The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

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May 13, 2020 - 8:31pm
hydestone's picture
hydestone

Creating New Formulas - Rules of Thumb

Hi All:

I was going to track back through and calculate ratios from some of my favorite formulas to try and establish some rules of thumb for creating new formulas...but figured many of you have probably already done so, so I figured I’d ask you to share!

For instance, if I want to add some oats, flax, barley, millet, and dates to a recipe - how much do I reduce the flour?  Or do I just add more water. 

Any advice or tips are appreciated!

Thanks folks.

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May 13, 2020 - 5:10pm
Amara's picture
Amara

A wonderful small batch baguette recipe

To be clear, this recipe is not my creation, but the photos are

https://youtu.be/hu7GZZGqrWY

It makes two baguettes, approximately 3-4 servings (or just one on a weekend, i won't tell)

It finishes with a wonderful open crumb, a glass-like crust that just shatters as you bite into it, and a lovely complex flavor




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May 13, 2020 - 1:02pm
Goose's picture
Goose

Rising and Proofing

I am trying hard to watch the dough and not the clock during the bulk ferment, but I'm having a hard time finding the balance between rise and the "poke test". For example, my dough is supposed to rise to double at room temperature for 8-10 hours per the recipe. It has been 5 hours, it has risen but is not quite doubled in size yet, but it is passing the poke test. So do I let it keep rising or is it already at risk for overproofing? I had one loaf completely overproof, but the next one I presumably underproofed and it did not spring much in the oven. Do I only watch the rise and save the poke test for the final proof vs bulk ferment? I know I'm looking for bubbles in the dough, but I'm not feeling that confident yet in determining when it's truly ready, when it's almost ready and when it's past ready... mostly in the bulk ferment. Feeling slightly more confident in the final proof. Any tips and tricks of the trade would be greatly appreciated!! 

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May 13, 2020 - 12:25pm
The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

These bad boys look very promising

I invented my own same day bake baguette formula. If I was not so modest, I might say that I am a genius! That being said, I May have screwed the pooch on the slashing? The crumb could have been a bit more open. 

 Moms lemon chicken. Worth the trouble of fresh baked baguettes! This is an epic, weekday dinner! My own same day bake formula, five hours, soup to nuts!

How is my plating?

 

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May 12, 2020 - 7:30pm
dermdoc's picture
dermdoc

Ankarsrum Watts

Why would the Ankarsrum Assistant be 600W in the USA model, but 1500W in the European model? I am kind of confused why they would keep it different in different markets. Do you think it makes a big difference?

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May 12, 2020 - 5:06am
MattDK's picture
MattDK

Alan Scott Oven - Join to existing wall

Hi all, my name is Matt and I'm new here.

I'm busy planing for a bread oven for home and I'd like the oven to be accessed from my kitchen which means keying it into the existing exterior wall. I've seen one or two mentions that this design is referenced in plan package 1 but can't find any additional info. Has anyone done this and can you give any advice for or against? I don't see it being very complicated to do, except that the flue would need to be angled backwards out of the house wall. Also it's a load bearing wall, but if supported while the front face of the oven is being built then I think this should be fine. Here's a pic of the general idea.


 

Any info would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance, Matt.

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May 10, 2020 - 9:47pm
icantbakeatall's picture
icantbakeatall

Autolysing sourdough is a huge pain and makes the process much less enjoyable for me.

I almost always do king arthur's no knead sourdough bread recipe and this time I decided to add an autolyse. I held back about 30g of water to mix the salt into. My gosh, the whole thing looks like a gooey mess and it took forever to incorporate the starter and extra water. Is there any better way to do it? And is it even necessary in a no knead recipe? Thanks very much!

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May 10, 2020 - 12:47pm
Starter Sourdough Baker's picture
Starter Sourdou...

Newbie question about moving/disturbing starter

Hello! I am brand new to sourdough baking and am working on establishing a starter. I feel like I have a general understanding of some of the basics, but I do have three questions that I would appreciate some help with. Thank you in advance! :)

1. I feel very silly asking this, but is there any harm in picking up, bumping, moving, etc. my starter? This can cause it to loose its rise/deflate some, but it won't hurt the starter health, right? It would make it harder for me to know when it is ready for a feed, but otherwise wouldn't affect anything? I keep picking it up to look at it. 

2. Is it okay to stir a starter to get air air between feedings? I did this once, but now I am worried that I messed something up. I have pretty air-tight saran wrap on mine. 

3. Am I correct in thinking that there isn't really a way to guess in the early stages which starter would be the best between two?  Here are two pictures of day 5 1/2 (5.5) of my two starters. I am trying two slightly different methods to see which one I can get to work and then plan to discard the other. It was taken about 5 hours after a feeding. If any expert eyes see anything in the pictures I should adjust/know, that would help me. 

Thank you again! 

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May 10, 2020 - 5:37am
shockingpants's picture
shockingpants

6 hour ferment causing slack dough

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RjSEPfOi80s

I made a dough recently and ended up with a super slack dough, one that looks like aligot!

Needless to say, I couldn't fix it short of adding more flour / gluten.

Here's some details about the process:

  1. Dough was 20% whole wheat / 80% unbleached bread flour - 500g. Weight includes 100g of flour in the levain.
  2. 70% hydration - 350g. Weight includes 100g water in levain.
  3. 1% Salt - 5g. Added after I mixed levain and flour.
  4. Knead on kitchenaid until smooth and dough has passed windowpane test.
  5. 6 hour bulk ferment at room temperature (31C / 87.8F in Singapore)
    1. 6x stretch and fold every 30 min. (Dough was strong and elastic at this point)
    2. Rest for a further 3 hours at room temperature.
  6. Dough doubled in size nicely, but when I moved it on to the table to shape, dough became really slack.
  7. I tried rekneading the dough, but it lost all elasticity...
  8. Basically, I made aligot without cheese and potato ;D

My guess on why this happens is that either the dough got too acidic, or the proteolytic activity destroyed all of the gluten network...

Any thoughts?

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May 9, 2020 - 9:42pm
stephdld's picture
stephdld

Starter taking 16 hours to double ...

I am feeding my starter at 1:2:2 -- 10 g starter, 20g fl (50% ww, 50%white), 20 g water -- per suggestions on here about upping from 1:1:1 for my sad little starter that couldn't double.

It definitely picked up, and started doubling! So it is happier for sure ... but still is taking 16-24 hours, if it doubles at all. Today it only rose to maybe 1.5x before deflating after 15 hours. It did pass a float test at that 15 hour mark, i think -- it floated for a few minutes and then sank.

Any new suggestions as to why it would not be doubling now?

Also, other than temp adjustment, how can I get this baby to rise faster, so it won't take me 3 days to bake a loaf of bread?

I want to build it up for a simple 123 loaf but I'm sort of befuddled, how could it raise a dough if it can't raise itself? *sigh* the emotional rollercoaster this thing is taking me on is giving my toddler a run for his money!

 

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