The Fresh Loaf

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jofishr@yahoo.com's picture
jofishr@yahoo.com

Trouble scoring

I have had some trouble being able to score my loafs before baking.

I wait till I believe they are proofed and use a sharp knife or a bread lame 

apx. 75 percent hydration AP flour 80 percent biga used in final mix

they either pull too much with the blade and may collapse a little from my attempt

Benito's picture
Benito

13th set of baguettes au levain

I’ve been participating the baguette CB and realized that I hadn’t documented any of the baguette bakes in my blog.  I find it can be nice to go back and see how my baking has progressed with its various ups and downs.

The formula I’ve settled on to hone my baguette craft with is Abel’s Baguette au Levain.  This is the formula I’ve been following.

For three baguettes about 280 g (to account for aliquot jar)

 

 

 

 

 

Total Flour

 

 

 

 

 

Total Dough Weight (g)

 

900.3

 

Prefermented

9.09%

 

 

 

 

Total Formula

 

 

 

Liquid Levain

 

 

Final Dough

 

 

Ingredients

%

Grams

 

%

Grams

 

Ingredients

Grams

 

Total Flour

100.00%

522.5

 

100.00%

47.5

 

Final Flour

475

 

AP Flour/T55

100%

522.5

 

100%

47.5

 

AP Flour/T55

475

 

Strong Bread Flour

0%

0

 

0%

0.0

 

Bread Flour

0

 

Water

67.7%

353.5

 

100%

47.5

 

Water

 

 

Autolyse (93%)

0.00%

0.0

 

0%

0.0

 

Autolyse(cool)

306

 

Final (7%)

0.00%

0.0

 

0%

0.0

 

Bassinage(v cool)

0

 

IDY

0.07%

0.38

 

 

 

 

IDY

0.38

 

Diastatic Malt Powder

1%

5.2

 

 

 

 

Malt

5.2

 

Salt

1.80%

9.38

 

 

 

 

Salt

9.38

 

Starter (in final dough)

2.20%

11.5

 

24%

11.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Levain

95

 

Totals

176.89%

900.3

 

224%

106.5

 

 

900.3

Fermentolyse

Dissolve diastatic malt powder, IDY and levain in water.  Then add flour and mix.

20 mins later add salt with wet hands and work in with dimpling and pinching.  then Rubaud kneading for up to 5 mins.  Remove 30-50 g of dough and place in aliquot jar and keep with the dough.

Rest 50 mins then Coil Fold.

Rest 50 mins then Coil Fold

Once aliquot jar reaches 30% rise then place dough into refrigerator 2ºC overnight and up to 24 hours.

Next day set oven up for steaming with Sylvia towel and cast iron skillet and temperature set to 500ºF.  In fact I now wait for 30 mins after oven is turned on and then place the Sylvia towel loaf pan filled with boiling water from kettle into oven.

Remove dough from fridge and divide into 3 equal weight doughs and pre-shape lightly as boules.  Bench rest 15-20 mins.  

Shape baguettes and rest in floured couche for 20 mins then return to fridge to chill until oven reaches 500ºF.  Chilling the dough makes scoring easier.

Using transfer board place each baguette on a parchment lined peel.  Brush excess flour off each baguette.  Score.  Brush water on each baguette.

Transfer baguettes onto baking steel using the peel and parchment.  Pour boiling water into icast iron skillet.  Bake with steam for 13 mins then remove Sylvia towel and cast iron skillet. 

Drop temperature of oven to 480ºF and turn on convection.  After 5 mins turn and rotate baguettes.  Check for done ness in another 5 mins, if not fully browned then rotate and turn again.  Remove once crust is nicely browned.

 

 

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

Kamut/Spelt loaf & basic white 1:2:3

Not baking so much but love the combination of Kamut & spelt so this weekend did a repeat of an earlier bake where I had pushed the Kamut to 50% with close to 80% hydration.  

Starter was refreshed on Friday morning and so before bed I built the levain. 13 g starter + 60 g water + 60 g bread flour

Saturday at 9:15 am autolyse for 30 minutes

114 g bread flour + 212 g kamut + 38 g spelt and 275 g water.  It felt a bit too wet and I remembered last bake where I had decided the hydration should be lower.  So I added another 20 g bread flour, not something I do at all.

