The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

crumb

Song Of The Baker's picture

Compressed Crumb Structure At Edges

March 11, 2013 - 3:37pm -- Song Of The Baker
Forums: 

Could someone explain if this would be a classic case of underproofing?  Baked 2 rye loaves this weekend.  One turned out bit dense and sour and the other nice flavour and more even crumb.

Photo 1 has less open, and dense compressed crumb at the edges near the crust.  This one was proofed room temp for 1 hour:

This one has a more even crumb throughout and less sour.  Proofed for 2 hours.

Ghobz's picture

Tartine Bread: Baking while home was in a state of anarchy

February 4, 2013 - 12:26pm -- Ghobz

Hi,

I've come a long way since I first posted on TFL few months ago, attempting to troubleshoot my starter. I have now a starter with a strong leavening power and I use it to bake almost every day. My sourdough bread baking skills are improving nicely. I need to do better with my scoring and shaping skills but I believe I'll achieve good results with practising, failing, reading, watching videos, failing again... until I get the hang of it. The good thing is a failed attempt at bread baking is never truly a total failure. We still can enjoy the imperfect bread.

BKSinAZ's picture

I need help with my crumb

September 29, 2012 - 7:01am -- BKSinAZ

I have been using the following recipe to make my baguettes.  http://www.kingarthurflour.com/baking/documents/baguette-ciabatta.pdf

The bread always comes out looking ok and tasting ok, but I can not seem to get the wide open big crumb that is normally associated with baguettes.

As a follow up question, in the recipe the water is in ounces....... stupid question: I can just weigh the water like the flour on my scale?

Here are two pics.. sorry, color and focus are a little off.

Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul Paul's picture
Paul Paul Paul ...

As my pilot entry I just want to do a little background about my bread baking, and then show pictures of my latest success.

So, I won't tell you that I used to always stand by my mom or dad's side, and eagerly noted every motion of everything they did, and passionately exclaimed "Ooh I want to be a CHEF when I grow up!" because that would be lying. No- my story is certainly not a Disney-esque, awe inspiring one, unless you want to hear about someone who spontaneously took on this new hobby, or lifestyle if you will. Hell- sounds a lot more interesting to me!

All throughout my life, anything I would see would firmly plant itself in my hand, and be hard to forget. Yes, as a kid I was definitely a "scaredy cat", little things would get mentioned, and like cement, it just stayed in my mind, all day. Especially nowadays, when there is a lot of work to come, and I am stressed out, man- I obsess over my work! I have minor OCD, what can I say?

But hey- it's not always a bad thing! I tend to have a great memory, which means good things and hobbies stick in my mind also. Before I talk about bread, I just want to really give an example by talking about my poker habit. One day, I was watching a documentary which followed around a professional poker player, and there sparked the new big thing in my life. All I could think about was POKER, POKER, POKER! Yikes- I didn't even know how to play poker.... But soon I was online, working to create a bankroll out of nothing.

Likewise is the story about baking (except that I have no idea what initially sparked my interest). Suddenly, I had the starting of a passion for baking. When talking to my mom about the idea of making bread, she exclaimed something like, "Why would you do that? We have a breadmaker that can do that all for you!" Yes, this was true, but it made bricks more than bread. Man over machine, I don't think she understood that concept for a while.

As my passion for bread grew, I took a very expensive private lesson with a baker in San Francisco as my holiday gift from my family, while at the same time I started to neglect my sourdough starter, but that's for another story. Anyways, now that you've read this "novel" I want to show you my latest creation, inspired by txfarmer's 36 hour baguettes! I made these baguettes with a poolish instead of sourdough starter, and a lot went wrong, but the outcome was great. As you'll see from the pictures, this was the worst looking baguette on the outside, but the best looking on the inside.

Open Crumb

 

Crust

Hope this wasn't too wordy of a first blog. I know that with most blogs I just scroll right down to the pictures and only read the blog if I like the pictures! By the way, I'm only fourteen. So yes, I play poker illegaly every day, I am an opinionated liberal, and I'm an innocent breadbaker. Bite me haha.

sustainthebaker's picture

Crunchy Bits in my Challah

December 20, 2010 - 12:34pm -- sustainthebaker

I recently made a loaf of Challah for my family. It was my first Challah and it came out with great flavor. It was a six-braided loaf which I did not let proof long enough, which lead to a bit more oven spring than you'd want from a Challah. The texture was light and fluffy, with a bit of creaminess to it. However, at the end of most bites there would be a gritty crunch to the bread. Any ideas?

I have two thoughts:

1.  I used honey, which had crsyallized. I did however, warm the honey back up to a liquid state before adding to the dough.

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