The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

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Fergie51's picture
Fergie51

Why crumb colour variation?

Hi,

I run a support group for Australian sourdough bakers and this question from a member has me stumped. Why has the crumb in this loaf come out with two different colours. No blending of different flours, all the same flour and it looks well incorporated re starter etc, no leaching from something over top while proving. No obvious reasoning as to why. Anyone got any ideas? 

Benito's picture
Benito

Yorkville SD Baguettes Stiff Levain

I am definitely out of practice shaping baguettes.  Looking at my index I see it has been almost exactly 6 months, much too long.  Based on the three baguettes I baked you can see the improvement with the shaping from the first to the third.  Another variable is that I couldn’t find my preferred flour that I have been using for baguettes so had to use a flour I haven’t used for baguettes before.

This bake I wanted to further test the idea that with more gluten development I could final proof further.  In the past with little gluten development I found the sweet spot for proofing at time of bake was a 30% rise in total.  This allowed me to get an open crumb and decent ears.  This time I actually used my Ankarsrum Assistent for dough development and a couple of folds.  The dough went into cold retard when the aliquot jar showed a rise of only 20%.  The following morning the dough was pre-shaped, shaped and allowed to rise to 45%, so much much more than what I used to do.  Based on the third shaped baguette I’d say that my theory works.  I’ll need to try to get another bake this week of baguettes to get the rust out and confirm my findings.  The one baguette which looks like a snake that swallowed a small animal probably had a large trapped air bubble I’m guessing, anyhow suboptimal to say the least.

Overnight Levain build ferment 75°F 10-12 hours.

In the morning, to your mixing bowl add 353 g water and diastatic malt 5.8 g to dissolve, then add 527 g AP flour to combine.  Briefly mix in your stand mixer until there is no dry flour, then autolyze for 15-20 mins.  

 

Add the bassinage water to the stiff levain, mix to loosen.  Sprinkle salt on the dough.  Then spread levain on the dough.  Mix until the dough has at least moderate gluten development.  This was very quick in the Ankarsrum Assistent.  Release the dough to the countertop and do a few folds to smooth out the dough.

 

Bulk Fermentation 82*F until aliquot jar shows 20% rise.

Do folds every 20 mins doing 2 or 3 folds stopping when the dough is showing good strength.  Place in 3°C fridge overnight.

 

 

Divide and pre-shape rest for 15 mins.

Shape en couche with final proof until aliquot jar shows 45% rise then (optional) cold retard shaped baguettes en couche for at least 15 minutes for easier scoring. 

 

Pre-heat oven 500*F after 30 mins add Silvia towel in pan with boiling water.

Transfer baguettes from couche to peel on parchment

Score each baguette and transfer to oven, bake on steel.

Bake with steam pouring 1 cup of boiling water to cast iron skillet dropping temperature to 480*F. 

 

The baguettes are baked with steam for 13 mins.  The steam equipment is removed venting the oven of steam.  Transfer the baguettes from the baking steel to next rack completing baking directly on a rack to minimize the browning of the bottom crust.  The oven is dropped to 450ºF but convection is turned on and the baguettes bake for 10 mins rotating them halfway.  The baguettes are rotated again if needed and baked for another 3 mins to achieve a rich colour crust.

My index of bakes.

pizza party's picture
pizza party

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albacore's picture
albacore

My new French starter

I recently bought some French Foricher T65 flour whilst shopping for some other flours.

I hadn't got a particular recipe in mind when I bought it, but then it became obvious that the first thing to try was an authentic "pain au levain".

I became rather interested in the original method for making pain au levain which dates from 1778 (or earlier) as detailed in Parmentier's "Le parfait boulanger, ou Traité complet sur la fabrication et le commerce du pain (Éd.1778)". The method is known as "travail sur trois levains", or work on three levains.

Basically it's a way of building up a levain in 3 stages and is similar in concept to the German Detmolder  Dreistufenführung method for rye bread.

Anyway, I digress! The first thing I needed was a starter. Although I already had one, it seemed appropriate to make a proper French one - ie French flour, low hydration. A book from M. Calvel provided a suitable method, as detailed in this table:

I shrank the quantities down as detailed here and had a working starter in about 3 days. An interesting starter - 50% hydration and salted from the start (to reduce proteolysis).

So I went to on to make the pain au levain; sadly it wasn't that good! - rather bland and with a tight crumb.

I know it's heresy to say it, but I've decided I don't actually like T65 flour very much! It makes a sticky dough and I think it's too weak for sourdough use - best results I've had are with a poolish. Maybe it's just the brand I've used (though it's well respected....).

On the other hand, I've ended up with a great starter! - it has become my main starter and gives great rise and good flavour. Previously I could see my loaves spreading when I put them in the oven, but not now.

I usually do 3 levain builds - 4pm (1/1/0.5 25C), 10pm (1/6/3 25C) and a "booster" at 8am the morning after (1/1/0.5 29C), all salted at 1%. I do the builds with strong Manitoba flour to minimise gluten degradation.

I use the levain at about 33% of main flour with a minimal autolyse of about 10 minutes.

Not much to see in a starter (apart from those overflowing jar photos....), but here is mine when I'm taking a bit out to use - peeling back the crust (a bit like a bound lievito madre):

Only 30g in that jar - my normal weekly refresh.

