I have been trying forever to get really good Ciabatta with large open hole crumb.
I have see on the internet 120% hydration recipes. I did not have very good luck I even seen higher hydrations.
Is it all in the handling? Do not use the mixer and just do folds?
I don't consistently make it with open crumb structure
thanks
I've been baking bread for a few years now, and for dietary reasons I try to eat mostly whole grains, but I have worked primarily with whole wheat, with occasional bits of other grains like oat or cornmeal worked in. This weekend I tried my first rye loaf. This recipe came from a Nordic cookbook I was given as a gift recently. The original recipe called for:
150 grams cracked rye
150 grams mixed seeds (I just used sunflower bc that is what I had)
250 grams wholemeal rye flour
1.6 grams yeast
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp of honey
480 ml cold water
The recipe directed me to soak the cracked rye and seeds with 300 ml of the water, and the rye flour with the rest of the water and the yeast, for 18-24 hours, then to knead the two together with the salt and honey, shape and put in a loaf tin, proof for 2-3 hours and bake.
After the initial fermentation, however, I found the dough was really more like pancake batter, thin enough to run off a spoon and completely un-kneadable. I wound up needing to use a fair amount of white bench flour to turn it into something I could shape, probably around 100 grams.
The crumb turned out okay, remarkably, and the flavor is actually quite nice, but as you can see from the picture, there is some unincorporated white flour from the messy shaping process.
Critiques? Tips?
I am still jet lagged after 2 longhaul flights but we were running out of bread. so over the weekend I dug my starter out of the refridgerator, refreshed it and then built enough 100% hydration levain for 2 loaves. I used some bran left over from earlier bakes as well. My brain isn’t yet upto much so I stuck with the 1:2:3 formula making 1 all white loaf and 1 loaf with 25% rye.
After 30 minute autolyse I added levain to the rye dough, mixed it a bit then did 100 SLAFs. Dough was quite sticky but came together well enough. At this point I left it to rest and repeated the process on the white dough. The white dough was very soft but easy to work with.
Now I went back to the rye dough, added salt with about a tspn extra water and did another 100-110 SLAFs. Dough much better now, not so sticky and the little extra water helped with the texture. Left to rest while I repeated the process with the white dough but did not need to add any further water.
During bulk ferment I did 4 sets of coil folds 30 minutes apart then left dough to did it’s thing. Once dough was looking a bit poofy, I decided I had to risk it as the jet lag was kicking in again so I preshapped and bench rested for 30 minutes. I tried extra hard with shaping - trying for good structure so dough would hold it shape. Planned on bench rest of at least and hour after shaping but at 45 minutes I hit the wall and needed to go to bed. so popped both lots into he fridge and baked them early this morning. Preheated oven to 250°C but turned it down to 225° C with convection, 15 mins lid on DO and 15 mins lid off. Really happy how they came out of the oven. Cut one for lunch too.
Crumb shot. left hand one is 25% rye.
Happy with the crumb on both. Yes they were both simple loaves but I paid extra attention to several things.
Maturity of levain - not sure if I understood this right, will reread but the overal levain weight had dropped by 2 grams and it certainly looked good to use.
The number of slap and folds. Last bake I did 300 SLAPs but felt it was too many so dropped back. I think it is better this time.
Timing of salt addition. Normally I would add salt when I add the levain. This time I did it i. the middle of the SLAPs and I could see the dough tightening up.
Shaping - really keen to get good volume and height and minimize spreading. The white in particular had come out well with nice rounded shoulders. The rye one a little flatter but not too bad.
Final proof - my fridge is colder these days and I think fermentation is slowing a bit to fast. I think the bench rest after shaping before retarding is helping.
So still much to think about, but overall this was a good bake. It is sooo good to bake again.
Bake happy everyone.
Leslie
Bread making has been something I have wanted to do for years. I decided to try sourdough, as I like the idea of looking after the starter in the fridge and I actually prefer the taste of sourdough.... So I get a starter going which I was told needed feeding/topping up after use with a certain [I'll come to that] ratio of flour and water.
At this point I need to tell you that I have dyscalculia and this means that I find all the talk of percentages, hydration ratios and the relative calculations that go with the fine tuning of sourdough utterly bewildering :( and I'm now getting quite frustrated and confused about how understand some of the issues I am having, as I try and decipher the experiences and suggestions given on this forum.
Can you good people please tell me what % my starter is, if I add 150g flour and 100g water every time I top it up. Is this as good way to proceed?
I am not going to be making lots of loaves just a medium size for 2 people twice a week in general.
A recipe I have uses 400g flour and 200g water + 9g salt. To this I add approx 200g from the above ongoing starter. Is there too much water, given that I use a high percentage of white flour. That is mostly white with a dash of malted or wholemeal, as I feel. maybe my attitude is to Gung-Ho! for good results!
