Yesterday I took my son to the orthodontist for his routine visit.  The orthodontist announced that my son could have his braces off next visit in 3 1/2 weeks' time.  When we got into the car, my son told me he needed to know his next visit in terms of days (rather than weeks), so I gave him the appointment card for him to work it out himself.  For the past 18 months, he has not played his trumpet (because notes would not come out right, he said).  Sometimes you don't exactly know the effect of certain things on kids.  So, the happy countdown has begun for him....

Today, I dropped Andrew at the ferry.  He will spend the weekend with his best mate's family on an island - the last little holiday before the school begins.  So, I am home alone without the kids.  I knew this coming and had been planning in my mind what I would like to do for this special home-aloneness.  In the end I decided what I most wanted is an unrestrained Van Morrison-ness like in my old graduate school days in dormitory studying, except that this time it would be Debra Wink's "Lactic Acid Fermentation in Sourdough" that I will be studying (haha).  So my countdown has also (happily) begun...

Shiao-Ping

p.s.  Thank you, Giovanni, for sending Debra's link to me.

Giovanni,  

That is most descriptive.

Shiao-Ping

... the oven (when the baked loaf first came out) is the key.  And, it is better that the difference is great (if you want crackling crust).  When you turn off the oven for the last 5 - 10 minutes of the bake to "dry off" the dough, the temperature difference when this loaf comes out of the oven would be less.  When there is an extreme difference, the heat inside the loaf escapes into the open in a much greater force and results in cracks.  That is what I think what happened to my loaves this time.  In this post, I made three bakes, all done in 230 degree C throughout the baking time (without temperature graduating down) and these are 80% hydration doughs as you know.  The cracks I got is not just in one spot of the crust; they are all over the entire surface of the three loaves!!  Frankly, I am surprised myself.  I didn't set out to get crackles; it really just happened that way because of the way the loaves are baked and cool down.  This is the best I can do in explaining but I really can't be sure if this is correct.  

You are right that there is more moisture that would migrate to the crust during cooling in a high-hydration dough.  And perhaps that helps in the crackled crust?!  The reason I said that is because I think the moisture inside the dough retains more heat than otherwise.  I am speaking from my own experience that I have had more crackled crusts when my doughs were higher hydrations.  

To me, the heat difference as mentioned above, coupled with a high-hydration dough, result in crackled crust.  But I really don't know for sure.  I am only going by my own experience.

Great stuff.  Wish I had some here to eat with my soup.

--Dan DiMuzio

Stencils are a lot of fun.

Thank you.

How do you go with your starter?  Do you refresh it twice these days before you  use it?

Shiao-Ping

Thanks, Sylvia.  Once the numbers were worked out, it was easier to proceed.  I find the formula for the three levain builds very helpful for other bakes too.  If you keep it handy (just use the amounts and you don't have to restrict yourself to Gerard's flour compositions), you've got yourself a good schedule for building a healthy levain in preparation for a final dough or any dough. 

And about the crackled crust, it sounds like our experiences are the same.

Shiao-Ping

Thank you, too, MC.

What is Pavés au levain?  60% AP and 40% hi-extraction flour sounds like a lovely combination.  By the way, have you ever found out what the protein % is in KAF's all-purpose flour?  The plain flour I used in this post is Australian Laucke's Wallaby bread flour with 11.8% protein which I know is slightly on the high side, but I have not yet tested out other lower protein flours.

Shiao-Ping

Hello, Jenny, welcome!

I used Microsoft Word for choosing a calligraphy style I like.  The particular style in this post is Palace Script MT.  I like Edwardian Script, but it is impossible as a stencil without altering the style.  

I printed it out on a piece of A4 copy paper and enlarged certain strokes so they are more dramatic.  Then I placed this on top of a piece of harder paper (from my drawing paper book, which is quite hard but not stiff like card stock).  For a large stencil, a harder paper is necessary or the flour on it will bend certain parts of it and won't keep the stencil shape integrity.  I cut it using a very small pair of scissors I have for sewing.  I've got all sewing gadgets from the old days.  What is Exacto?  Someting for sewing?

I've said it once before in another post that the way the stamp (or stencil) shows up can be ying or yang.  In a Chinese stamp (chop), the red ink is the medium (in our stencil, flour is the medium).  When the character shows up in red ink, it is yang; when the surrounding area shows up, it is ying.  In the case of my stencil in this post, it is yang.  I had thought about doing it in a ying way, but the whole surface of the dough would be covered in flour so as to show up the stencil; I didn't think it would be attractive that way.  Yang is harder to cut out.  In a Chinese chop, a yang chop is normally more expensive than a ying chop.