9:45 am   add levain and mix with 100 SLAFs.  Patted dough out and sprinkled over 7.6 g salt, rolled it up and did another 100 SLAFs.  Leave to rest 40 minutes

10 am mix the white 1:2:3 following a 40 minute autolyse - just a very standard 600 g total dough weight loaf.  Method was the same as for the Kamut & spelt.  Left to rest for 30 minutes

10:45 am coil folds to both doughs and this was repeated 4 times at 40 minute intervals. 

12:50 pm both doughs were left to bulk ferment.  Room temperature was probably only 20 deg C and contrary to my usual practice I bulk fermented in shallow containers so I could perform coils more easily.  This meant I was a little uncertain about how far the fermentation had gone. 

15:40 pm There were some bubbles on top of both doughs and only small bubbles visible underneath but I felt the fermentation had gone as far as I wanted it to so I preshaped, rested for  20 minutes before doing the final shape - very simple folding sides to the midline and then rolling up.  Bench rest for 30 minutes then into the fridge overnight.  

Sunday morning 8 am.I find it quite difficult to get a really good colour on my breads these days, I am not happy with my oven but for now I have to do my best with it.  Oven was preheated to 260 deg C.  Dough was baked in DO 15 minutes covered, 15 minutes uncovered.  I popped it back for another minute with top element on high but didn't achieve much. 

Kamut/spelt loaf

Basic white 1:2:3 (I was trying out a new brand of flour)

Just every day bread but using the different flour has made quite a difference.  I had made a new starter during Covid19 lockdown and have added it to my old starter so I happy the way it is performing.

Bake happy every one. 

Leslie

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Durum Egg Porridge Bread

      This bread is like a Challah on steroids ?.  If you have not tried making a porridge bread yet, give this one a try and you won't be disappointed.  It is full of flavor and pretty healthy to boot.

You can vary the porridge ingredients and it will still taste great and if you want to make it a little more decadent, use heavy cream instead of the milk in the porridge and use some in place of the water in the main dough as well.

I made one loaf out of this formula and a bunch of rolls which I like to freeze and use for burgers and sandwiches as needed.  For the rolls I also sprinkled some cheese on top before baking, just because anything with cheese is just plain better in my book ?.

Here is the BreadStorm Link

Levain Directions

Mix all the levain ingredients together  for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.  Let it sit at room temperature for around 7-8 hours or until the starter has doubled.  I used my proofer set at 83 degrees and it took about 4 hours.   You can use it immediately in the final dough or let it sit in your refrigerator overnight.

Porridge Directions

Add about 3/4's of the milk called for in the porridge to the dry ingredients in a small pot set to low and stir constantly until all the liquid is absorbed.  Add the remainder of the milk and keep stirring until you have a nice creamy and soft porridge.  Remove from the heat and let it come to room temperature before adding to the dough.  I put mine in the refrigerator and let it cool quicker.

 Main Dough Procedure

Mix the flours  and the water for about 1 minute.  Let the rough dough sit for about 20 minutes to an hour.  Next add the levain, cooled porridge, eggs maple syrup and salt and mix on low for 4minutes.  Remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl or work surface and do several stretch and folds.  Let it rest covered for 10-15 minutes and then do another stretch and fold.  Let it rest another 10-15 minutes and do one additional stretch and fold.  After a total of 2 hours place your covered bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest for 12 to 24 hours.  (Since I used my proofer I only let the dough sit out for 1.5 hours before refrigerating).

When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Remove the dough and shape as desired.

The dough will take 1.5 to 2 hours depending on your room temperature and will only rise about 1/3 it's size at most.  Let the dough dictate when it is read to bake not the clock.

Around 45 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 545 degrees F. and prepare it for steam.  I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf.  I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.

Right before you are ready to put them in the oven, score as desired and then add 1 cup of boiling water to your steam pan or follow your own steam procedure.

Lower the temperature to 450 degrees.  Bake for 35-50 minutes until the crust is nice and brown and the internal temperature of the bread is 205 degrees.

Take the bread out of the oven when done and let it cool on a bakers rack before for at least 2 hours before eating.

Josef's picture
Josef

Very Disappointed in KitchenAid

I had never used a KitchenAid before, I thought they were kind of a reputable brand (apparently I didn't do my research), so I got myself a KA Artisan Mini (the 3.5qt model) for my apartment. It's abysmal. Simply put: This machine absolutely can't knead. It came with the straight (rather than spiral) dough hook which is a total nightmare. The dough is completely stuck to the hook and keeps climbing over the guard. My dough was over-kneaded before I could get window pane. How is that even possible? Any 100$ Chinese stand mixer easily outperforms it. Even the weird gear noises sound like whimpering. No sign of any R&D effort because they didn't even try.

