Hamelman

Really?  Week 24?  Something like that, anyway.

Ahem.

Yesterday I made yet another batch of Hamelman's Baguettes with Poolish, continuing my baguette quest.  For those of you who have been following along, two weeks ago I made a batch which I didn't get around to blogging about, and last week I was busy on Saturday and forgot to make a poolish for Sunday.  In past weeks, I've gotten good results in crust, crumb and flavor, and decent to excellent grigne, but my scores keep bursting in the oven.  This week I was influenced by the video BelleAZ posted of Cyril Hitz slashing baguettes.  Hitz says in the video that the scores should overlap by a full third of their length, something I don't think I was doing very well, or at least not very consciously.

Ahem.  To the breads!

Exterior

Crumb

Y'know, I think I could be pretty happy with this. It's not perfect.  There's still some bursting, especially on the baguette on the bottom.  But that one just wasn't scored very well in general.  No bulging in between scores like some past weeks. Flavor and mouthfeel were quite good, as they've been for several weeks.  Crust was a little chewy, although I think this has more to do with the fact that the baguettes came out of the oven at noon, rather than later in the after noon.  Longer sitting seems to correlate to chewier crust.  No biggie.

I'm going to stick with this formula a few more weeks (I'd like to try it as two mini-batards or one large batard, just for yucks), but I think this quest is nearing completion.

Happy baking, everyone.

-Ryan

I can't wait to put this bread on my blog! It's the best high percentage rye bread I've made and eaten so far. I’ve been making many rye breads recently, trying to figure out how to deal with high percentage rye dough and the optimum way to make good rye bread that is flavorful, tender, moisture and airy with many tiny holes, but not gummy and sticky. “Local Bread” written by Daniel Leader introduces different methods that used by people from different areas and it truly gave me a good guide on making rye bread though I haven’t tried the recipes from the book yet. Anyways, the recipe, 3 stage 70% rye bread, is from Hamelman's "Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes". Since I was satisfied with his “flaxseed rye”, I was eager to try this 70% rye bread. The technic used in here to get mild flavor sour rye is to use warm water, make fast fermentation in order to promote production of lactic acid. I did some modifications on the time for fermentation and proofing since the weather here are cold these days and adding lots of soaked dried fruits, pecan and spice to make the bread luxury~

 

Honestly, I had been worried during the whole time I made the bread because the dough seemed to be a little too stiff comparing to the dough I used to dealing with. And the short fermentation made me nervous that I might get a “rye brick”. ~’’~

The result was beyond my expectation! It has crispy crust even after 12 hours rest after baking which has never happened when I made rye bread. (They were usually got soft next day.) Moreover, it has great texture and is so moisture and tender that you won’t want to re-warm your bread even in such a cold day. I can taste mild sourness as well as a hint of sweetness with every bite, feel like I'm close to the nature. :D

Ingredients for fruits and nuts:
- 50 g pecan
- 50 g dried berries
- 30 g dried apricot
- 30 g dried fig
- 1 tsp neugewürz
- rum

Add 1 tsp. neugewürz in the rum and let all the dried fruit be soaked in rum for 24 hours.

+ Since I add lots of things in the dough, I made some modifications on the steps for mixing and kneading. When final dough were done, I allowed the dough rest for 10 min., then used the spatula mixing the fruits and nuts into the dough via S&F until all the ingredients were incorporated. I let the dough rest for 15 min., then do another S&F to make the dough into a smooth ball, and then rest for another 15 min.
+ I baked the loaf in the bakeware with lid for 20~30 min. and without lid for 10~20 min., then turn off the oven leaving the loaf in the oven for another 10 min. with the door ajar. (250C for first 10 min. and 220C for the rest of the time)
+ I scored it before proofing.

First try at the Vermont sourdough turned out lots better than anticipated. I used a soupy levain as the base for the sourdough, building it over a couple of days. My second try at the baguettes still didn't work out as well as hoped for. Will try again.

Sylvia (Bronx to Barn baker)

I went looking for a recipe that would use up some whole wheat and bulgar grain I accidentally mixed up.  I did not find that recipe (yet), but I did stumble upon this variation on Hamelman's Five Grain Levain posted by MadAboutB8 on her blog recently.  Thank you Sue!  As a result, I got distracted into this recipe, but since I had no sunflower seeds I substituted some raw pumpkin seeds we had in the cupboard.  I used Pendleton Mills Power (bread) flour, with home-milled hard white winter wheat for the whole wheat flour.  I used steel cut oats and BRM Flax Seeds.  The home-milled flour is always thirsty, so I ended up adding about 15-20 gm of extra water to the mix to get a good hydration level.  Everything else went according to Sue's recipe adaptation.  I did not retard this dough so I did include the yeast, but I only used 1/2 teaspoon (the formula calls for 1 tsp) because I seem to have explosive luck with instant yeast.  This bake was no different in that respect, and the dough came along right on schedule, even in our cool 67F-68F temperatures.

