Focaccia Crust Bubbling
I recently started making focaccia bread in our little shop, we make sandwich roll sized focaccia rolls fresh for the day and freeze the rest for the next day.
The thing is when the bread comes out the oven and cooling, you can see what i can only describe as veins along the top of bubble lines. Fresh rolls dont suffer too badly as once they cool, soften up and are filled/sold on its not really noticeable however when we freeze these the veiny bubbles become brittle and fall off making the rolls look old and stale.
I am not sure if there is a common cause to this I would love to find out as we are starting to get some good responses about the rolls in general just some come out this way, this dosnt happen ALL the time so obviously it must be human error at play here in mixing or something.
Anyways if I can help with anymore information to solve this please ask
thanks
Hi Keith,
Any chance of seeing a picture of this, it would be very helpful.
Jeff
Sure thing, I am working tonight I shall take some pictures of it,
thanks
Keith
here is a photo of one of the rolls
as you can see the top of the roll crust has become very fragile, where it has fallen off it had been bubbled on the surface, this particular roll has been frozen and bagged, being in the bag has knocked all the crust off making it look old where as it was only made fresh yesterday.
Again its not happening to ALL the batches.. but most!.
I am at a bit of a disadvantage without the recipe but your comment that this does not happen to all of the batches leads me to believe that slight underproofing is the culprit. A bit too much oven spring stretches the surface of the roll breaking the crust and leaving the damage shown in the picture. Proper proofing is critical and the timing varies given all of the pertinent factors on any given day. Try proofing just a bit longer and watch carefully as the properly proofed window of opportunity can be very short.
Jeff
the dough strength. Makes for a thin crust that can't hold up to drying and then freezing. Would getting more ash into the flour help? Or making a change for thicker crust? Or brushing the baked rolls with olive oil or a glaze.
Let me get this right... The rolls are frozen when they have dried out at the end of the day. The very thin dry crust crushes easily, more obviously in a bag. What would happen if the ones that are frozen have soft crusts before being frozen so that they survive better? (like bag them earlier) OR bake less rolls so you don't have to freeze any "left overs."
The frozen rolls are then sold the next day? To me, rolls have a shorter shelf life than loaves and they show signs of staling at the end of the first day. No offence and please don't take this wrong, but I'm surprised you can sell them a day old and thawed! Freezing can cause flaking, esp. on smooth surface wheat rolls. I'm thinking, if you don't freeze them they will flake less.
Thank you for your responses.
The rolls we make are a more uniform shape/size compared to the focaccia you see on here just for the simple fact we sell them as a sandwich roll for filling.
This is something thats been picking away at me as its a couple of guys that do the mixes so its hard to nail down exactly how its being made, mixing times etc..
Underproofing is a probability as perhaps one of the bakers with limited oven space/time has taken them out the steam press and put them into the oven early.
The rolls are made in a batch and once cooled are blast frozen and bagged to be taken out the next morning(s) as required. They thaw and serve up just fine.
Sometimes it looks like the rolls rise very big and on their sligh deflation during cooling that bubbles appear like veins along the valleys. Even the ones we sell as fresh that have this suffer as when they are paper bagged fresh even the friction in the back can knock off this fragile crust making them look old.
From the photo supplied it does appear that the crust is very thin. The rolls bake at 230.C for 15 minutes with no steam.
"...rise very big and on their sligh deflation during cooling that bubbles appear like veins..."
Sounds more like they proofed too long. I realize now I'm out of my league with flash freezers and production. Thin crust require special handling. Can the bagging be "softened" to reduce some of the "bumping shock" ... maybe put a pillow or air bag under it? or filling the bags with air first before the rolls go in? Must be something...
I am going to join Mini on the sidelines for this one. Many variables here, not the least of which is the fact that someone else is actually doing the mixing/baking. I too am in the dark when it comes to flash freezing and the subsequent life of a baked roll. I agree that over proofing is likely from your description of big rise followed by delflation. Under proofing can give way to too much oven spring that tears the crust and over proofing can lead to the rise and fall of the roll which would also distort the crust. Good luck with this,
Jeff
Well I knew coming here would get me to the root of the problem or near enough and you guys didn't dissapoint :)
I spoke with the baker who normally makes them and he says he lets them "go a bit" thinking they would look better puffed out, fair comment but i soon realised that the baking times/temperatures werent as they should have been so I am hoping that getting them in the oven at the right time and the right temperature should work wonders.
thanks guys
K
Hard to say looking at the picture, but the dough looks underproofed as per Yerffej suggestion and you do mention that your help might bake before ready, but it does seem to want to blow out the bottom of the bun and maybe is a little dry in terms of hydration.
Maybe it’s your recipe.
I’ve made foccacia buns for numerous cafés
and have a pretty good and bomb proof recipe which bakes well,freezes well, and tastes good.
Have a look at this and compare it to yours:
Flour 0.94
Whole wheat flour 0.06
Fresh yeast 0.023 or 0.008 instant
Water 0.65 but I’m in Canada and our flour is strong so you would make adjustments to hydration by adding less water
Oil 0.10 (not a misprint – oil (preferably Olive) is 10 %)
Sugar 0.01
Salt 0.018
Fresh rosmary 0.003 or use dry and only use 1/3 the amount by weight
Dry Oregano 0.001
Once mixed, DDT 75 f – bench one, to one and a half hour, scale to what size you want for buns – round place on tray, let rest then flatten. Brush with olive oil – as per minioven suggestion; proof, bake, enjoy.
At one café, we scaled the dough at 200 gms (7 ounces) then flattened them inside individual small pizza pans, proofed and baked. Good size sandwich for panini and wildly popular.
If you’re not that comfortable with bakers percentage, here’s a small recipe in weights.
(you did say you’re in a small shop so I’ll assume you’re using a 20 qt planetary mixer?)
Flour 907 gms = 32 ounces = 2 lbs flour
Whole wheat 55 gms = 2 ounces
Fresh yeast 22 gms = just under 1 ounce or 7 gms instant = ¼ ounce instant
Water 625 ml = 22 ounces (adjustment likely here for your flour)
Olive oil 96 ml (go 100 ml, why not) = 3.39 ounces
Sugar 10 gm = .35 ounces
Salt 17 gm = .6 ounces; so .5 would be ½ an ounce... so a bit more
( 1 ounce = 28.35 gms)
Fresh rosemary 3 gms ( 3 gms is not much – just a tad more than a ½ teaspoon)
Dry oregano 1 gm (which is about 1/3 of what your fresh rosemary is)
This recipe would give you 1736 gms of dough, or 3.8 lbs of dough.
Kevin, compare it to yours and give it a try.
I think you will be happy with the results
Henry
Baking in Vancouver BC Canada