March 15, 2011 - 10:53am
My big batch
Did a 20 loaf batch last month, hand kneaded 10.4 kilograms (23#), lot of fun. Looking for my baker's sheet from that job to post more details.
Share
Did a 20 loaf batch last month, hand kneaded 10.4 kilograms (23#), lot of fun. Looking for my baker's sheet from that job to post more details.
Comments
All the same bread or different varieties?
I would bake weekly on Thursday nights, usually 10-13 small focaccia, 40-50 cheese buns, and 40-50 sweet buns. Sometimes I would throw in baguettes as well.
It was pretty easy to eat up 5 hours after work for mixing, fermenting, proofing, baking, cooling, packaging.
I know what you mean about the time. I get other things done now while the dough is rising, but I've been thinking bakers do pastry so they have something to do during that time. How much did the foccacia and cheese buns weigh? What was the oven like--was it in your home?
That mix was all the same concoction. 50% of my dough weight was pre ferment. Carefully fed/starved to a tangy level of freshness/sourness.
I thought I had to have the rising time down clockwork style. I shuttled the dough four miles to the Bench/oven venue & I was on a tight two and a half hour schedule. There I scaled. rested, shaped, rested and baked. Two convection Boldgetts, dryer than the Sahara desert, baking 12 loaves at a time. I filled two 18 x 26 pans with H2O and put them on the two botom racks. Four decks baking three loaves each. All alone and busy. I think with the right peel I can do four loaves each deck and get 16 loaves going at a crack.
Formed 520 gram units into baguettes--I learned that whole baguette shaping procedure from some strict YouTube tutors. Right before they go in they get snipped with sissors to create a tear away bun loaf. See how memory plays tricks I did 9100g of dough, 20.3 pounds not 23 pounds. I found my notes from the day
But funny thing is-as soon as I finished that gig, my first, I relaxed and started a looser shaping procedure and a rising formula that employs extremely wide latitude in rising times. This one is killin' and I think I have no improvements & no tweaks to put on it.
Will one of those infrared instruments work? They shoot a beam like a laser pointer and give the temperature of a remote object. I have used them in the past, but never owned one.
Im looking into a masonry oven, going through The Bread Builders for the second or third time. Door height 63% of the highest part of the hearth and so on.
Im going to look into the brand you mention.