I made two round loaves, shaped in willow baskets.  I baked them sequentially in my La Cloche at 455F.  As you can see below, one loaf got away from me just a bit and over proofed a bit when the kitchen warmed up while the first loaf baked.

The loaf in front is the slightly over proofed loaf, which I sliced for the crumb shots. While clearly over proofed from external appearance it did not seem to suffer at all internally.

The crumb in this bread is moist and tender, and has excellent flavor.  It is not at all heavy, which I feared after soaking all the seeds and whole grains for 16 hours.  My wife mentioned, three different times, how much she likes this bread.  That's a new record, so I know this bread has made a good impression.

I continue to really enjoy the results that my La Cloche clay baker provides.  It has helped this bread to have a nice thin crust that is crisp yet chewy, and (IMHO) very appropriate to this bread.  It makes it a little hard to slice evenly though with the crumb so tender.  Here is a closer look at the crumb of this bread.

I expected the seeds to be more pronounced, but I was pleased to find that there is a homogeneous flavor that the seeds do not dominate.  Instead of any mouthful having a single prominent flavor there are any number of small individual bursts of taste from wheat, bulgar, oats, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, crust.  It tastes great and made a fine accompaniment to a robust beef stew.

This bread has moved Hamelman's "Bread" to the top of my birthday/father's day gift list.  If only half the other formulas in the book are as good as this one (in it's original form), it will keep me busy for a long time.

Thanks for stopping by
OldWoodenSpoon

One of my favorite breads from Hamelman's Bread is Pain Rustique (comes right before "Country Bread" and "Rustic Bread").  The bread is unshaped like a ciabatta, although it only has 69% hydration, and is scored before baking.  When I get it right (as opposed to, say, forgetting the salt and yeast following the autolyse, as I did the first time I tried the formula), it produces a toothsome crust and a flavorful, moderately open crumb.  As a bonus, the time from first mix to pulling the breads out of the oven is under 3 hours (not counting preferment time).

Anyway, the last week I was talking with my mom about the sourdough starter I brought her on our crazy baking day , and the subject of converting pre-fermented, commercially leavened formulas to sourdough came up, as did the Pain Rustique.  This got me thinking--why not try Pain Rustique as a sourdough?  And the more I thought, the more I had to try it.

Pain Rustique as written by Hamelman has 50% of the flour in a poolish, so I simply replaced this with a liquid levain.  I usually scale Hamelman's "Home" quantities by 2/3 since I can only fit 2 loaves on my stone at a time.   Here's what I did:

Levain*

• 100g ripe starter at 100% hydration. 
• 250g King Aurther All-Purpose Flour
• 250g water

*Note: I needed 600g of ripe levain, didn't get around to mixing it until 10:30 the night before, and needed to start the bread be 7 the next day.  For a longer sitting time, I'd do less starter and more flour and water.

Final Dough

• 300g flour
• 120g water
• 600g levain (all) 
• 12g salt

Steps:

1. The night before, mix the levain, cover and let sit overnight for 9 hours (but see note).
2. Mix flour, water and levain by hand until all the flour is hydrated.  Autolyze for 25 minutes.
3. Add salt, mix in the stand mixer at speed 2 for 2 minutes.
4. Do 30 stretch and folds in the bowl with a rubber spatula, rotating the bowl with each fold.
5. Ferment for 150 minutes, giving the dough a stretch and fold on the bench at 50 and 100 minutes.
6. Dump the dough onto a lightly floured work surface.  Divide in half to make 2 510g (18oz) pieces, placing any scraps on the rough side of the dough. Then place each piece on a floured couche, smooth side down.
7. Start pre-heating the oven with a baking stone and any steaming apparatus. Proof the loaves for 40-50 minutes.
8. Flip the loaves onto a sheet of parchment on the back of a sheet pan.  This can be done by hand, but I've taken to pulling a bit of the couch over the edge of the pan, then flipping the loaf couche and all onto the parchment.  This avoids the problem of finger-shaped indents on top of the loaves, which fill in while baking, but make scoring difficult.
9. Score longways, load into the oven, and bake for 35 minutes, with steam for the first 15 (I've been using the popular "towel method", placing rolled up towels soaked in hot water in two loaf pans below the baking stone.  After 15 minutes, the pans are removed).
10. Turn off oven, open door and loaves in for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

 

The results looked very much like my previous attempts at Pain Rustique (and why not?  It's still an unshaped, 69% hydration dough).

Exterior

 Crumb:

 

 

The flavor, however, was surprisingly different.  A nice, mild sour flavor in the crumb, with a stronger sourness in the crust.  Crust was more sourdough-y than the poolish version, and the mouthfeel of the crumb was subtly different, but I don't know how to describe it.  The flavor evolved a little over time--on the first night the tiny amount of whole wheat from my starter (which is fed 25% whole wheat, 75% white) was detectable, but by the next day (and with the second loaf, pulled from the freezer a couple days later) that had mellowed and the sourness had increased.

