What I would like to be able to advise is for you to turn back the clock and develop the gluten better with mixing and during bulk fermentation. But, realistically, for this time, I would not even try to shape it into a loaf. I would flour it heavily, cut it into convenient-sized rectangles, transfer pieces to parchment, let them proof, and bake them.
For future bakes, you will always get better advice if you include the actual formula and procedures you used/intend to use when asking for help.
Hi David.. how do you mean turning back the clock? I'm baking from Ken Forkish's book Flour, Water, Salt and Yeast. It's his 50% whole wheat bread with biga. I've been baking his book and this is the eight bread. Almost all of them have been high hydration and manageable, but barely.
Percentages were 50% white, 50% whole wheat, 80% water, 2.2% sea salt, .34% yeast.. the biga was 50% of the recipe..
By the time I read your reply it was too late.. In a very ugly fashion I got the dough into the dutch ovens. And unfortunately one of them stuck to the basket, so it will be an interesting result!
So back to the question.. I could treat it like a ciabatta, but how does he expect anyone that isn't seasoned in the craft to do this well? I'm no pro, but I've spent most of my life around bread - just not high hydration.. I find it very challenging.. here's the journey so far: https://flourwatersaltyeast.wordpress.com/
I mixed the biga at 10:30 last night, at 11:30 this morning I added the rest of the ingredients.. I folded over four times within the first hour to create gluten and help give the dough shape.. I left it four 3.5 hours per his recommendation.. then I attempted to shape. Once in the baskets they proofed within about 45 minutes and in the oven they are now..
What your kitchen temperature is. With the additional information you provided, I would say the cause of your problem is almost certainly over-fermentation with breakdown of gluten occurring during bulk fermentation. This results in the kind of sloppy dough you described.
I have made many, many loaves from FWSY. The only times my dough "obeyed" Forkish's fermentation schedules was in the coldest part of Winter. Where I live, that means my kitchen temperature runs around 65 dF. With the formulas calling for overnight bulk fermentation at room temperature, I always end up cold retarding the dough instead.
I am guessing your dough might even have expanded way beyond the 2.5X Forkish prescribes and then collapsed.
What do you think?
David
P.S. By "turn back the clock" I meant with a Time Machine. (Not funny?) In other words, the fix for your problem had to have been implemented at a much earlier stage.
I think you might be right.. My kitchen runs hot compared to most of my house.. when i've taken the temp during the start of a fermentation it's usually not far from 75 degrees. I've often thought that room temp was an issue. What should a room temperature be when doing bulk fermentation. I could bring the dough to my basement where I can easily get into the mid-thigh sixties.. and I have a cold room that can sit around 55 degrees (yes, that's where I store the wine :))..
Cold retarding.. so does that mean you're putting the dough in your fridge instead of room temp? If that's the case, and a typical fridge is something like 35-40 degrees, maybe my cold room at 55 makes more sense for these overnight ferments? What do you think?
As to expanding beyond 2.5x, I think that could be, I went back and looked at my commentary around making his overnight white. Looking at the dough level in the bowl I use and realizing that it was easily 1x bigger than the 2x he usually recommends. But that's what he said he wanted - the dough to triple in volume. But typically I'm shaping within 2 hours or so of morning mix. This time he said go for 3 - 4 hours and dutifully I did.
So my conclusion is that it was likely a combination of too warm a room from what you've said, and I let it over- ferment. I think the only two variables I can't control relative to his book is how humid my flour is, and how warm my room is - relative to his baking environment when testing the recipes...
Good tips, thanks David! But do let me know if you use your fridge and/or of my thought of using my cold room. Will post a picture of the crumb later tonight..
Do you have a bulk fermentation container that has volume measurement imprinted on its sides? I use a plastic food container with marks for every half and full liter up to five liters that I bought at a restaurant supply store. I find it handy since all I have to do is to note the starting point of my dough and then go through bulk fermentation procedures until it hits the desired mark. I can ignore time statements and focus simply on the growth because my kitchen is on the cool and slow side from late October to early May. Currently, time descriptions have to be abandoned because the average temp is somewhere between 76 and 82F. Instant yeast is an appropriate description right now.
If you've got such a container, use the markings instead of the times given in a book. If you don't, either buy one or make your own. They do help a baker achieve better and more consistent results.
There's an easy way to judge the fermentation of your dough. When a few lar bubbles start appearing on the surface of your dough, bulk fermentation is ready. As fof the final proof, sprinkle some flour in the middle of the dough top and poke your finger about 1.5 - 2cm. If the dough comes back slowly and closes the hole by about a half, proofing is done and it's the right time to bake. If the dough bounces back more quickly and closes the hole completely, it's not ready so wait for another 20-30 min (depends on your room temp, strength of your yeast/sourdoug, etc) or so and repeat the same test. If the dough doesn't come back at all, you've over-proofed it. Start baking asap and hope for the best!
