I have become very fond of the New Orleans PoBoy breads. I’ve been eating some killa’ Shrimp PoBoys. Can’t wait to try oysters... Even though the crumb is uniformly filled with small alveoli, the bread makes for some great eating. I wonder if this formula can be made with a more open crumb.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

The dough is firm enough to slash after 45 min of cooling (because the circulating fan in the retarder is big and moves a lot of air), but in this case I left it for 2 hrs to make it come out of the oven at a specific time.  I will make a note and try to measure it today. Timing will be similar.

Yesterday I was surprised that I had to mix as long as I did and when I got to the end the dough was too warm and still stringy so I had to fold a few times during BF to get the strength I wanted.  While it worked out OK in the end, I was not happy with the unpredictability while it was going on.  This morning I did not autolyse at all and mixed with 38°F water. It still took 8 minutes of mixing at speed 4 to get the gluten development I wanted and the dough temperature was still right at 80°F when it finished. But the dough was much more supple at the beginning of BF and I did not do any folds after doing one to get the dough organized at the beginning. I just got done with dividing and the dough handled beautifully.  Will see how they shape in a few minutes.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Doc,  Benny and Don have been very successful at producing very open crumb and both prescribe to the idea that upfront gluten development is not desirable for maximized open crumb. Alan has reduced his slap & folds with that same idea in mind. I have also delved into this idea, but haven’t had the degree of success they have enjoyed.

From your description it seems you are fully or near fully developing the gluten in the mixer. Is this the case?

It seems logical that fully developed gluten in the initial stage would make individual cell expansion more difficult because of the gluten strength. It also seems that if the cell walls were not as strong, that expansion (with the same amount of gas pressure) would grow larger than if the cell walls were stronger.

Please share your thoughts on this.

Benito's picture
Benito

This makes sense and isn’t that one of the reasons we generally have been using lower protein flour too?  Less gluten to reduce elasticity and increase open crumb and make the stretching of the shaping easier.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

My mental model of gluten development is that when you begin, there are a lot of sticky elastic threads that are almost exclusively stuck to themselves, some short and some long but not connected until you add water. As the dough is mixed you stretch the individual threads (which are initially very tightly clumped together and do not present much external surface area) and in the process break some of the bonds that are holding them together. The broken bonds then are healed by local chemistry but attach to some new place that may again be on the same thread or on one that was close by and was brought close by the mixing process.  In the early stages of mixing almost all of the re-bonding is with the original thread at a different location but occasionally there is a connection made to a different thread. As mixing continues, the fraction of the re-connections that occur with other threads increases and the effective length of the threads grows as they attach to each other. Coiled glutenin and gliadin molecules begin to stretch out and make not only longer threads, but also connect to each other with side chain bonds that eventually form into sheets.  It is these sheets that collectively become the walls of the alveoli. 

CO2 produced by fermentation mostly stays in solution until the local concentration becomes high enough that the local partial pressure exceeds what is needed for it to exist as a gas in equilibrium with what is dissolved in the liquid.  And as the local conditions change, the CO2 goes into solution in one place and comes out of solution in a place where the partial pressure is high enough to demand that it become a gas again.  Since CO2 is being created throughout the dough, it collects in the local pre-existing alveoli. Initially the alveoli are tiny (micron sized) and because the O2 has been consumed by biological activity contain almost exclusively N2 until the CO2 begins to show up (as it comes out of solution at the wall).  Initially the partial pressure of CO2 in the alveoli is zero so there is nothing to prevent CO2 from adding to the N2 in the alveoli, and as CO2 collects the total pressure rises (remember from chemistry that total pressure is the sum of the paritial pressures of the constituent gasses) and to the extent that the physics and mechanics allow it the alveoli expand.  As they expand the internal pressure goes down since they are held together by surface tension.

As fermentation continues more CO2 is created by the breakdown of glucose which locally supersaturates the liquid phase and drives more CO2 into the alveoli which makes them bigger.  Alveoli grow both by accumulating CO2 and by merging with other alveoli when a connecting wall collapses. The stability of alveoli is affected by other things that you put into the dough (such as lipids/fats) and the results of adding fat at different percentages impacts the wall stability and thus gas retention of the dough.

Emily Buehler in Chapter 2 of her book "Bread Science" (currently $20 at www.twobluebooks.com) presents a more comprehensive and no doubt more comprehensible explanation, so I will suggest that those who are interested order a copy at the link provided above. It is a great piece of work and she has filled it with original drawings that convey the details very effectively.  You can see some previews on her website.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

duplicate

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I have found that dough handles much better if you develop the gluten up front and only fold if needed. And the evidence seems to point to better crumb when there are no folds. I tried a lower protein AP flour to allow full gluten development without having a super stretch-resistant dough.  I have in my planned test matrix an experiment to try a higher protein flour and increase the water to the point where the dough handles as well as the lower protein AP flour, then search along the hydration axis to see what produces the best crumb.

