Hello from Nebraska
Hello all, I have been lurking over this great site for several months now and figured it was time to come out of the shadows. A lot of great information here that has helped my bread baking advance.
I have been dabbeling with the BBA and have had some great success flavor wise, but with the exception of the Pane Sciciliano my crumbs have been very dense. I was disappointed with the french baguette I made a few weeks ago in that my thermopen said the bread was at 205 but when I cut into the loaf an hour plus after removing from the oven it was still doughy and raw. I had to throw it away and step away from the flour for awhile.
I am looking forward to the continued learning and hopefully one day be able to post a few quality posts that may help somebody. I like to pay it forward whenever I can.
Tom
Welcome to the forum Roo.
I too had the problem of very dense crumb in my breads. I found I was handling the dough too much after the first rise. I used to punch the dough down and knead it for a little while to get all the air our. I have learned to be gentle with the dough after the first rise, to form the final loaf as gently as possible and I have been getting better crumb since.
Hope this helps
Drifty Baker
Go biking while it's rising!
Thanks for the welcome Drifty, I will watch how I handle the dough after the first rise. I didn't think I was being to harsh, but you never know.
I was wondering if I wasn't hydrating the dough enough, even though I was using every bit of the water in the formula.
Welcome to TFL, Tom. You'll find a lot of BBA fans hear. Sorry to here about your problems with your Thermopen. You might not know this, but each type of thermometer has its sensor located in a slightly different place, e.g., some are on in the tip but others are slightly above the tip. I have a Thermopen too. If I were to measure the temperature of a baguette (this is the one type of loaf that I probably don't actually check with a thermometer because it is pretty easy to feel when it is done by how light it is) I would probably go into the center via the side. My Thermapen's sensor is above the tip and to one side of the probe. Check out the location of your proble's sensor with a pot of boiling water and notice how/where you have to insert it to get the most accurate read.
--Pamela
Thanks for the welcome Pamela. I have had to check my thermopen against a dial thermometer just last weekend to make sure they were both accurate, and was aware of the different areas the sensor could be in. I was actually quite surprised that the dial themometer's sensor sat fairly high on the probe. My thermopen sensor is close to the tip as you described.
I may have simply just gone to far through the loaf as I was going in via the side, I amy start going into the end and avoid going all the way through.