Submitted by Vitto on August 30, 2009 - 10:52pm
Hi All. I regularly make pane pugliese and am very happy with the crumb as well as height thanks to the use of bannetons. I also get a good crump when making ciabatta but becuase of the high water content it spreads and I do not get much height. Can anybody suggest how to fix this problem? My home made salami is craving to be eaten together with ciabbatta that is at least 5cm high!
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uhm... salami!
Hola Vitto,
I don't have a solution to the spreading of ciabatta's.... but I'm intrigued by your homemade salami. We run a farm here in Andalucia and do matanza, make lots of chorizo, salchichon etc., cure and smoke but I haven't been able to find a reliable source for the ingredients and the how-to to make salami at home. Would you please pm me about that? dulcinea.trabuco@hotmail.com
Thanks!
Richelle
If it rises to 5 cm
is it still a ciabatta? I don't think so.
Jeremy
Maybe 4 cm
On my typical ciabatta I get about 1 and 1/2 inches of height or just a bit under 4 cm. Or 40 mm. As an engineer working with equipment we always used mm for everything unless it got over a meter. Then we would express it a 1.440 meters.
Back to bread. I do use a strong flour for my ciabatta if I have it or if not KAF bread flour. 77 to 80 percent hydration. You have to let it proof -- almost to the point of over proofing. I proof on parchment paper and then slide the loaf on the paper on to a heavy sheet pan or baking stone.
For sandwiches I slice off a portion of the loaf and then slice it again in the form of a top and bottom. Kind of the way you slice a hamburger bun. Works for me. YMMV
Dave
How are you proofing your
How are you proofing your ciabatta? I proof mine in heavy canvas, and make sure the sides have good support. If you feel you are too liquidy, you can try decreasing the hydration a bit, or developing the gluten further. Do this by using a higher gluten flour, stretching and folding more, or using a higher percentage of fresh flour rather than pre-ferment.
Hope this helps.
Danny - Sour Flour
http://www.sourflour.org
Ciabatta
Hi Vitto,
I don't know what flour, hydration, or mixing method you're using (and that's a lot not to know) but I have a couple of quick suggestions:
I am assuming that you're using a good, stiff biga as a preferment.
If you are using a mechanical mixer, try holding back some of the water -- enough that your dough looks only moderately wet, like a baguette dough -- and mix that dough until it is developed like a baguette dough. Don't mix on second or third speed longer than 4 minutes or so. You should see some significant gluten development, but the dough will still be rough looking in some respects. Then stop the mixer, switch back to the lowest speed setting, and drizzle in the remaining water as the dough mixes very slowly. At first the dough will slap around the bowl, but in a minute or two after the last of the water is added, it will be absorbed and the dough will be floppy but a bit tenacious. Bulk ferment for at least 3 hours, and perform stretch-and-folds at least 3-4 times (once every 20 minutes or so).
If you aren't able to use a mixer, then you'll need to perform at least twice as many folds. Again, perform one set every 20 minutes or so, for a total of 5-6 sets of folds, and you may need to bulk ferment around 4-5 hours to get the strength and maturity the dough requires for good height.
One more thing. If you need to retard the dough, ciabatta is best retarded in bulk, if it is retarded at all. The dough is so wet that it is very enzyme active, and if pre-shaped (or pre-cut) and left on couche overnight, it tends to get very sticky and unstable. Bulk retarding, on the other hand, seems to make it a bit easier to cut and manage the next day. I'm not recommending retardation in any way -- I'm just saying that, if you feel you need to, bulk retardation is the way to go with ciabatta.
--Dan DiMuzio