As for the gluten strength and the implications for alveoli expansion, I suspect but not yet have any personal experimental data to verify that if you add sufficient water, at some point the dough strength returns to a sufficiently cooperative value that there is no major issue. Think about making ciabatta with high gluten flour and the frequently reported 90+% hydrations that show up in the successful trials.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

PFF       levain hydration      dough hydration    salt     total batch weight
12.0%             77%                       62.0%         2.0%          1755
227 (28 seed + 88 H2O + 119 BF -8 losses)    563 H2O    931 AP + 10 diastatic malt    21.30 salt
Make 235g stiff levain (77%) by putting excess water above what is needed to do the initial mixing of the flour and water at 60% hydration when incorporating the the levain.

Process -

Combine:
231g net levain (apparently the losses were only 4g)
0.7 IDY on top of the levain
563g cold water (refrigerated)
10g diastatic malt
931g AP flour
21.3g salt after 4 minutes and before 6 minutes
Mix 10 min at speed 0 to incorporate everything

Dough temp = 68.6°F @5 min on speed 0 (surprisingly high for using 38° water)
Dough temp = 70.6°F @ 10 min on speed 0.
Dough temp = 77.8°F @ 6 min on speed 4.
Dough temp = 80.2°F @ 8 min on speed 4.  
Take 30g for aliquot jar.
[Massage dough into the corners of the aliquot jar with a wet finger to eliminate air bubbles then approximately level the dough surface by poking it down and then add + 10 g H2O to make ~40ml total in the jar]
2 sequential sets of folds just after mixing and no additional folds during bulk fermentation.  The dough was checked for window pane formation and extensibility after each successive 2 minutes of mixing at speed 4; gluten seemed to be fully developed by the end of the mix cycle and the dough did not stick to the sides or bottom of the rectangular Cambro fermentation container when folded.
Dough is remarkably easier to handle today (without an autolyse).
BF to ~130% of original volume (meniscus at 50ml level on aliquot jar at ~3:00 from start of mixing)
Very little gas lost during preshaping; dough handled easily

Divide into 4 parts (~430g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 30 min, final shape (7 min). Not as extensible as the prior batch but made cooperative by using two stages for shaping. Next time perhaps extend rest period to 45 min.

Counter proof for ~2:00
(aliquot jar was at 70ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 30ml expansion so about 100% dough volume increase relative to end of mix)

Retard 1:45 @40°F to make it easier to slash. The aliquot jar level was up to ~90ml by the time the baguettes were baked.

Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle

Analysis-

Crumb is not quite as nice as some prior bakes so something was different.  Maybe the lower BF extent.
Lack of an autolyse seemed to make the dough handle more easily, enough different today to make me wonder if I mis-measured something yesterday.  Will try this again to verify the difference.

Next time, combine the flour and water and mix for 5 min at speed 0 as if it was going to autolyse, then add the levain and IDY and continue mixing for another 5 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine them before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten.

I tried a new trick with the aliquot jar by using a wet finger to massage the 30g dough sample down onto the bottom of the jar with no trapped air pockets.  This seemed to allow the dough to expand further without detaching from the bottom and floating until very late in the process.

I noticed today that the baguettes seemed to be quite uniform in diameter when they were loaded, but one end emerged slightly larger than the other and it seems to be the end that was initially at the back of the oven that was larger (they get rotated about half way through the bake). I wonder if there is a non-uniform distribution of steam or hot air.

A low angle slash yielded nice ears in the cold dough, and again sticking to a more narrow lane down the middle of the loaf seemed to reduce the tendency of the straps to fracture/tear completely. May try to score two deep and two shallow next time and see how that impacts the appearance.

I have been using 700mg of IDY for a while and have never detected a commercial yeast taste - in fact these have been remarkably sour for such a rapid fermentation.  I may increase the amount of IDY to 0.2% and see what difference that makes.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Doc, many bakers use AP flour to feed their starters and levains, but like you, I like to use stronger flour when fermenting starters and levains. The thought is, it brings stronger gluten into the dough. It makes sense.

227 (28 seed + 88 H2O + 119 BF -8 losses)” then you used AP flour for the Final Dough.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I happen to keep bread flour in my bench flour container so it sits on the counter where it is handy.  And since there is not much in the levain (~12% of the total) my rationale is that it does not contribute a lot to the final dough (from a protein perspective) and thus becomes a don't care unless I am running an experiment where it might make a difference.