My best work yet?  I think so too (because of the stencil).  I love the calligraphy effect of the stencil.

I had a slice of the miche with the pate fermente this morning with my son, and surprisingly it was not sour compared to the day before.  The sourness seems to have mellowed or blended in with the other flavours, resulting in an even more rounded taste from yesterday.  This is strange.  Don't most sourdough breads get more sour as the days go by?   I am experiencing new things with this Gerard Rubaud miche.  I did say in my post that the miche with the pate fermente is more sour than the one without, but on an absolutely term, both are not what I would call sour.  

Does the finished bread carry a deep and unique aroma?  I did say that the whole grains roasting fragrance (in the absence of a better description) filled the whole house when the bread came out of the oven, right?  That moment was a most beautiful experience for me, seeing the stencil like an emboss on the bread and smelling the bread fragrance at once.  Oh, I have to tell you a story here (and Mini Oven, if you are out there, you would enjoy this story).  In the Chinese late Ch'ing Dynasty (before it was overthrown and the Republic came into being), people were very poor (still are today with a few glaring exceptions).  There was a gourmet who is a beggar (who incidentally is the writer himself, but the name escapes me now).  He bought a Da-bin, a Northern Chinese dry bread that is shaped like a thick pancake but much larger.  He was very hungry and would kill for a few slices of stewed beef to eat with his Da-bin.  But he only had enough money left to buy one stalk of spring onion.  So, he went and sat in front of a restaurant where beautiful stewed pork and beef were being served.  He took a bite of his Da-bin, then a bite of his green spring onion, then a good sniff at the aroma streaming out of the restaurant, then chewed the two ingredients (in this mouth) with the aroma (in his nose), and what he got was a wonderful meal (in his head)!  I don't know why this story came to my mind.  Perhaps the reason is there is a similarity how I bake and how that beggar ate his Da-bin - using our imagination.  My enjoyment is not solely on the physical level.  So, to answer your question - does the finished bread carry a deep and unique aroma?  To me, it does but maybe in reality it doesn't.  Sorry, this is a bad answer.   

No way I am feeding my starter 5 hourly.

Shiao-Ping

Thank you.

Is the issue bread with such beauty or the beauty itself?

Oh my gosh, Jackie, I had forgotten that you live in Burlington, Vermont!  

Jackie, would you be so kind to take a few pictures of Gerard Rubaud's breads at the City Market for us?  Either Wednesday or Sunday's market would do us great.  No pressure, just when you get time from your busy lab. hours, Please, Please?

Shiao-Ping 

You said you don't see bran flecks in my pictures, but can you see those flecks in MC's Rustic Batard crumb shot HERE?  When I look at my crumb shots, while I don't exactly see big flecks, I know the bread was not made out of all white flour because the color is a very pale brown (or orange).

Is it red whole wheat or white whole wheat that I used?  Look at the pictures below:

            Whole wheat flour that I used

                                                                Spelt wholemeal flour that I used

I would suggest that the high hydration in this dough had turned the "flecks" into mush and that the flecks had disintegrated and become homogenous with the fine flour.  What I am suggesting is the flecks would not keep their shapes under the high hydration.  Look at the oat bran pictured below:

I once used it to make non-gluten bread, and there was no flecks whatsoever in the end result.  Have a look at the crumb shots of my Miche Pointe-à-Callière which was a high hydration dough (84%) and had 86%! whole wheat flour (the same flour as in the first picture above).  You will not find any flecks in them either.  Search TFL for 100% whole wheat bread, chances are that the crumbs are dark color but you won't find flecks in them.  What would hold their shapes are seeds and whole grains but not flecks.

About the color, I think the lighting at the time of photo shooting makes a big difference.  I have had the same crumb with the photos taken in the morning and in the late afternoon that look like they are from two different breads.  Crumb shots taken at our various home "studios" really cannot be compared seriously. But yeah, maybe my flour is white whole wheat, what do you think?  I have always thought that this flour that I used is a red whole wheat because I have another whole meal flour which is finer ground and does not have big flecks like this one.  But now you made me think twice.

About milling, it would be a good idea to mill your own flours at home.  I would like to do it myself too, just for the fun of it.

THANKS, Eric!

I don't think we need any more physicists to help explaining the phenomena (unless David still thinks so). 

... the contracting crumb structure, gripping the crunchy crust, pulls the crust inward creating the cracks on the surface. Shiao-Pings baking method seems to me to encourage this cracking since the shock of a greater temperature change would be greatest.

