My first pain de campagne

Submitted by JBarrett on October 29, 2009 - 10:44am

I am a newbie bread baker. I enjoyed reading Reinharts BBA and thought I would start with his campagne recipe.

I believe I followed the recipe religiously; my first result looks and tastes as described in Floyd's lesson 3. But I have no holes in my loaf. I let the second attempt proof for several hours. A few more holes but still not what I want or am use to seeing from loaves from my local baker.

In contacting King Arthuer Flour, they suggested a wetter dough.

I have my 3rd pre - fermente in my fridge now. Any suggestions?

-Jim

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Submitted by dmsnyder on October 29, 2009 - 11:40am.

Welcome!

Hi, Jim.

Welcome to TFL!

All other things being equal (and they never seem to be in bread baking), a higher hydration dough will result in more larger holes in the crumb. However, I've found that, with beginning bakers (myself included), the more common cause of a tight crumb is under-development of gluten during mixing.

I love BBA, but I've found that the mixing times Reinhart recommends tend to be on the short side. Anyway, it's better to judge mixing by how well the gluten has developed in fact rather than by how long you have mixed (or kneaded) by the clock.

There are other possible contributors to a dense crumb including insufficient bulk fermentation and insufficiently gentle dough handling while shaping. Photos of your crumb might help.

Happy baking!

David

Submitted by JBarrett on October 29, 2009 - 12:31pm.

Thanks David. BBA calls for

Thanks David. BBA calls for 1/3 cu H2O - any suggestions as to how much to increase this? I read that newbies (myself) tend to shy away from to sticky a dough but I'm more than happy to have goiter hands if I can get a better crumb/ bigger holes.

Let me see if I can paste a link to my Fickr pictures of my first loaf:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25057083@N05/4029412973/

and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25057083@N05/4029412561/

I have tried the window pane test which I think I achieve, BTW.

Jim

Submitted by dmsnyder on October 29, 2009 - 1:35pm.

Dough hydration

Hi, Jim.

I don't have BBA at hand, but the critical number is the hydration level (water in formula as a percentage of flour in formula). If you are measuring ingredients by volume (rather than weight), that may be the root of your problem. A pain de campagne usually has a hydration of 65-68%, unless it has a lot (>10% or so) of whole wheat or rye flour, in which case you might want to boost the hydration to 70-72%, depending on how much whole grain flour you used.

I would make the pain de campagne again by PR's formula, this time weighing ingredients, before trying to alter the hydration.

A photo of the crumb would be helpful. I'm wondering if you really got what PR intended but not what you expected.

I'll try to remember to look at the formula in BBA this evening, when I get home.

David

Submitted by SumisuYoshi on October 29, 2009 - 5:19pm.

Looks Good

Hard to say without a shot of the crumb, but I'm not sure that the Pain de Campagne recipe is supposed to be a bread with a large irregular crumb, and your loaves seem to have risen well from the scoring, so we need a crumb shot!

Noel

Submitted by JBarrett on October 29, 2009 - 6:28pm.

weights and hydration

First, I want to thank you both for your suggestions.

David - FWI\W I do weight my flour (my water is volumetric). I calculate I have been using 67% hydration.

Noel;

I will make my 3rd try at loaves tomorrow and will take some crumb shots (my wife, I and our youngest Bernese Mountain Dog have consumed the previous loaves). They tasted great but the crumb looked dense - kinda like a 60's style hippie loaf. :-)

The crumbs look similar to what Floyd shows in his lesson 3 of TFL lessons.

We have a good bakery ("artisianal") in town - thier campagne has a great mouth feel and has glorious big holes.

If I can I'll get a loaf of the bakery to shoot as well.

Big Hole envy -Jim

Submitted by JBarrett on October 30, 2009 - 4:23pm.

I discovered I still had some

I discovered I still had some of my bakery's loaf as well as a loaf from my second attempt

On the left is the bakery, on the right is mine:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25057083@N05/4058531202/

Now for the good news:

I checked my hydration - it was 66%, I am weighing (some) ingredients. I decided to pull out my old bread machine (a 2 lb loaf from Williams / Sonoma) -t has an 18 minute knead cycle.

Do I used that to knead my dough. Same amounts.

The dough was vastly sticker. During primary ferment I could see gas coming up.

The result? Holes and taste:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25057083@N05/4059603302/

Yes it tastes pretty decent. Thanks to all.

Jim

Submitted by Laddavan on November 3, 2009 - 5:08pm.