So,

I finished my WFO earlier this fall and am baking in it now. Breads are great and sell faster than I can bake them, but I encountered one particular issue:

I seem to have a problem gettin that nice, crispy crust on my French Bread. I am told that with my Whole Wheat or even Whole Wheat mix, the crust usually gets softer after the loaves cool off, but I'm a little disappointed that even the French Bread (Reinharts recipe, made with Sam's Club high-gluten bread flour) gets soft after it cools off.

I bake at around 550 degrees, give the loaves a good 5-8 seconds of steam with a brass-nozzled sprayer, and the crust is awesome immediately after baking. Once the loaves cool off, the crust gets soft.

I'm used to the baguettes we made in Germany (where, admittedly, we could add steam very easily and "remove" it after a few minutes) - those loaves would come out crisp and then shrink while cooling off, causing the crust to "fenster". It would crack and splinter.

Is there anything I can do differently to get better crust?

Thanks in advance,

Stephan

Hi all,

I'm trying the Tartine Bread recipe and seem to be having trouble getting my Starter going.  Here's my environment.  I live in the Denver-metro area at about 6000 ft. elevation.  At this time of the year, my house temp ranges from 60 - 66 degrees.  I began the starter on Apr 9 following the Tartine instructions exactly.  I use a small plastic container (approx. 2 pints).  Filled it halfway with tap water.  I use a charcoal filter on my faucet similar to a Pur filter.  I use King Author non-bleached bread flour and King Author whole wheat in a 50/50 mixture.  It took 4 handfuls of flour to achieve a thick batter.  I mixed it with my hand until the lumps were gone.  I covered the container with a damp paper towel and put it on top of the refrigerator out of direct sunlight.

Apr 10 - no activity visible, water began to separate to the top - about 1/16"

Apr 11 - a few bubble were visible on the top, none on the sides, water separation grew to about 1/8"

Apr 12 - noticed more bubbles on top and side, starter did grow, water still separated on top

Apr 13 - brown crust developed around the top out edges.  Smell was mildly acidic.  Choose to begin the feeding schedule.  Discarded 80% and feed with 1/2 cup of 50/50 flour and 1/2 cup of warm tap water.  The time is 6:30pm.  No real rise/fall activity occurs with in the next 5 hours.  House temp remains between 60 - 66 degrees in a 24 hour period.

Apr 14 - water is separated at the top.  A few bubbles are visible.  Mild aroma - no acidity.  No visible rise/fall activity.  Discard 80% and feed again 24 hours later using same method as above

Apr 15 - water is separated at the top.  A few bubbles are visible.  Mild aroma - no acidity.  No visible rise/fall activity.  Skip feeding.

Apr 16 - water is separated at the top.  A few bubbles are visible.  Mild aroma - no acidity.  No visible rise/fall activity.  Discard 80% and feed again at 8:00am using 1/3 cup of 50/50 flour and 1/3 cup of warm tap water.  House temp - 61 degrees.

I think I'm following the Tartine instructions correctly, but don't believe I'm getting the proper results.  Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance for any and all comments.

Jim 

I don't think this is a sourdough question, because I've had this problem with other doughs also, though not in the last few years.  I'm wondering what factors influence whether the braids retain their definition during proof & bake.

This is my second time making Maggie Glezer's beautiful-looking sourdough challah; the first time, in February, I attributed the (aesthetic) failure of the bread to our cold house - it's usually under 20 degrees and frequently under 18 in the winter.  Not a problem right now... the house was over 25 degrees, more like 27-28 the entire time I was preparing this dough.

I revived my firm starter and followed the recipe exactly.  All steps seemed to go extremely, prodigiously well.  Yet despite the dough being very cooperative during braiding, the challah came out with no differentiation between the braids, just a weird-looking vaguely football-shaped loaf.

For photos and step-by-step, please visit my blog here.

I make a lot of challah and Can anyone give advice as to why the braids would fail so utterly, and how to make them beautiful like all the photos I've seen of this challah for next time?

Thanks!

Jennifer in BreadLand

http://breadland.blogspot.com

Hi there,

For a week or so when I try to search the site I get a box labelled "Search Favorites" but no results. Is it me or the site?