A very, very tasty bread, all told.  I'd say better than the poolish version, although as I've noted the two are quite different in flavor.  I'll definitely make this again!

Thanks to all for advise. Next time round will

• Fold twice instead just once
• Will substitute one cup of bread flour with AP

Again, the recipe I used is from Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread book.

My first baguettes are in their second rise under a canopy of dusted linen and plastic. I'm glad they're under wraps. They are undeniably ugly. Instead of rolling out slender columns of dough, I created things that look like squat electric eels, large cucumbers, chubby rolling pins. I hadn't allowed the dough to rest long enough after pre-shaping. Darn.

Well, we'll see what I end up with in two hours.

Sylvia

Bronx-to-Barn Baker

Well, dear readers, despite my recent silence on the subject I have not given up on my baguette quest!  For the last few weeks, however, I'd gotten a little sick of blogging about it.  This week was fairly successful, however, and so I want to share, and request some feedback.

The main change from previous bakes is that a little over a week ago I got a shipment of baking toys, I mean, equipment from TMB/San Francisco Baking Institute.  I got 2 yards of 18-inch linen couche, a lame/blade holder with razor blades, a proofing board (which I've been using as an all-purpose bench board), and a flipping board.  With these, I was certain, many of my problems would be resolved (specifically, excess degassing when shaping and transfering, and ragged scoring).  The first bake with the new equipment (last week) was a little rough, but this week I had things sorted out.

Exterior

Crumb - First Half

Crumb - Second Half

I'm getting there!  The slashing wasn't perfect, but it went much smoother with the new blade, resulting in at least two ears per baguette big enough to lift the loaf with.  Crust was decent if not exceptional, flavor was good.  Profile was nice and round, a nice change from some recent flatter bakes.  Crumb varied within the baguette I sliced (the one in the middle, up top) from good to great.

Here's where I'm looking for feedback: I'm still having problems with the crust bursting between cuts -- is this the result of under-proofing?  Or something else?  I could swear this batch was fully proofed, but I'm not necessarily a good judget of these things.

Happy baking, everyone,

-Ryan

Today was another snowday, so I again canceled a variety of plans to stay home with my son.   Amazing how nicely baking bread fits into that routine.   I had already planned to bake, but had no idea how I was going to fit it in, since I always manage to be out of the house at the exact moment that some essential step has to happen.   No such worries today.   I made Hamelman's 5 grain sourdough for the first time, as well as yet another iteration on my own elusive sourdough.  Actually I made Hamelman's 5 minus 1 plus replacements sourdough.  Since I don't like sunflower seeds, I upped the flax seeds and oats.  I don't have cracked rye (or know what it is) and had just bought a tiny bag of wheat berries, having no idea what to do with them, so I threw them into a coffee grinder and gave them a whirl, and voila - cracked something.   The resulting bread is just awesomely tasty.   Only after I tasted it did I run to this site and search, and see how them as come before me have raved about it.   Absolutely delicious, and compared to what I've been trying to make lately, like a walk in the park.   What other jewels is Hamelman hiding up his sleeve?   Not that he has any duds as far as I can tell.  But some are better than others, and this is just amazing.  

and rye and white sourdoughs side by side:

In trying to digest all the helpful advice I received from this list on managing fermenting, shaping, scoring, proper sourdough culture and so forth, I found myself in areas of Hamelman where I had never wandered before.   I looked with some amazement at the instructions for Three stage 90% Sourdough Rye.  This uses the Detmolder method of rye bread production.   What struck me as altogether improbable, is that you start with a teaspoon - yes that is .1 oz, or less than 3 grams - of ripe starter and build it up to a pound and a half (672g) over the course of around 24 hours, in three stages with each stage oriented to developing a different characteristic of the starter.   I admit, I wondered if this would work for a mortal baker such as myself, but I happened to have the necessary ingredients around (more or less) so I set off to see if an actual bread could be produced.   The instructions in Hamelman (page 201 in my version of Bread) are quite clear.   I followed his three stages carefully - and starting with a teaspoon of starter, produced a very pitted and expanded rye starter by the time it was ready to bake.   The final dough calls for medium rye, which I didn't have so I used 60% white rye, and 40% whole rye.   The instructions call for a bulk ferment time of 20 minutes, and final proof of around an hour.   I had to call off the latter after 40 minutes because it had almost tripled in size  was getting too big for my stone.   The instructions called for scoring with a dough docker, which I don't have, so instead I stippled with a skewer.   The dough also seemed to stipple itself, so it was very holey by the time it was ready to go into the oven.   Finally the house filled with an almost overwhelming scent of toasted rye.   And an improbable loaf is now resting on my counter soon to be wrapped up in linen and cut and tasted tomorrow. 

The stippling:

and profile:

and finally the crumb:

It's hard to assess this, since I've never actually eaten this type of bread before, and I don't know either what it's supposed to look like or what it should taste like.   But just as a lay opinion on the matter, and after only a couple of bites, I would say yum!