Secondly - I have been and like the overnight method. I make and prepare in the early evening and then either put it in the fridge, at which point it doesn't seem to 'do' much. In the morning I then need to proof it in the oven [approx 2hrs] before baking. If I leave it out on the worktop overnight (approx 20C) it goes mad and then I need to let it re rise again anyway in the morning... Sometimes it is quite floppy and the loaves a bit flat (see pic) - but the texture is lovely, soft and bouncy, crusty crust but the slices are thin.... How do I get big round cracked boules, like I see on the forum here ??
I think that is enough from me! I will retreat, read more posts and look at the lovely round loaves, and hope that one day I hit the jack pot!
Best regards and thanks
Novice
8:30pm toast 68 g oats, soak in 133 g cider and 3 g salt, refrigerate
9:00pm mix levain: 28 g starter, 33 g bread flour, 33 g water
9:00pm mix autolyze: 85 g oat flour, 340 g bread flour, 282 g cider
7:30am remove oats from fridge
8:15am knead together autolyze, levain, oats, and 9 g salt
8:50am S&F
9:30am S&F
10:15am S&F
11:15am S&F
12:25pm S&F
1:25pm S&F
3:50pm shape, coat outside with quick oats
7:20pm bake covered
7:40pm uncover
8:20pm done
Bob's Red Mill steel cut quick oats for the soaker (they're still fairly coarse), regular quick oats for the crust.
The crumb is a bit tight, possibly because of the oat flour? The flavor of oats definitely comes through, but I couldn't taste apple or anything else from the cider, which was Portland Cider Company Apple.
I followed dabrownman's instructions and used parchment paper to get from banneton to combo cooker, which made scoring less stressful.
For months and months, I've been trying to cultivate a sourdough starter.
I've followed the directions. Feed once daily, 2tbsp water, same weight flour. But each day the activity kept going down. Now the activity is always just minimal. Very small bubbles, if I can find them.
I've tried multiple feedings per day, yes spaced out. Twice! Thrice!
I've tried getting a water filter to use filtered water, no change.
I've tried boiling and cooling the tap water to sanitise it, no change.
I've tried keeping it warm by monitoring it with a milk thermometer.
I've tried sticking it in the oven for a bit to get it to 40.
I've tried wrapping it in towels.
I have no idea what's going on with it, I'm getting sick of it, doing all this stuff and nothing working.
Making a sourdough starter is an impossibility.
I've been making this recipe https://minimalistbaker.com/the-easiest-whole-grain-seeded-bread/ with some modifications, such as:
* Replacing the 1 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour with the same amount of King Arthur WW flour, for a total of 3 3/4 cups.
* Not adding flaxseed meal to the dough, but adding 1/4 cup of flaxseeds to after the initial rise.
It tastes great (to me) but I have been the loaf has a tendency to split around the top. When I look up split loaf (in a bad sense) I get suggestions to knead longer or add less flour.
For the pictured loaf I did the second knead for ~ 10 min, is there any hope of improving my techniques to the point of preventing the split or should I just suck it up and put in some gluten?
This has been happening on nearly all of my loaves regardless of how I shape/fold. I shape by hand. Divide, rest, pre-shape, rest, final shape, bake. Sometimes it looks as though the crust cracks and the inside, uncooked dough comes pouring out. Other times, as in some of the pics, its like the side splits and out comes the dough. Any suggestions will be helpful. Thanks!
Would you believe that I completely knocked out the bubbles from the bulk ferment and still got this crumb?
My friend was having issues with Forkish's Overnight Country Brown (now where have I heard this before?) so I decided to do this bake myself. However I built the levain overnight and made the dough in the morning so I could keep an eye on it. Ran out of whole wheat so made up the difference with whole rye and used a 12.6% protein flour. Very high hydration for mostly white at 80% and with British flour to-boot (btw I think we can put this to rest now that it can't be done). Made a beautiful dough with a well developed gluten that didn't spread as much as thought it would between folds. I'm find letter folds one way then the other highly effective.
The recommended bulk ferment was 12-15 hours but I found it perfectly done by 6-7 hours. So far so good! Now here is where things began to go wrong and it might be a mixture of using whole rye, having a bench top that isn't wood or marble but rather plastic covered wood and not flouring enough. Basically I mucked up the shaping and compromised the dough. Now a few years ago I'd have thrown it all away and vowed never to bake again (until I calmed down that is). But I've come a long way I like to think. I started building up the dough again using slap and folds. The dough went through the usual signs of first gaining strength then coming apart after which the strength came back and the gluten was fully formed and ended up with an even stronger dough. Granted I had knocked out most of the bubbles and perhaps reintroduced some through slap and folds but basically the bulk ferment now was mostly for flavour and I've basically knocked back the dough completely.
Shaped the dough again where it totally behaved this time and into the banneton for a final proof. Recommended time was 4 hours but I found 2.5 to be ample. Baked this high hydration loaf freestanding in the mini oven. Not even on a stone but a foil wrapped wire rack. And voilà a lovely crumb considering.
Lovely rustic sourdough with lots of flavour. So a few conclusions...
1: Forkish's timings are way out.
2: British flour can handle the hydration but one needs to handle the flour correctly.
3: The science for an open crumb goes on...
