The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Test Loaf #3 (Pugliese) – 10/4/09

breadbakingbassplayer's picture
breadbakingbass...

Test Loaf #3 (Pugliese) – 10/4/09

Hey Freshloafers,

Long time no post.  Just wanted to share with you a recipe that I have been working on.  I have been on baking hiatus since summer as it was too hot to turn on the oven...  This is my 3rd try in the past few weeks to bake something that is edible...  Lemme know what you think and if the recipe works for you.

Cheers,

Tim

Test Loaf #3 (Pugliese) - 10/4/09
Ingredients:
1000g AP Flour
800g Water
200g Scrap Dough
24g Kosher Salt
½ tsp Active Dry Yeast

Tools:
Digital Scale
Large Metal Mixing Bowl
Wooden Mixing Spoon
Plastic Scraper
2 Baking Stones
Flipping Board
Linen Couche
4+liter plastic container with cover
Olive Oil
Old beat up sheet pan placed at bottom of oven for steaming
Oven thermometer
Instant read thermometer

A few days before starting:
Make some 50%-60% hydration scrap dough, let ferment at room temperature for a few hours and refrigerate until ready to use. You can also make a biga. I use a whole wheat/rye mix/AP flour scrap dough...

Day 1 - Start at 10:30pm
Weigh out all ingredients using a digital scale.
Add yeast to scrap dough and dissolve with some water. After scrap dough is dissolved, add remainder of water.
Place AP Flour in large mixing bowl and slowly add the water/yeast/scrap dough mixture and mix until a shaggy dough forms, cover and let rest for 20-30 minutes.
After rest, knead dough with plastic scraper and slowly add salt and knead until salt is dissolved. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes.
After rest, turn dough out onto well floured surface and turn dough using stretch and fold method. Repeat 3 times at 20 minute intervals.
After last turn, which should be about midnight, place dough into lightly oiled plastic container, cover, and let rise overnight on countertop until 9:30am the next morning.

Day 2 - 9:30am
**Note: This recipe makes 3 loaves that weigh approx 580g after baking. Also, I am using 2 baking stones, 1 placed on the 2nd rack from the bottom, and 1 placed on the 2nd rack from the top.
Turn dough out onto well floured surface and divide into 3 equal portions. Shape dough by gently stretching out into a rectangle. Take one corner and fold towards you past center of the rectangle, turn 90 degrees and repeat 3 more times. Place seam side down on a floured couche. Repeat for the remaining 2 loaves, cover and let proof for 45 to 60 minutes.

Place sheet pan on bottom of oven, place the 2 baking stones in oven as above and turn oven on to 500F with using the convection bake function. Place oven thermometer on top stone.

When loaves are proofed, impression barely remains after poked with a floured finger, and oven reaches 500F, take oven thermometer out, using a flipping board (loaves will go onto stone seam side up), place 2 loaves directly onto top stone, and 1 loaf onto bottom stone, and them immediately place ½ cup of water onto baking sheet at bottom of oven, and close. Wait 1 minute and place another ½ cup of water on the baking sheet at bottom of oven and close. Bake for 20 minutes at 500F, rotate and shift loaves on top stone to bottom stone, and from bottom stone to 15 minutes, and lower oven to 425F. Loaves are done when the internal temperature at center reaches 210F. Let loaves cool completely before cutting, about 2 hours...

Link to photos in Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=108965&id=510844475&l=a97991a734

cake diva's picture
cake diva

Is this bread like a ciabatta?  The shape and crumb resemble ciabatta.

breadbakingbassplayer's picture
breadbakingbass...

Thanks!  It is basically like ciabatta, but the shape is more like a blob...  It is about an 80% hydration dough...

Mitch550's picture
Mitch550

Hello Tim,

As they say, a rose by another name is still a rose, and it's the results that count, but to me using scrap dough means it's dough that's left over from the prior  batch, the point being that the scrap is exactly the same as the batch because it has been taken from the batch -- if I'm making myself clear.

So if you are making a small amount of dough that you are going to use as your "scrap" dough, it has to be exactly the same as the actual dough would have been.  It cannot be considerd scrap dough if it has a 50-60% hydration, if the actual dough has an 80% hydration as is the case in your formula.

You then say "You can also make a biga."  I don't see the distinction.  It seems to me that if you are using a 50-60% hydration you ARE making a biga.  So why not just call it that and be done with it and not make any reference at all to using scrap dough since you are preparing it from scratch and not really using scrap dough at all?

I am not writing this to be critical or argumentative but because one of us is missing something here and I'm not sure which one of us it is. :-)

Mitch

 

breadbakingbassplayer's picture
breadbakingbass...

OK, here's the deal with "my" scrap dough"...  I made some whole wheat dough a long time ago, (few months) ago that I left in the refrigerator.  This was a failed dough that I didn't want to throw away.  I have been using this to flavor the last few batches of bread that I have made...  I am guessing that my scrap dough is about 60% hydration.  It's pretty stiff stuff that by now has that liquid on top like a sourdough starter that has been kept in the fridge for a while...

I'm not sure if the final dough will be exacty 80% hydration as you need to flour your work surface so you can turn the dough without sticking...  And the 200g of scrap dough probably doesn't affect the total hydration that much...

I was just saying that you can make a biga if you don't have any scrap dough lying around...

I hope this makes things clearer...