As a novice baker, I'n trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible, but this predicament I can't seem to find much info on.

How do I know if my dough is too wet versus not kneaded enough?   The reason I ask is because with most breads, mainly white flour breads (AP or bread flour,) it's easy to tell when you've got that silky smooth, highly-developed dough.  My problem comes with whole grain doughs.  It feels like I could knead for hours and still not be able to window pane a piece of it.  Is it too much water? I've tried doing ratios of whole grain to AP/bread flour.  I've added gluten.  The dough never reaches the quality that say, a baguette dough for example, would feel like.  Am I missing something here?

Case in point.  I'm making pita dough for pitas later tonight.  Simple enough.  The recipe describes that the dough should be smooth and stretchy.  Mine isn't.  The recipe called for 3 cups of flour and I used a cup each of WW, AP, and bread flour (all King Arthur brand).  I let the dough rest before kneading so the WW could have time to hydrate.  I kneaded for the prescribed time - 10 minutes on low in a stand mixer; the dough never did quit sticking to the bottom of the mixer, even after adding additional flour several times.  The dough's sticky - not smooth, not elastic.

Is that just the beast with whole grain dough?  The pita bread's proofing right now, so I don't know how the end result will be.  I guess that's another post.

Carlton

Can anyone help me in calculating the butter fat percentage in commercial butter offered in supermarkets.  I am looking for an unsalted butter with a high percentage of butterfat - a dry butter.  I checked the facts on the backs of several different supermarket butters and came up with a total fat content of 11gm and a total weight of 14gm in a tablespoon of butter.  If my math (always questionable) is correct that's only 78% fat.  I also thought that in the US butter was required to have 80% BF.  Any help with this would be appreciated. 

There'll be a better write-up on my blog,
mentalexperimental.org, but I wanted to thank Floyd for a good starter recipe. I'm still working on modifying this one. I think that I have the general consistency of the bread down that I want, but I want a bit more tang. I think that there may have to be a sourdough component to really get it where I want it to be. But that's a completely new bread.

This is Floyd's recipe with a few modifications. The first is adding a bit more sour cream. The second was adding cheddar cheese instead of chives. The third is the addition of half & half in the dough and the mashed potatoes.

I think that getting a stand mixer will help me with this type of bread the most. I mixed for 8 or so minutes on speed 2 and then folded twice during the bulk fermentation, giving it an hour at the end to come to full bulk. The crumb is light, fluffy, and very tender.

I'm writing the recipe on the blog now. I wanted to share the photo because I'm so proud of how this one turned out. :)

      I recently bought a new mixer, Electrolux Assistent and while learning to use it went to my friends house where we did two batches of the same dough, using bread flour on one and AP on the other. The forumla was Pain Italien from Benard Clayton's New complete Book of Breads. Using bread flour we acheived a sticky dough that was hard to move to an oiled bowl, where the AP batch was like a baby's hind end, smooth and satiny, no stickiness what so ever. Both breads turned out well and I'm told that all's well that ends well. Both batches where weighed and used the same scale.

      But then I go home and do it again, but I use a locally milled flour ($23.39/25Kgs) that just says, "hard wheat flour". Thats it, no content notes or food value breakdowns as to protein content. I don't know where the wheat comes from, US, Australian, China? Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is the stickiness is always there.

      OK, so my friend thinks nothing of buying the best of what ever, where as my income is only 1/2 of his and I have to watch my pennies. Now what can I add to get the smooth satiny finish that his AP flour provided? The bread always comes out good, but not as nice to work with.

     Another thing that I'm inquisitive about is B. Clayton calls for a first rise of 3Xs the original size. What is the reasoning behind this as most recipes only call for doubling the first rise?  Thx for your thoughts.

In January I started my first batch of sourdough starter.  The taste evolves weekly and is delicious.  Within the last month I've noticed that after kneeding, the bread seems to get very sticky and rises so fast I can't keep up with it.  I've tried adding more flour before and after the kneed, but it seems to suck in the moisture from the air or something and just gets stickier.  It rises so fast that I punch down and let it rise about 3 times, which actually seems to develop the flavor more but also makes it difficult to manage.  My last problem is that it doesn't seem to rise in the oven.  I score the loaf just before putting it in and when I pull it out it doesn't even look as  though it's been scored.  Any thoughts or suggestions on any of these oddities? 

Hi. 

I did a search for this but didn't find relevant information.  I am making pugliese for the first time, following The Bread Bible's recipe called Brianna's Pugliese.  The Kitchenaid is kneading right now but the dough seems very wet. It's not coming off the sides of the bowl at all and I'm wondering if this is normal.  The recipe says the dough will be very sticky but I'm not sure if it's supposed to be THIS sticky.  Any info would be greatly appreciated!

June