But you make me wonder how the starter would do if fed on corn starch or tapioca starch.  That might be an easy excursion to run and would generate some data - whether or not it results in any incremental knowledge.

Benito's picture
Benito

I just saw this baker’s video shaping and seeding baguettes on Instagram. No folding just rolling. Then no setting of the dough to adhere the seeds. https://www.instagram.com/tv/CFDcO06jiXQ/?igshid=ver6sfo9ldeg
 I’ve  never seen anyone shaping without some folds. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

We don't see the resulting crumb, and it looks to me like he is cinching the dough as he rolls it out.  Very interesting technique.  Watch his thumbs as he rolls the dough.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

When it comes to handling dough, particularly proofed, the less handling of the dough, the better.  He's shaping a dough that has already been pre-shaped, instead of just divided.  And we can't see the true type of work that went into the pre-shape. 

Here's a case, Benny, where he is able to get a poppy coating without the water coating on the dough.  Pretty sure I picked up that hint from David Snyder.

From this angle it is a little hard to tell all of what his thumbs are doing.  He certainly is using then to help guide the shape as he rolls them out.  But is he also allowing his thumbs to drop to the bench and help with surface tension?  Similar to the way that pinkies and thumbs are used to create that surface tension for a batard.   

Benito's picture
Benito

I will have to refine my shaping, I keep forgetting to think about what my thumbs are doing.  I will need to turn off autopilot next time and concentrate to use my thumbs as I would in shaping other breads at the bench to create tension.  I found a photo of his crumb.

Nothing wrong with his crumb.

I will try getting seeds on without water next time.  I see that he allows the dough to rest on the seeds a while, maybe that also helps with adherence without water?

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Well, looks like I have finally figured out my new electric oven so will just drop some pics here.  Long and short of it is that in dealing with a gas domestic unit for so long I was only able to get decent loaves by jacking heat and using a lot of water (relatovely speaking).  This Rofco-esque machine requires subtle setting on top and bottom elements and and splash of water and bob's yer uncle - 

Full learning trials and tribulations here - http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/65316/new-oven-build-preliminary-results?page=1#comment-468816

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

That light golden color is the Italian/French bread hue of the bread I remember fondly from my youth in Brooklyn. Perfect! 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

In my opinion, Geremy nailed the baguette. Shape, ears, oven spring, and color are impressive...
As for eating, that is my perfect color. His crust is also super thin.

I like the look of our rustic darkened, large eared baguettes, but for eating these are my preferred.

Well done, Geremy!

kendalm's picture
kendalm

So as it turns out Dan, I was for sure over steaming.  The initial tests were suggesting that a lot of steam was just evacuating though the cheaply fabricated interior chamber.  From here I siliconed up all the seams with BBQ smoker high temp sealer   From here I cntinued to really douse the steam trays and remarked that my temps would plummet so from here tried jacking the heat.  All of those over steamed bakes would end up softening with micro thin crust after cooling.  Now that things are dialed in the crust is just right and staying firm.  The bake progression looks normal now (every stage).  I will do a summary write up on ther other thread. I think this really valuable complimenting thread to the master baguette thread here :) 

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Brooklyn ! Dont get me started on food in the NYC especially street kababs with white sauce.  I will tell you one thing.  I think we have better Delis in Los angeles :) 

Benito's picture
Benito

Great to see that you’ve figured your oven out.  I guess it is so different from anything you’ve used before so it took longer than you expected it to.  This bake is amazing in every way Geremy.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Now that things are making sense and predictable I'll start planning to use this stuff.  Its an ancient gtain so olan is to 50% this with the T65 - 

 Omg this darn phone - with I could take a normal pic 

Benito's picture
Benito

That should be similar to the semola rimacinata right at least related. 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

I like the darker bake for both staring at as well as the crunch of the crust.

Doc - Geremy demonstrates here that he can achieve a really open grigne while keeping his score lines quite close together.  From his past bakes, this is a constant with him from bake to bake.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

I am speaking more to everyones signature style.  I gotta throw that out there since the title here might look a bit petulant.  Yeah so first thought that lingered in the back of my head beyond all the doubts about this purchase was that if I can even 'dial' this oven in, will my loaves look the same ? Amazingly they do - in every way including things not caught on my p.o s. camera such as they cooling cracks.  Well, it just makes you wonder and marvel how Dan's look like Dan's, Benny's like Benny's, Doc's like Doc's...yours like yours.  This list goes on - MTLoaf's like .... well, DMSnyders (what the !). You know Alan I will occassionally push the bake into your dark realm but I find the crust a little too challenging eating-wise in fact I prefer the darker color visually but eating purposes is really the impetus for going 'golden'. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I wonder if it is the scoring, the flour, or how well they are proofed, or something else.  But shows that it is possible.  Very nice work all around.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Did I stop and think 'why is doc scoring so far apart'.  For the record I score almost 90 degrees down and do it just like the some of those magic magic marker tutorials.  On a related note, I thought (just yesterday) maybe I ought to slice in on an angle like Alan preaches and then maybe I too will have a 'flap' that can really announce itself.  And I just want to say this for the record "ALAN'S CRUSTS RULE" <- alan please send a PM  to confirm you registered this.  