Shiao-Ping

Normally when you use a mixing/kneading machine to make your bread, the dough will have been mixed/kneaded for 2 to 4 minutes or whatever it is required by your formula.   I don't use a bread machine.  The way I do is to "hydrate" the formula flour with the formula water (no kneading), then autolyse 20 - 60 minutes, then I start my first set of stretch and folds in the mixing bowl of 30 odd strokes.   (My mixing bowl is also my fermenting bowl.)  One stroke is like one letter fold.  You grab one corner of the dough from the bottom, pull it up (about 10 - 15 cm high) and fold the dough onto itself.  This is one stroke.  Then repeat at a different corner of the dough.  You rotate the bowl as you go until you have done all corners of the dough perhaps 3 - 4 rounds (30 strokes or so). 

Hi Andy,

Thank you for your comment.  I know the French do not like blisters on crusts because blisters happen normally after the dough had been retarded and the French think the flour would lose its delicate flavor of fermentation after cold-retardation.   I sort of have an idea that they don't like cracks on the crust but I can't figure out why because the French love the crunchy crust as much as we do.  Is it that they don't like the aesthetics part of the cracks or is there more fundamental reason behind?

Re: the translucent crumb.  I tried to think back on the few occasions when I got the translucent crumb.  They seem to have occurred when my levain was at its best and when I was not hurrying through the dough process (that the dough temperature was low so a long and slow fermentation was feasible).  In the case of this GR Miche, the room temperature was high, so I did very short bulk and finished off the proofing in the cold fridge.  What was your experience?  What do you identify was the factor (or factors) behind your "artisan" crumb?

With regards,

Shiao-Ping

p.s.  Would love a bigger picture (if available) to have a closer look at a great crumb!

Hi FP

I did not do a Gerard levain from the start.  I am too impatient for that.  I converted my usual starter for my GR Miche.  What I did was once my usual white starter was ripe and ready to be used (which meant two refreshes out of the refrigerator, or one or none for you if you use yours frequently), I then started the 3 build process.  

I would not recommend anyone to do a Gerard levain from the start just for this Miche until they've used their own starter (as above).  The reason is, look at how small the seed starter that is required - only 6 grams for the first build for a final dough yield of 1,920 grams!!  A percentage of 0.3%!  You think you would notice the difference, whether the bread is made from a genuine Gerard levain or not?  I sure wouldn't be able to. 

What I think would make a big difference, on the other hand, in terms of flavour is the freshly ground whole grains flours.   Think about it - it is 30%, and the impact is straight away!  I don't have the tool to grind whole grains as yet so I opted for the ready and easy solution.  I was not going to let that stop me from making the bread.

That said, it would be a good learning exercise to culture a levain the Gerard way.  I don't know if I would be ever keen to try though.  You are perhaps more a purist than I am.

Shiao-Ping

You disguise yourself really well.  I thought you were one of those Russian spies with beautiful virtual faces who always comment on mariana-aga's beautiful blog.   (How I love those virtual faces.)  Even after MC replied to you by addressing you Jeremy, I still didn't get it.

Your "Crumb, the perfect holes!" are indeed perfect!

Thanks, Shiao-Ping

Sorry about the fusion.  I meant that I first diluted my starter with all of the formula water (I documented this part of the procedure in my Light Rye & Light Wholewheat Rustic Pain au Levain post on Sourdough Companion (see section under Method).  My purpose was so that the starter is evenly disbursed in the final dough.  But on second thought, I don't think I should have said "With my method, it is important bla bla bla..." because as long as your starter is very well mixed into the final dough, there should not be any problem with your method.  I don't think there is anything so special about this part of my method.   What it does is it makes hand mixing really easy for me.

Also, I never mentioned that my baking temperatures are convection oven temperatures.  Some baking instructions say that convection oven temperature is 20 degree C higher than a non-convection oven temperature.  (For instance, in Australia, whenever I read baking or heating instruction, if it says, bake at 180 degree C, it would also say 160 degree C if using convection oven.)  With Andy's comment on the cracking crust being a case of a "violent thermal shock," I am wondering if the fact that I always bake at 20 degree C higher than I actually said I did made any difference at all.  

and use too much of the formula's water for the levain...It made a real mess!

The instruction is HERE.

There is sme more information below:

I am staying tuned.... is it 8 am where you are?

