I (am very new to bread baking and) want to use the stretch and fold technique that I have been reading about here.  I don’t have a mixer and I want make very wet doughs like for focaccia and ciabatta.   I have done the no-knead method and autolyse and know very well that you can make tasty bread without any kneading whatsoever.  And I am intrigued by the knowledge that whipping the day light out of a dough results in over oxygenation and actually less tasty bread and therefore leaning ever more toward stretch and fold.  

I have not had a chance to read the PR and JH books that describe/discuss this method only the videos and chats on this site.  Is it possible to give some generalized guide lines?

 I am confused about the following:

1)      After you mix in the yeast how do you know how many times you ought to stretch and fold the dough before you let it rest?  Some advice is just once to quite a few times?

2)      How do you decide how long you should let the dough rest before you stretch and fold again? Some advice is as short as 10 mins or up to 30 mins.

3)      How do you know how many cycles of S & F you should do?

4)      How can you tell when the right amount of gluten is developed?                                                          I have a specific question here.  For example in http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2984/jasons-quick-coccodrillo-ciabatta-bread  or Rose Levy Berenbaum’s sheet foccacia or http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/3621/quick-rustic-ciabatta-pizza-recipe-full-howto-pics it tells you how long to mix with a mixer at a certain speed for a certain length of time and how the dough will suddenly come together.  Not having seen the dough prepared with a mixer is there some way to tell from S & F that you have achieved the same?

5)      And importantly why can’t I just do a bunch of S & Fs all at once (as kneading used to be) let the dough rest and not hover over it?  Why are the intermediate rest periods important?  Would it not work if I did a bunch of S & Fs and then let the dough rest?

6)      Related to (5) can I simplify this process in some way and do S & F only once or twice?

7)      And then is doing S & F in the bowl just as good as taking the dough out on a counter?

8)      Can you actually over do the S & F and ruin your bread?

Last night, just to see, I mixed water and flour at 100% and 113% hydration and let it autolyse.  The dough(s) did firm up quite a bit after the 1 hour autolyse.  I gave it a few S & F in the bowl with a rubber spatula and that seemed to move things along a little further.  I just couldn’t tell if the gluten was developed as the recipes described they should be.  Would having added yeast changed things?  Those goops are in the fridge.  I will add some yeast to them tonight and see where that takes me.

Well!  This is a long post.  Some of these questions must be so naïve but I hope some them are relevant.

Thank you for any input!

K.

If my bread has more of a homemade muffin texture than bread texture, does that mean I'm not developing the gluten enough? I'm using freshly ground grains and overnight refrigeration. It also passes the window pane test. I never see many, if any, holes. I'm at 65% hydration; if I go any more it doesn't hold it's shape. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

I am frustrated because I can't seem to figure out: Do I add flour or water to get the dough the way it's supposed to be? I hear the terms tacky and sticky but I can't seem to correct my dough. I am making the PR pizza nepoltana. I am putting the ingredients in the mixer, after weighing, and letting it mix where the dough sticks to the bottom but not the sides just like he says. BUT when I take it out to knead it a bit more (because it sticks to the dough hook) I end up with it all on my hands, whether I use flour or water or both. It's one big mess all over my hands. So I end up getting frustrated and putting it in a bowl in the frig.  This happens with all my breads by hand (I also make PR's master formula whole grain bread). I get to the point where I, after using the machine for initial kneading, take it out to knead by hand, it seems just perfect until about 3-5 minutes later after adding water to my hands to keep it from sticking to them, it gets super tacky and I can't seem to correct it, even by adding flour at that point. It almost becomes like a paste and trying to knead it more just makes it worse. Am I adding too much water but how do I keep my hands from sticking to the dough while kneading? What am I doing wrong?

Thank you and forgive my frustration.

Howdy!

The last few times I've baked sourdough bread, gluten strands have had a difficult time forming, and they seem weak. I knead it in my Bosch first, and had better luck by hand just today. At first I thought I might be overkneading it in the Bosch, but the last time, I'm sure that's not the case. When the dough rises, the gluten strands that had formed are very weak and the dough falls apart easily. When baked, the crust is lumpy since the skin on the dough is weak and breaks while rising.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Greetings All,

This somehow happened in my wife's kitchen. Perhaps it was the chowder on the stove.

[img]http://www.thefreshloaf.com/files/images/IMG_5108.JPG[/img]

This is a 100% Hydration, 100% whole wheat bread with 100% whole wheat 100%hydration starter.

Pertinants:

200g fresh ground Wheat Montana Prarie Gold.

200g tap water and .5 tsp salt

flour and 175g water mixed and allow sit 12 hours in fridge

25g water added and sit 6hrs

For about the past 2-3 weeks, it seems that my Thom Leonard boules, which I have made every week since about November, are suddenly coming out overproofed even though I have not changed my technique: as soon as the loaves are slashed on the peel and hit the hot oven stone, they collapse and spread out at the slashes.