Doc you use the Moulin T65 - a quaeter inch in between, 72% I find that the shape of the final score is almost always a rhombus whether or not it bursts and from there its all about that 5 minute period of expansion characteristics.  And ! btw these are rather thin loaves prior to final (about 1.5 inch diameter) 

 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I went through 20Kg of the T65 and can confirm that it was hard to deal with (as others have confirmed) but at the time I was not ready for it. Maybe I will try it again at some point.

Great to know that you found a way to get the small diameter sticks to open up.  It sounds like it has something to do with the oven.  But maybe also the leavening.  The batch I am running today has 2g of IDY (vs 700mg previously) in addition to 12% PFF so I will see how much of a difference it makes.  The behavior with the extra IDY is like using nitromethane as a pyro accelerant. But when I tasted a bit of dough left in the aliquot jar, the flavor was more commercial yeast than my levain.  So I will wait for final judgement until the cooled baguette is sliced.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Used the same formula (Saveur’s) as Bake #32. Since Doc is getting nice crumb when dough that is fully developed up front, I gave that a try. 4 separate mixing sessions at speed #0 for 6 min (24 min total - ending DT = 77F) with a 20-30 min rest between. The dough was super supple and I think it had the “plastic” qualities that Michael mentioned in a post today.

In order to keep the dough cool I used 2/3 of the water weight in shaved ice. I used too much because the dough after the first mix was 33F. I think this slowed the heck out of the CY.

At any rate the bread produced was typical of the New Orleans PoBoy breads. Crumb was a little more open, but I have a long way to go towards producing a crumb similar to Doc’s. Next bake my be Bahn Mi!

Benito's picture
Benito

Dan what surprises me about this bake is that so many of the straps broke, that isn’t usually what happens with your baguettes.  What do you think caused this?

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Could have lots of oven spring, or possibly the fully developed gluten wouldn’t relax enough to all ow the straps to expand.

Goo Question, though.

I may be handling the dough to heavy handed at shaping. I say that because the center of the loaf has decent crumb, but not the ends.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

if so its none other I've seen before - really open crumb - good job ! 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

If you want an open crumb, why not start with a baguette dough? First add some sugar and verify that it doesn't mess up the open crumb.  Then add some fat.  Maybe 1% at a time and watch the crumb behavior.  Try adding liquid fat 1%, Then try solid fat 1% and see the difference.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Q: if this is the typical po' boy bread, but much nicer IMO, why would you want to change it to a more open crumb?  If the idea is to get a bead that emulates that classic, it seems that you are already there.  Wouldn't a more open crumb also "endanger" the sandwich structure, considering what gets put into it?

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Alan - I would like the breads to be lighter, less calories. It’s in my nature to always try to improve, make better than the original. I often don’t succeed, but non the less, driven to that end.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

PFF     levain hydration    dough hydration      salt     total batch size
12.0%          77%                      62.0%            2.0%          1755
227 (28 seed + 88 H2O + 119 BF -8 losses)    565 H2O    932 AP + 10 diastatic malt    21.40 salt
Make 235g stiff levain (77%) by putting into the levain the excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 60% hydration

Process:
Combine the 932 AP flour, 10 diastatic malt, and 566 cold water and mix for 5 min at speed 0 as if it was going to autolyse, then add 227g levain and 2.088g IDY and continue mixing for another 5 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine them before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporate the salt during the first 2 min.

Mix at speed 4 in 2 minute increments until fully developed, checking temperature and gluten development after each step (adding salt during the first 2 minutes)
69.6°F @ 10 min on speed 0.
71.8° @2 min on speed 4
73.4° @4 min on speed 4
75.6° @6 min on speed 4.
78.3°F@ 8 min on speed 4.  
80.6°F @ 10 min on speed 4 [ this progression is almost exactly 1.09°F/minute of mixing time]
Take 30g for aliquot jar. Massage into the corners of the jar with a wet finger to eliminate air bubbles then add + 10 g H2O = ~40ml total

BF to ~150% of original volume (to 55ml in aliquot jar at ~2:50 from start of mixing)
Divide into 4 parts (~430g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 25min, final shape (7 min).