I was just mixing up some dough to make some whole wheat sandwich bread, and decided to use molasses in place of honey, which I'm a bit short on at the moment. I've substituted in molasses successfully on a number of occassions, with one exception, and that problem seems to be repeating itself now. The dough (375 grams of flour, 75% Whole wheat, 70% total hydration, includes 30g molasses) has turned into a soft stone, and feels like I'm kneading 30% hydration dough, and it won't allow itself to be pushed back together if I try to seal up the seams. The gluten doesn't seem to be developing either, it just tears whenever pressure is applied and the dough easily tears apart. I tried adding more liquid, but all that happened was the dough discharged an equal amount of brown goop when I tried to knead it in. Anyone know what's going wrong here?

The dough is resting a bit now, I'm going to try kneading it a bit more, then go through the standard ferment - form - proof - bake process and see what happens. I had this happen once before and I got a brick out of the oven... will post with continued results.

          I’ve been trying my hand at bread making recently and considered the no knead method that was demonstrated in the New York times (and on countless YouTube videos) to be the sort of bread I was looking for, an artisan crispy crust with open crumb texture. Easy I thought....

            The problem I seem to be encountering is the bread seems doughy,damp almost crumpet like in texture, even though the crisp crust exists.

I have tried cast iron pots and Pyrex dishes, higher temps, lower temps and longer bake times but seem to get the same result whatever.

I follow the basic, now classic recipe every time, 3 cups strong flour, ¼ teaspoon instant yeast, 1 ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 ½ cups of water and I have even weighed out the flour to ensure accuracy but still spongy doughy inside.

I am beginning to wonder if it’s the yeast, I notice that the dough has risen really well after 12 hours but is somewhat deflated by 20% or so after 18 hours and doesn’t seem to second rise very well.

Could I be using the wrong yeast...?

It seems impossible to find ‘instant yeast’ in the UK, there’s ‘easy bake’ and ‘quick acting’ and so forth but not any of the US stuff that seems to be mentioned on the US recipes that produce this perfectly baked bread.

At the moment I’m using Allinson easy bake yeast which is not hydrated in warm water, the tiny granules are just put into the dry mix.

I follow the recipe religiously and have even brought home calibrated temperature probes from work to ensure my oven temp and the temp within the Dutch oven, i.e. Pyrex dish or cast iron casserole pot are correct (235 degrees c) the dough is proven on the kitchen work top in a covered dish and the ambient temp is around 18 – 20 degrees c as a rule.

I can’t really let a loaf of bread beat me and I’m not the sort of person who gives up very often but I’m running out of variables here so any help or advice anyone can give me would be very much appreciated.

Recently I successfully baked a sourdough farmbread recipe with a friend for guidance.    After this success, he gave me a cup of chef and the recipe.     Since then, I have tried, unsuccessfully, to bake the bread.     After making the levain the night before, I made the bread dough the next morning, but kneading it resulted in a sticky mess - the recipe calls for 5 minutes of kneading at the outset and I have kneaded for up to 10 minutes and still couldn't get the sticky consistency to evolve into a nice dough ball.  But I persevered - saving a cup of chef for the next time and divided the dough into two equal parts.   The first proof was 4 hours and it rose fairly well - I let it rest,  folded it several times, letting it rest each time -  trying to get the flaccidity to congeal better, without much success.    Then I put each half into a floured basket for the final proof - again it rose moderatly, but when I rolled the dough out onto the cornmeal dusted stone, it was still pretty flaccid.    I baked them according to instructions but they came out quite flat and undone in the centers.    This has happened twice in the last 2 weeks.     I have been told that too much kneading is counterproductive.    Help!   Julian

Hi Loafers. I've been lurking and learning from the Fresh Loaf contributors for some months but this is my first post. Hopefully someone can suggest a cure for my sourdough blues. I've been home bread-baking for 15 odd years with commercial yeast leavening, but about a year ago decided to experiment with sourdough. My starter was based on 1/3 wholewheat flour to 2/3 white. It came to life with gusto. I live in Africa and I guess our wild yeast are really wild!

I am new to making bread, and have made a number of loaves using King Arthur bread flour, salt, water and a sourdough starter. The bread tastes great, but when I toast it I am never able to get the crumb to turn brown and crispy, no matter how long I toast it for. What could be going wrong? (The toaster works fine by the way...)

Hope anyone out there could help. I currently use 2 mixers for my production, a 20 quart planetary mixer and a 5 quart KitchenAid mixer. I use my KA mixer for small batches or to test new formulas. Then I use my 20 quarts for bigger and heavier doughs. My problem is... when i mix dough using my KA mixer, my bread usually turns out soft, but when I mix it using the bigger mixer, it kinda turns harder than expected. Now my question is, would there be a difference in the final product when making larger quantities?