And here's a loaf I made recently with this starter:

Lance

 

plevee's picture
plevee

German whole Rye

From Maurizio Leo's The Perfect Loaf. Baked this morning - will slice tomorrow to see if I've avoided the dreaded flying crust

CrustyJohn's picture
CrustyJohn

Whole Wheat Loaf

I    've been interested in really dialing in on making a nice whole wheat loaf this year, hoping to get to a point where I can consistently make a loaf that has enough of an airy texture + richness of whole wheat to make white flour less relevant in my repertoire.  I've had some good starts that I documented here, but I recently had a really satisfying breakthrough loaf, that I think pretty well meets my criteria for success, so I'll give it a post of its own.

I recently moved to work in Maine, so I was working with Maine Grains hard red spring wheat.

Maine Grains whole wheat 100%

Water 90%

Starter 11%

Salt ~3 tsp

 

Pretty much same approach as documented in earlier posts but some of the stages were a bit drawn out because I was working with lower temperatures.  Maybe slightly longer on the retard stage (12-13 hrs) as I was at a dinner and didn't get back home to bake until later than planned.

 

The result is really nicely airy, a few overly big holes, but not enough to bother me much.  Flavor is nice- rich but mellow, not as bland and astringent as the KAF whole wheat I was using previously.  Texture is very soft.  

 

I'm not sure what to attribute the improved results to- perhaps good grain, perhaps an appropriate hydration for the flour, or maybe just pushing the bulk fermentation and retard a little bit longer.  Whatever it is, if I can consistently make this loaf, I'll be very pleased!

JonJ's picture
JonJ

Sourdough breads with pigeon pea flour

Derek and Gavin have been baking very interesting breads with (sweet) lupin flour lately. The promise and attraction of these breads is, to put it in Derek's words, "..taste delicious not too overpowering very light in mouth and stomach afterwards..." and "completely devoured in no time!".

So, it was with these thoughts in mind that I made the impulse purchase of a bag of pigeon pea flour and found myself making a sourdough bread with it when I got home from the shops. The bag itself recommended using the flour for baking biscuits and crepes or pancakes. And I found a paper that said that "the bread from 10% pigeon pea flour blend with 2–3% vital gluten and 0.5% SSL had high loaf volume and loaf quality" so went for approximately that amount in the final dough:

pea flour formula

 

When mixing the dough there was a clear pea (vegetable) smell to the dough. Dough was a nice pale yellow colour, which carried through to an attractive golden appearance in both the crust and crumb of the final loaves. When the bread was first cut, I noticed only the very smallest amount some of that 'off' pea smell taste (far less than when working the dough), but that taste note was lost the next day when the sourdough flavour of the bread developed. The starter used was about 2-3 hours past peak (and it did have a small refresher feed, but nevertheless, the sourdough tang was present in the taste).

I'm not completely convinced that pea flour brought all that much to these breads other than the lovely yellow colour, and possibly an improved protein composition. Nevertheless, I've got plans to use it again, perhaps at 5% in a loaf together with semolina to bring out a strong yellow colour.

  • Method:

        1 h 15m autolyse

        Added levain using the dough hook for 1 minutes only (load shedding kicked in and had to stop there).  Completed this with 50 slap and folds

        30 minutes later added salt and bassinage of 52g of water that had been held back

        15 minutes later an additional 10 slap and folds to bring the dough together after the bassinage

        At 2 hours after adding levain, gave it a coil fold

        At 3 hours after adding levain pre-shaped into rounds

        20 minutes later final shape

        30 minutes later into fridge

        (next day, 9.5 hours later) remove from fridge while oven heats (for 45 minutes)

        Into freezer for 15 minutes

        Bake on baking steel together - 220°C for 20 minutes with steam, then 23 minutes without steam at 200°C.
jo_en's picture
jo_en

rusbrot THSD Šventinė duona -100% whole grains

This is rusbrot's Šventinė duona which uses a thermophilic sourdough (THSD) - in the family of Type II sourdoughs along with clas/flas. I had 17 gr of frozen THSD (enough for 1/3 of his recipe, which uses 1000 gram of flour). This is a tiny loaf for all the hours of tending! But the fragrance and flavor are beautiful.

The original recipe uses light rye flour and wheat bread flour.  To adjust for the freshly milled whole grains, the hydration was increased to about 70-73% from about 54%.

 

QGirl's picture
QGirl

When to tell if the sourdough is bad...

So, I have done sourdough starters several times before and am definitely an amateur at it. Because of my schedule, plus we tend to eat more rice than bread in my home, I don't make bread often so I tend to store my starter in the fridge often.

The starter creates liquid like it usually does in the fridge, but the last time I did this I left it in the fridge for several weeks. The liquid darkened to an almost black/brown color, and I was alarmed by this because I have not seen it get so dark. 

Is this due to bad bacteria? Or is it because I left it in the fridge for too long unfed? 

Can anyone give me pointers on how to tell when my starter has gone bad or how long I should keep it in the fridge for?

todd@aristesoftware.com's picture
todd@aristesoft...

Tartine crumb is moist and dense

After a hiatus of several yours, I'm trying to get back to Tartine classic loaves. As seen in the image, the crust and shape look great; it is just the crumb that in diasappointing.

My current theory is that the starter was not as active as needed.

Also, by 5:00 pm, the loaf was well developed so I skipped the overnight refrigerator step - never have skipped that step in the past. Could that have made the difference with the crumb being too sense?

Another question aout how to place the loaf in the refrigerator: just covered with a cloth or uncovered?

 

Many thanks. It is nice to get back to Tartine bread.

 

Todd

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