Counter proof for 0:45
Aliquot jar =75ml  (30ml dough, 10ml water, 35ml expansion so about 35/30=115% dough volume increase since end of mix)

Retard 2:00 @40°F to make it easier to slash

Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle

Summary:  Good but not great

While the additional IDY took some time off the total process by accellerating bulk fermentation, there was a cost in terms of flavor.  Not so much that there was a dominant commercial yeast element, but because the normal complexity and acidity of the levain seems to be suppressed.  On the other hand this batch seemed to be somewhat over fermented during BF which may have contributed to the off flavor profile. It handled very well for pre-shaping, but final shaping suffered from a lack of the easy extensibility of previous batches.  I don't know whether this was related to not using an autolyse or to adding more IDY.  The crumb seems compressed, though the center of this loaf (which I thought might have been crushed) turned out to be quite open.

I kept one uncut loaf which I will let stale overnight and plan to make bruschetta with it tomorrow.  I will have a better sense of the hole distribution after I get all of the slices laid out tomorrow.

I will cut the IDY in half and do a repeat tomorrow using an overnight cold autolyse (and try to BF to 25-30% volume increase instead of 50%) before shaping.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Vietnamese Baguettes - Banh Mi

I followed the formula and process in THIS VIDEO. Bottom Line, the flavor was poor. I think there was too much yeast. Possible the dough was over oxidized.

The crumb was dense, there was too much dough in each bite. This didn’t work for me.

UpDate - after more thought I think I know why this bread lacked flavor and was blah. Salt 1.59% coupled with CY 1.79%. The dough fermented too quickly...

Benito's picture
Benito

Dan that’s a pity, are you going to try a different recipe for Banh Mi?

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

I think the next bake will return to the New Orleans PoBoy breads with a few ideas gleaned from the Banh Mi baguettes. I like their shaping, slashing, and higher baking temps. I may give the T65 a shot with the NO PoBoys.

I checked and the Banh Mi formula used only 1.6% salt. The other formula considered also used a small percentage of salt. That may have negatively affected the flavor. The bread was sampled again, and it is not worth eating, IMO.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

PFF       levain hydration    dough hydration    salt     total batch weight
12.0%           77%                      62.0%           2.0%          1755g
227 (28 seed + 88 H2O + 119 BF -8 losses)    565 H2O    932 AP + 10 diastatic malt    21.40 salt
Make 235g stiff levain (77%) by putting into the levain the excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 60% hydration

Process:
Combined the 932 AP flour, 10 diastatic malt, and 566 cold water and mixed for 6 min at speed 0 (~100RPM spindle speed).  Kneaded a few turns until it was fully smooth, placed in bowl and covered bowl with StretchTite, refrigerated overnight (10 hr).  In the AM combined 229g levain and 1.01g IDY  with the autolysed flour/water and continued to mix for 5 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine them before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporated the salt during the first 2 minutes at speed 0.

Mixed at speed 4 (~200 RPM spindle speed) in 2 minute increments for a total of 6 minutes (until fully developed)
Dough temperature:
55.0° after 5 min @speed 0
59.1° after 2 min @ 4
63.2° after 4 min @ 4
67.5° after 6 min @ 4  (very good extensibility)
(note temperature rose by 1.05°F/min while mixing at speed 4)

Take 30g for aliquot jar. Shape it into a somewhat long but narrow cylinder and lower it into the aliquot jar; spreading it out into the corners after contacting the bottom without trapping any air. Give it a few seconds to firmly attach to the sides then massage into the corners of the jar with a wet finger to eliminate any remaining air bubbles then add + 10 g H2O = ~40ml total

BF to ~125% of original volume (48 ml on aliquot jar)(~3:15 from start of mixing)
Divide into 4 parts (~430g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 35min, final shape (7 min).

Counter proof for 1:15
Aliquot jar =70ml  (30ml dough, 10ml water, 30ml expansion, so about 100% dough volume increase when it went to the retarder)

Retard 1:45 @40°F to make it easier to slash

Score two loaves [two at the bottom of image] shallow (~5mm) and two loaves deep (~1 cm) [two at the top]

Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle

Analysis:

This seems to be right on the mark - dough took only 6 minutes at high speed (200 RPM spindle speed) to get to full gluten development with very good extensibility when shaped (perhaps aided by the cold autolyse and a 35min rest after pre-shaping); a uniformly open crumb, good ears, good color, crackley crust.  I think I like the results of a deeper score (~1 cm in this case without much blade rotation so pretty much a straight down cut though with a curved lame blade).

The reduced extent of bulk fermentation (to 125% of post-mix volume instead of 150% yesterday) took longer because of the lower dough temperature but made shaping much easier, and the pre-shaped loaves were very extensible and thus amenable to stretching before final shaping and rolled out with almost no effort at all (after resting for a full 35 min during which they increased further in volume).