 

What is the purpose of existence for a stand mixer then, if it fails to knead?

francisaugusto's picture
francisaugusto

Hydration and consistent dough

Hi,

I have started baking with sourdough a few months ago, and I'm still struggling with achieving a nice, roundish and most importantly tall loaf. My doughs tend to flatten out either after scoring or when moving from the banneton to my baking tray. 

Then I am trying to do what is mostly advised: lower the hydration, build more tension, use the fridge, watch out over/under proofing, etc. The later one did help me, and I got a bread that was rising more than the average, but I really would like to proof at room temperature. So I am trying to reduce the hydration. 

The thing is I only manage to lower hydration if I don't do autolyse. Anything below 70% hydration gets just too dry for an autolyse - well, mostly the outside part of the dough gets dry, and it's almost as if the dough is asking for water. However, if I add a tiny bit of water to make sure the dough is humid enough, adding the starter makes the dough too wet, not consistent enough to make a nice round ball that will stay standing for some minutes. I end up having to bake on a higher hydration than I wanted. I notice that if I skip autolyse I can go as low as 65% and I get a nicer and more consistent dough.

Is there something I am missing here? Is there a way the dough before autolyse should feel like so that I know it has just enough water? Or it doesn't make a difference and I should only look for my total hydration?

 

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Koji Rice Porridge Sourdough

Cedarmountain here on TFL got me interested in making miso after he replied to my blog post about my red miso furikake sourdough.  One major ingredient needed to make miso paste from scratch so I learned from him was koji rice.  From Tartine Book No. 3 “Koji is the traditional Japanese food culture of rice inoculated with Aspergillus oryzae mold.  It has been used for more than two thousand years to make miso, sake, soy sauce, amazements, pickles, and many other umami-rich foods that form the backbone of Japanese cuisine.”  We have a local sake producer here in Toronto Canada that happens to sell koji rice.  I plan on starting my miso making project soon but in the meantime I was very interested to taste koji rice and wanted to try making koji rice porridge sourdough.

I adapted the recipe from Tartine Book No. 3 and blended it with an oat porridge sourdough from Maurizio of The Perfect Loaf as I liked his methods in the past.  This adapted formula has a lot of rice porridge in it, the rice is 50% in baker’s math and based on the photos in Tartine, I wasn’t expecting much oven spring from this bread since the rice porridge is such a high percentage of the dough and is weighing it down.  I was still surprised at how flat the resulting loaf came out.  If the flavour of the koji rice comes through strongly enough then I might be able to reduce the amount of koji rice in the bread and hopefully improve oven spring next time around.  On the other hand it might also be that the bread is overproofed.  The extra sugar in the dough from the koji may have moved fermentation along quickly and waiting for 45% rise in the dough may have been too much proofing since the dough had to overcome the weight of the rice.  The crumb will show what the truth is as usual.

I should mention that the cooked koji rice is quite delicious and has a nice sweetness to it so one has to bake this bread at a lower temperature once the steaming portion of the bake is over.

0 hours - Levain build, 18g starter 36 g water and 36 g whole wheat flour ferment 80*f for 6 hours

6 hours - prepare koji rice 100 g with 200 g water - after cooked spread out on cookie tray, cover with aluminum foil while cooling

6 hours - Fermentolyse - mix water 252 g, 72 g levain, flours.

7 hours - mix salt using some water then do slap and folds to ensure well incorporated and build gluten.

730 hours - add cooled koji rice a little at a time folding well after each addition, you may need to add small splashes of water while folding in koji rice. Then start stretch and folds

Break of any large clumps of porridge with your fingers to break them up.  Once first set stretch and folds complete remove small portion of dough to aliquot jar

8 hours - stretch and fold

830 hours - coil fold or consider a lamination

9 hours - coil fold

930 hours - coil fold

10 hours - coil fold

13 hours - end of bulk 6 hours after salt mixed - bulk rise 50% in aliquot jar - go to shaping - 30 mins bench rest then cold retard until baking next day

Following day - preheat oven with dutch oven at 500*F for 1 hour

Bake in dutch oven 20 mins the drop temperature to 450*F keeping lid on, then remove cover and drop temperature to 375-400*F (dough has a lot of sugar so will brown quickly) and complete bake may take 30 mins or so before crumb fully baked.