Thanks for your comment.  You certainly know how to keep us in suspense.  I normally wouldn't be able to wait.   I notice you have Paul as one of your favourite bakeries in London.  There is a very posh looking Paul open in Taipei a couple of years back.   (You can see it listed on their website.)  Friends advised me not to go there as their breads and pastries are expensive.  I finally went there a few months ago when I was back in Taipei and tried half a dozen varieties of their breads and pastries.   I love the dining experience there.

with liquid starter.  (Do yeasts come with a grain of wheat, or with water - you know what I am getting at.  In a stiff starter, there is potentially a higher yeast count than in a liquid starter of the same weight.)   However, given that this is an overall 80% hydration dough, I would think it's possible that your oven spring was due to a slight under-proof (or at least not over-proof) in your dough, coupled with the fact that you are now more comfortable in handling your dough and reading your dough.   Lately I have been researching on the legendary Poilane Miches (Lionel Poilane in particular) and, in general, the real French traditional Pain au Levain.  Their doughs are 63 - 65% hydration and their starters are also 63 - 65% hydration because the starters are taken from the last batch of dough (ie. pate fermente).   As a relatively junior sourdough baker, I have always believed in higher hydration for more open crumb.  But Ross, I believe we can now move on to lower hydration dough and still get a relatively open crumb, but much fuller flavour and more definition in our loaf shape! 

Cheers, Shiao-Ping

Thank you for sharing your great results with us here.

Shiao-Ping

Thanks for your comment.  I don't think you want to wait too long.  I would say inside of three days in the fridge, then when you want to use it, bring it back to room temperature before you use it.

I am sure a proof box will help "regulate" things in the sense that if your starter behaviour is predictable, the proof box will make each build go as planned.  But, and I think this is a big BUT, you don't know how your starter culture will react to the new four combination that you are feeding it, so you're kinda in the same situation as was I when I was doing mine. 

You see in my post I showed that my starter took less and less time progressively each build to get to 2 1/2 time risen at my then room temperature of 30 degree C.  You might want to read back MC's original post to see what room temperature Gerard has (I think it's around 21 - 24 degree C, depending on the seasons).   Say if you set your proof box to 24 C, for the first build, you will have to watch how long your starter takes to reach about 2 1/2 times risen.  Then, for the second and third build, you will have to watch again.  Once you've done this bread once, and assuming you are happy with it, the next time you can just set your proof box to that temperature and time frame..., otherwise you'll still need to tweak it, but the second time round it would be easier than the first....

One comment that I got from Gerard via MC is that he said I didn't put tiny amount of salt in my second and third builds of levain and, as a result, the levain had fermented faster than would be optimal in that a slower fermentation would have allowed more flavour acids to develop.  

On the subject of open crumb, yes, hand kneading is in general better than machine mixing, and I have found, no kneading at all, just doing letter-folds, is even better!!   Hard to imagin how a few letter-folds would be enough to build up gluten structure, isn't it?  You'll have to try it to believe it.

Let us know how you go.

Shiao-Ping

Hi, Ian.

Here are a couple links that explain this technique - one in words, the other in video:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10682/mystery-page-249-solved”

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10276/noknead-video

I hope this helps.

David

Thank you, David, for chipping in. 

Ian, the way I did my stretches and folds was that after I hand-mixed all the ingredients with a 20 minutes rest (autolyse):

(1) With my left hand holding the bowl, my right hand went under the bottom of the dough and grabbed a corner of it, stretched it up (no more than 10 -12 cm high), then folded it onto itself.  This is what I called one stroke.

(2) My left hand then turned the bowl a fraction, so my right hand could grab another corner of the dough, and repeat the motion..., i.e., second stroke. 

(3) I did 30 strokes, but in fact two - three revolution of the bowl would be sufficient (each revolution about 6 - 8 strokes). 

Some tips about the strokes:

(a) You cannot tear the dough.  If ever you see that the skin of the dough is tearing, that means you are doing too much.  

(b) You don't want to be just stroking the surface of the dough; you want to sort of bury your hand under the dough a bit and grab a piece up that way.

(c) At the end of each set, I find if I take the whole dough out, oil the mixing bowl, then place the dough back, it makes the next set of S&F really easy - the dough seems to come together as one whole piece easier.  (Just to confuse the matter a bit, I find if I place the dough back up-side-down, more strength is developed faster that way.  This  means it is important to remember to flip the dough over for the next set of S&F.)

You said you do four folds.  I assume that is 2 x letter folds.  I think that is a very good way of building dough strength. 

Great effort, Ian.

