August 24, 2009 - 5:51am
Ciabatta
This weekend I made a Ciabatta from the Rhienharts, BBA. I followed the instructions to the "T" and to no avail I had very small holes, but a great flavor. The poolish was good and weighed in at the correct 23 oz. But a few minutes into mixing and the dough was too dry! I added more water than the recipe called for and finally started to see a hydrated product. I'm sure the hydration was the problem.
Any Ideas what may have happened up to this point? I'm a huge fan of hearth breads and would really like to accomplish the art of making the "Italian Bread Slipper."
Thanks for ant advice you may offer.
Chuppy
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In this forum. This recipe has been discussed before and I seem to recall that the consensus was that there is an error in the formula in the book -- not enough water.
ClimbHi
Pittsburhg, PA
ClimbHi,
That's great news. I thought I did something really wrong. One only knows how many times I've slipped up a recipe and used tsp instead of tbs or something like that.
Chuppy
Hi Chuppy,
I made this ciabatta this weekend and had the same issue - great flavor but dense structure. See here
http://psoutowood.vox.com/library/post/supa-sunday.html
I have been making the Team USA ciabatta in the BBA for a while and have had much better results from that. See what I get for straying from a tried and true recipe!
-Peter
Peter,
My family requested that I make the bba ciabatta again regardless of the tight crumb. The flavor is good, but the challenge of the ciabatta is to get the large holes, I told them!
Without the large holes in ciabatta, it's like having wine and cheese, but the cheese is velveeta! Maybe that's not a fair analogy, but my quest for ciabatta continues.
Chuppy
P.S. Great blog pics!
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2984/jasons-quick-coccodrillo-ciabatta-bread
I'm a big fan of Peter Reinhart, but have not tried his ciabatta. This thread has had lots of positive postings. Take a look..
Betty