 

 

 

EqualRise's picture
EqualRise

Is this an underproofed loaf, and if so, why?

Hello all you knowledgeable bakers!

So, I'd really appreciate some input that may help explain the visuals of my latest bake (pictures below).

I don't particularly hate the result as it kind of ticks my boxes in terms of looks, texture, and taste. However, I'm a bit surprised at how it turned out and would of course always like to get a better sense of why stuff happens with the potential of more intentionally making it (or not making it) happen in the future.

In short, compared to recent breads, this one came out with a slightly denser crumb, and I don't know why.

I'm very much on the beginning part of the sourdough baking journey, and I generally vary a small part of the baking process every time I bake in order to learn (and perhaps even improve a bit) while still having some sense of what my changes mean.

This time I did a slightly prolonged bulk fermentation + cold proofing than usual, but attempted to keep other things the same, as I had gotten the feeling that I might be underproofing my doughs. However, the result I got after doing so looked even more underproofed than my previous breads--at least to my untrained eyes.

What particularly surprised me was the somewhat smaller hole structure in the crumb compared to my recent loafs. That and a more cracked crust (which may perhaps, however, be explained by a more shallow scoring than usual) along with a more caramelized, dark surface despite a slightly shorter baking time than usual.

Perhaps I was wrong about my underproofing hypothesis, or perhaps something else affected the result here. I'd love some input on this and perhaps other observations that could help me interpret the looks of the loaf and figure out how to go on experimenting in a meaningful direction.

Some more details on the bake:

400g wheat (11.5% protein), 50g whole grain "ølandshvede" (an old Scandinavian wheat variety), and 275g water (yea, it's a low hydration 65% bread) autolyzed for a couple of hours.

I then add 100g peaked 100% hydration starter and around 10g salt to the mix, let it rest for a bit, and then do 4 stretch and folds in the span of two hours (until I can do a decent windowpane test).

So, here's where I changed it up a little compared to previous bakes. I wanted to push the bulking further than usual and ended up letting the dough sit covered for around 3 hours on the counter on what was also a summer day with a room temperature of 25 degrees celsius (77 degrees fahrenheit), which is around 4 degrees more than my typical baking days, and which seemed to definitely get the dough to where it needed to be (again, judging with my untrained eyes).

Then preshaping, resting, final shaping, and finally in the banneton for an overnight proof in the fridge at around 3-4 degrees celsius. This is all pretty much as usual as well, though I also let the dough sit in the fridge for 4-5 hours more than with my usual bake--a total of 17 hours--after which poke test looked reasonable (not really being sure if it's super meaningful to use that test on cold dough, though).

Ending the process as I usually do with preheating oven + Dutch oven for 45 minutes, getting out the dough, score it, then bake it for 20 minutes with the lid on and 20+ minutes with the lid off until I'm satisfied with the color.

Alright, apologies for the novel here, but wanted to be as specific as I could. Feel free to comment on whatever--even if it's just a "good luck next time!" ;-)

Much love, Espen



cyber's picture
cyber

The Science of Sourdough: How Microbes Enabled a Pandemic Pastime

Scientists peer into those jars on the kitchen counter to find out how what’s really happening

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-of-sourdough-how-microbes-enabled-a-pandemic-pastime/

kendalm's picture
kendalm

New oven 'build' preliminary results

Recently I posted the arrival of a new oven that I purchsed as a dedicated bread oven, and since then have been in setup mode and quickly realized this has become a project as opposed to a more plug-n-play scenario.  So with that, I am seeing some positive results and want to share them here.

This is a small 350g batard tester loaf to see how well this (relatvely) cheap import mini deck oven performs.  the oven I puchased is a 'xoeleo' from china manufactured primarily for pizza and as such has required some tinkering and tuning.  Danny ayo was kind enough to send me links to a seal for the door and www.brookbake.com dug up a rofco steam tray (despite them being out of stock).  To date I have applied a door seal but still seeing considerable leaking steam from some of the other seams in the body.  Despite the leaks I very surprised by the fast spring on this bake.  Another surprise is the paper thin crust on this loaf.  never had such a thin crust like this ever.  

Very little went into the preparation of this loaf - the bake was more a first 'wet' test (as opposed to dry steamless) test, in fact I originally did not even plan to load but rathet test the steam so this is a last minute loaf sort of thing.  Very interested to see whats next. 

 

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