Shiao-Ping

More about double letter-folds

Hi Ian

I didn't want to say too much at first in case I confuse you.  I have since found that double letter folds (ie, your 4 folds method) work better than strech and folds in the mixing bowl in terms of building dough strength.   People who do the S&F in the bowl method like the method because it is hassle free - no work bench to clean, etc.  But I think double letter folds method is superior because the dough is locked from all directions.  Some people place the dough in a big oiled rectangular plastic container when doing the double letter folding.   But I like doing it on the work bench so that I can dust flour on the work top (when the dough has high hydration) and also so that I can easily place my hands under the dough to smooth out (even out) the dough before folding it up.   Instead of flouring the work bench, some people lightly oil the work bench. 

I am sorry that the formula or the method did not work for you.  I went back to my procedure and ingredient list.   What I can suggest is the following:

(1) The flour:  my plain flour is Australia's Kialla organic plain flour; if memory serves me right, that particular batch of flour had 13.6% in protein.  Your KA flour is 11.7% (+/- 0.2%) protein.   My flour is more thirsty and is able to absorb more water than yours.  Perhaps 72% would have been plenty for you. 

In formal bread making classes, they often advise participants to hold back 10 - 12% of recipe water for untried formulas and flours.  Gerard Rubaud's hydration is 80% (+/- 2%).  I know my flour can take 80% hydration.  But I really should have cautioned people.  Some European flours are quite low in gluten and they often think we (the New World bakers) are being macho talking about high hydration.  But it really comes down to the difference in flours. 

Okay, say you hold back 10 - 12% formula water, how are you to know how much is enough?  You need to pinch your dough to feel the "consistency" of your dough.  With Gerard Rubaud miche, what we are looking for is "soft to medium" consistency.  For an example, the dough consistency of a ciabatta is "soft" (super high hydration), and the dough consistency of a normal Pain au Levain is "medium."  So, the GR miche is in between.

(2) The stretch and folds:  I know I wrote (and did) "five sets of S&F's of 30 strokes each at 30 minute intervals" but I now would question if that is not too many stretch and flods for your flour.  Too many S&F's might have caused your gluten to break down and that might be why your dough was like "goo" (felt very, very wet and totally unmanageable).   Excessive kneading (or stretch and folds, same thing) will cause gluten to break down.  More is not better.  If ever we see the skin of the dough tearing, that means we have gone too far.  Even though my procedure reads 5 sets of 30 strokes each, you may not need all 30 strokes, or indeed, not all 5 sets.  But, how are we to tell how many are enough?  You see, the purpose of S&F is to build up dough strength while fermentation is happening.  If when S&F is due but your dough feels "tight" (ie, won't stretch easily when you try to stretch it), that means your dough is strong enough and that it doesn't need more S&F as yet!!  If you try to stretch it, you would just tear the skin.

That said, I cannot be sure if that was your case.  The reason is you did say your dough felt very wet and normally wet dough needs more kneading (S&F) for dough strength.  (With drier dough, gluten strength happens faster.)

(3) Ample dusting of flour to assist in handling the dough:  Say you have come to the end of your bulk dough cycle, you cannot reverse whatever has been done and you are left with a "goo," as you said.  To manage your shaping, you can dust plenty of flour on your dough as well as where the dough meets the side of the bowl, then, use a plastic scraper and scrape the dough out onto a flour dusted work bench.  Then, try to shape by minimalist handling - the more you handle the dough, the more the dough becomes wet and hard to manage.  What I do is:

(a) fold the mess over by half (a deeper fold makes the shaping tighter);

(b) pat excess flour off;

(c) fold the dough over again by half and pat any excess flour off; then

(d) swiftly with two hands, shape the dough into a miche/boule.  I would pay attention to where the right side is and make sure it is on top.   I would also think clearly how I am going to do it before I actually tackle.  The more you are hesitant, the more the dough is going to feel lumpy and wet.   Thankfully, once the shaped dough is retarded in the fridge, it hardens up and is easier to score.  

That is all I can say.  Hope this is some help to you.

Shiao-Ping

that I have ever come across, and that was developed by Johnny of the Australian bread site, Sourdough Companion, is a formula which involves refrigeration of the bulk dough (or, what you called, retardation at earlier stage) AND retardation at the proofing stage when the dough is shaped.

Hi Jim at NYC

You might want to check out Johnny's awesome formulas here:

(1) Ciabatta Integrale; and

(2) Rolled Oat & Apple Bread.

Like you, Johnny is a weekend baker.  He bakes enough for a whole week for him and his wife (children have left home).  He starts his process on Wednesday night after work (refreshing his starter), and he bakes on Saturday morning.   I have just posted my Home Bread on Sourdough Companion, which also mentions about Johnny's formulas. 

You asked me when I place my dough from the refrigerator into the oven to bake.  I bake my dough cold, straight out of the fridge.  I discussed why in my Home Bread post.

Shiao-Ping