The reduction in IDY from 0.2% to 0.1% eliminated the flavor component that I associate with commercial yeast and again allowed the levain to again take center stage, so 0.1% will be the upper bound for future efforts.

These could probably have proofed a little longer before going to the retarder since they handled so nicely when they came out. [note to self: be patient]

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Doc, your persistence has paid off! I plan to try your formula and process after I tire of the N.O. PoBoys.

Crumb is unique to you, and I’m liking it... alot!

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I am going to have to change my lighting. The top-down view needs some side lights to really show off the crumb.  With most of the light behind the camera all you see is white even when it is all nooks and crannies.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Plural for Rhombus.  I like the scores ! 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

I was trying to keep from cutting off my thumb and hold the angle and the slash length to stay in the middle of the lane.  But there was so much oven spring I should have gone for 1/4" offset and tried to stay inside a narrower 1" lane.  Maybe tomorrow when I am going to leap over to high gluten flour and jack up the hydration to 67% in an attempt to hold dough handling qualities close to what I had today.  I don't expect it to be perfect but a step on the way.  Maybe two or three tries to nail it down.  I thought about adding some nutritional yeast but gave myself a dope slap for even considering a change to more than one thing at a time.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

You're obligated to post the wound.  I posted a nasty cut a month or two ago.  No pain no game ! 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

one bake from the next.  To me that's a good thing.  As mentioned before your scores are getting really consistent and the grignes are just dandy from one bake to the next.  Of the three above, I'll place my vote on the bottom one, where the lines between the scores are the narrowest, even if the bottom one broke through.  To me, those burst-throughs are part of the beauty, and not a defect.  They give character to the visual quality of the bread.  In competition, that would be the death-knell, but this isn't competition here.

To the chagrin of you all, I have yet to cut myself with the scoring lame.  Now that the cat is out of the bag, I expect a visit to the ER real soon.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

You maybe just jinxed it - I dunno ?  Better keep some super glue handy now.  Agree on the broken straps tho - a bit like the patina of rusty old buildings - a little character is nice. 

Benito's picture
Benito

Wonderful baguettes Doc.  The crumb is spot on and the ears and grigne are amazing.

Funny now that our baguettes are looking better we are talking about better lighting for photography.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

When the improvements are exhausted, some of us have to revert to better camera work and improved lighting :-)

Benito's picture
Benito

I wish I was at that point, lol.

 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

PFF      levain hydration   dough hydration      salt      total batch size
11.8%           100%                    66.1%            2.0%    1795 - 30 for aliquot jar
227g levain (28 seed + 115 H2O + 115 BF -8 losses)  + 565 H2O   +  932 AP + 10 diastatic malt   + 21.40 salt
Make 258g levain (100%) by putting into the levain the excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 60% hydration

Process:
Combine the 932 high gluten white bread flour and 566 room temperature water and mix for 6 min at speed 0.  Turn out on the counter and knead a few turns until it is fully smooth then put it in a bowl and cover with StretchTite; refrigerate overnight. 

In the AM add 251g levain with 1.01g IDY sprinkled on top and 10g of diastatic malt to the autolysed flour and water; continue mixing for another 5 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine the ingredients before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporate the salt during the last 2 min at speed 0.

Mix at speed 4 in 2 minute increments until fully developed:
Dough temperature:
59.2° after 5 min @speed 0
64.0° @2 min on 4
68.7° @4 min on 4
Add 10g water since the dough seems to be a little stiff
72.7° @6 min on speed 4
[this temperature increase is 2.28°F/min of mix time so a BIG increase for using high gluten flour even at a higher hydration]
Dough looks like this at the end of the mix

Take 30g for aliquot jar and add 10g of water to bring it up to the 40ml mark

BF to ~125% of original volume (48 ml on aliquot jar; ~3:30 from start of mixing)
Divide into 4 parts (~430g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 35min, final shape (7 min).

Counter proof for 1:15 (dough is soft but not poofy)

Retard 2:45 @40°F to make it easier to slash (next time try retarding at 50°F to see if
Score narrowly down the middle of the loaf with 1/4"- 3/8" offset

Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle

Analysis:

This is my new baseline!

This was a move from AP flour to high gluten flour, making an effort to add enough water (up to 66.1% hydration) to have approximately the same dough texture as I was getting with the AP flour at 62% hydration.  I will probably go up 1% next time just to see when it gets too soft to handle.

The results are quite pleasing, with an even more open crumb (and without any lighting changes), easy to shape after a 35 minute rest (I used a two-stage final shaping protocol for two of the four loaves that were a little short after the first stage of rolling out).

The crust is explosively crunchy (as opposed to crispy), but the higher gluten (speculation) gives it a little more resistance; color is good, taste is excellent.

Scoring looks a little better this round, with the higher protein flour apparently providing enough strength to keep the straps from breaking even with more expansion during proof and more oven spring.  I also note that the loaves are not as lumpy as some I have shaped and scored in the past.

Benito's picture
Benito

I really like your crumb Doc.  Very impressive with the use of high gluten flour, something most of us haven’t been using recently I believe.  You did do something I have been thinking of doing more recently, that is bulk fermentation to a lower rise and a longer final proof and it seems to have helped with the crumb.  I have a levain going for another go at the Semola Rimacinata baguettes and I was planning to end bulk earlier and have a longer final proof at room temperature after shaping before another period in the fridge to allow cold scoring.  A lot of back and forth in and out of the fridge, but I’d like to see if I can get a more open crumb. Great job on your part.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Another great looking bake, Doc. Do you think your oven setup has a lot to do with your excellent crumb? The crust looks thin and dark, while the crust immediately near it is open.

What changes have you made to improve the even and open crumb that you now produce? Please summarize.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

After a few small changes very early in the game, I have been using the same oven program for every bake, so I doubt that it has much to do with the improvement in the crumb.

Summary:

This was bake #29 by my count (there were a number of dead-end trials that were not worth wasting time too write up, but that is part of making progress). And I think that the results reflect the cumulative effects of following the data and making small, single parameter changes to understand the impact on the end product. The contributions of everybody who is posting and commenting have contributed a lot of value to the evolution.

Trevor's guidance to avoid screwing it up at each step is always in the front of my mind. Benny set the example of consistent open crumb, and he was the origin of the use of the aliquot jar for measuring BF volume increase.  He also pointed to Abel's pre-shaping style which has been a key improvement. Alan and Geremy have coached on techniques that have proven to be valuable for improving consistency and appearance. The experiments with low hydration dough were very informative, and your observations about minimizing the use of flour on the bench and the dough were flashbulb events that got me to differentiate between tacky dough and sticky dough so my dough handling skills have improved a lot as a result. 

I now add 1% diastatic malt where I previously did not.  And I keep nutritional yeast as an option which I am not currently using.  For a long time I avoided using commercial yeast, but when the experimental matrix was filled without it and I started adding under Benny's guidance 0.065% (and eventually 0.1%) things improved further.  So it is a cummulative result based on data-driven experimentation and process consistency.  Having gone to a very low protein flour to get good crumb, discovering the very clear relationship between hydration and protein level and their joint impact on optimum handling qualitiets, then exploiting that to go back to a high gluten flour while in the process taking advantage of the additional strength to increase the degree of proof and thus get even better crumb.  Just incremental improvements while deriving the design principles.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

I may have stumbled upon something while scoring today. 

While attempting to score the baguettes at an extremely low angle (fillet style), it was discovered that starting the slash with a more straight down angle, then immediately after penetration laying the blade over to the desired low angle made the low angle score much easier to start. Often times starting out at a low angle makes it difficult to start the score. This also possibly reduced the dreaded drag. Will require more testing. The dough may have been nice for scoring. But the dough today was never retarded, so it wasn’t chilled. And the flour was T65!

It’s worth a try.

The bread above is Bake #35. Writeup when sliced.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Abandoned the Banh Mi and went back to the New Orleans PoyBoy. I suspected the tight crumb may have been due to over development of the gluten. So these were hand mixed. Still has a texture more like cake than open crumb bread. 

Next attempt will use less sugar and/or fats. The dough baked only 16 minutes at 550F (my sweet spot for ears) but the crust was too dark and the bottoms were slightly darker (less sugar for sure).

The great news is this bake used T65 flour and produced very nice ears. The dough behaved very well, although I messed up the water and had to wind up adding more water and going by feel. Wished I hadn’t done that...

I did learn a trick for shallow scoring and it seemed to help a lot. See THIS LINK. Too bad the top bread came of the loading board crooked. Tried, to no avail, to straighten it.

The flavor of the T65 did not come through on these. Another disappointing bake as far as flavor is concerned. The flour tasted stale, which I don’t think was the case. I know the gluten was not over worked. Best guess is the dough with added sugar and fat didn’t like the high heat bake (550F). But, the ears did :-)

Ba+k to the drawing board...

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Liquid or solid fat when it was mixed in?  Vegetable or animal origin?

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Vegetable shortening. The bread is so bad tasting, it will be thrown out.

I hope T65 doesn’t stale too fast. That is how the bread taste. The fats are fresh and what is called for. Last attempt with KAAP tasted great.

Benito's picture
Benito

Back at the same sesame semolina sourdough baguettes but with some changes to try to improve the crumb. So I made some changes in the hopes of achieving a more open crumb. The first significant change I made was to delete the commercial yeast altogether, this change was made by accident and wasn’t planned as removing the commercial yeast wasn’t something that I thought would improve the crumb.  In fact, I thought that the addition of commercial yeast was part of what was giving my an open crumb.


I increased the hydration from 67 to 71% and I also reduced bulk fermentation rise in the aliquot jar from 25 to 20%. My thinking there was increasing hydration is often one route to open crumb as long as you handle the dough well. The reduction in bulk rise was done to make dough handling easier. You see, when I had to transfer the shaped dough to a tray with a wet towel and roll it, then transfer it to the tray with the sesame seeds and roll it, I found that the dough felt like it was getting degassed and stretched out too long. So reducing bulk made the dough much easier to handle this much and once seeded and in the couche the dough was 16” long, the max for my baking steel. Finally to compensate for the reduced fermentation I added a 30 mins bench rest in the couche followed by my usual 30 minute chill in the fridge. The fridge time is intended to firm the dough up to make it easier to score.
I think my changes were very successful and I’m quite happy with the improvement in the crumb compared to my first set. Leaving out the commercial yeast didn’t have the negative effect that I expected in making the crust thicker nor did leaving it out make the crumb less open.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

I’m not sure you could bake a bad baguette if you wanted to...

Awesome

Benito's picture
Benito

Thank you Dan, everything I know about baguettes I learned in this thread.  That is just crazy when you think about how far we have all come from our first times baking baguettes.  I’m happy I was able to get the crumb a bit more open, at least it is showing me that I do have a better grasp of fermentation and developing dough than I did before baking baguettes.  

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Benny, please post images in the future of your shaped loaves. You are shaping some Very nice 16” baguettes.

Have you tried reversing the baguette around in an attempt to evenly shape both ends?

Benito's picture
Benito

No I haven’t thought of flipping them around halfway through rolling, interesting idea though.  My shaping really still is wonky and something that still needs some work for sure.  Flipping them end to end is a good idea, hopefully I’ll remember to try that next time.

At what point in shaping do you want to see the dough?  Immediately after shaping, after seeding, after final proofing before scoring?

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

Really nice work!  Are you giving it any folds during bulk fermentation.

When I started adding a small amount of IDY to the dough I did not see much difference in bulk fermentation timing - maybe 15-20 min less time (out of 3:30 so <10%) than with levain only, but once it was divided, things seemed to speed up, which may be the continued exponential growth of the commercial yeast as it surpasses the yeast in the levain.

It reminds me that I should run the baseline formula without the IDY and see what the timing is and what happens to the flavor.

Benito's picture
Benito

Doc, I am still doing the same two sets of coil folds during bulk fermentation.  I’m still developing the dough very little up front with only Rubaud mixing after adding the salt and a bit of water to ensure that the salt is well mixed.  So I’m still doing as little as possible during bulk.

The flavour of this had no apparent sourness I usually associate with sourdough leavened bread despite the fact that there was no IDY to raise it.  I was expecting that the flavour would be of sourdough, but it wasn’t.  I was also expecting that the crust would be thick, but it wasn’t, except for the sesame seeds of course, but really the crust was nice and thin.  I was always thinking that it was the IDY that was contributing to my open crumb I’ve been getting, but I guess this bake goes against that theory.  However, I think limiting bulk rise to only 20% which is the lowest I’ve gone and then “catching up” with the final proof on the bench seemed to open this up.  I will have to repeat this to see if it is reproducible or just a fluke.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

I have been using the aliquot with water on top. 20% increase is minuscule. Today I shot for 25% and it got away from me and ended up at 34%.

I am making the aliquot dough immediately after the dough is completely mixed. I assume that is what you and Doc are doing.

Who knows... this CB may be in it’s infants stage :-)
I am spurred on to work at this more.

I think the supreme challenge of the baguette is what drives us onward.

Benny & Doc -
Are my calculations correct in THIS LINK?

Benito's picture
Benito

Because the first fold is 50 mins into bulk, so much later than most other breads I’ve made, I take the dough out for the aliquot jar after the thorough mix.  I’ve been taking a larger amount of dough lately as I’ve wanted to do smaller bulk rises.  So this dough’s dome in the aliquot jar was around 40 mL or so.  This makes the determination of 20 vs 25% a bit more obvious.  I think I’ll continue to take a larger portion of dough for the aliquot jar as it does make reading the rise easier.  I am using your method now Dan of weighing the water, it really is easier than linear measurements.

Your calculations are correct Dan.

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