These bubbles/finger-poking tests work every time for most types of bread as long as the dough is not very high in rye, like well over 60% rye.
And the golden rule of bread baking is never watch the clock, whatever a book says.
Lumos, you raised an interesting comment. I thought that the fermentation was done when the surface of the dough was cratered with a sea of small bubbles having popped, not just a few. When I woke up yesterday (probably by 8am) there were a few bubbles on the surface. I then let it sit for another 2.5 hours because I was going by time in the book. I ended up having a few more bubbles, but nothing dramatic. I guess the thing to understand is what stage the dough is at when you start to see a few bubbles and how much longer to let them go. From your comment, you seem to recommend to use the 'start' of bubbles as my guide to begin the secondary mix.
But, if the point of the pre-ferment is to develop flavours in the bread, then should I add the secondary ingredients at the start of bubble or further along? I admit I should read up on the chemistry of dough to understand this. In one of the book's recipes I made, I woke up to find a pre-ferment that looked like the surface of the moon. It was beautifully aromatic and the bread was spectacular. I've not been able to repeat that "pock-marked' experience.
As to proofing, I do use the finger dent test - I think it works well.
I don't specifically measure the level of growth of my bulk ferment as it develops. I 'eyeball' it. I guess that makes no sense considering I'm measuring yeast and salt by the gram, I should too be more accurate. I'll get a container with measurement and give that a try. Thanks!
What I would like to be able to advise is for you to turn back the clock and develop the gluten better with mixing and during bulk fermentation. But, realistically, for this time, I would not even try to shape it into a loaf. I would flour it heavily, cut it into convenient-sized rectangles, transfer pieces to parchment, let them proof, and bake them.
For future bakes, you will always get better advice if you include the actual formula and procedures you used/intend to use when asking for help.
Good luck with this one. It might turn out great.
David
Hi David.. how do you mean turning back the clock? I'm baking from Ken Forkish's book Flour, Water, Salt and Yeast. It's his 50% whole wheat bread with biga. I've been baking his book and this is the eight bread. Almost all of them have been high hydration and manageable, but barely.
Percentages were 50% white, 50% whole wheat, 80% water, 2.2% sea salt, .34% yeast.. the biga was 50% of the recipe..
By the time I read your reply it was too late.. In a very ugly fashion I got the dough into the dutch ovens. And unfortunately one of them stuck to the basket, so it will be an interesting result!
So back to the question.. I could treat it like a ciabatta, but how does he expect anyone that isn't seasoned in the craft to do this well? I'm no pro, but I've spent most of my life around bread - just not high hydration.. I find it very challenging.. here's the journey so far: https://flourwatersaltyeast.wordpress.com/
In a word: ugh!
I mixed the biga at 10:30 last night, at 11:30 this morning I added the rest of the ingredients.. I folded over four times within the first hour to create gluten and help give the dough shape.. I left it four 3.5 hours per his recommendation.. then I attempted to shape. Once in the baskets they proofed within about 45 minutes and in the oven they are now..
What your kitchen temperature is. With the additional information you provided, I would say the cause of your problem is almost certainly over-fermentation with breakdown of gluten occurring during bulk fermentation. This results in the kind of sloppy dough you described.
I have made many, many loaves from FWSY. The only times my dough "obeyed" Forkish's fermentation schedules was in the coldest part of Winter. Where I live, that means my kitchen temperature runs around 65 dF. With the formulas calling for overnight bulk fermentation at room temperature, I always end up cold retarding the dough instead.
I am guessing your dough might even have expanded way beyond the 2.5X Forkish prescribes and then collapsed.
What do you think?
David
P.S. By "turn back the clock" I meant with a Time Machine. (Not funny?) In other words, the fix for your problem had to have been implemented at a much earlier stage.
I think you might be right.. My kitchen runs hot compared to most of my house.. when i've taken the temp during the start of a fermentation it's usually not far from 75 degrees. I've often thought that room temp was an issue. What should a room temperature be when doing bulk fermentation. I could bring the dough to my basement where I can easily get into the mid-thigh sixties.. and I have a cold room that can sit around 55 degrees (yes, that's where I store the wine :))..
Cold retarding.. so does that mean you're putting the dough in your fridge instead of room temp? If that's the case, and a typical fridge is something like 35-40 degrees, maybe my cold room at 55 makes more sense for these overnight ferments? What do you think?
As to expanding beyond 2.5x, I think that could be, I went back and looked at my commentary around making his overnight white. Looking at the dough level in the bowl I use and realizing that it was easily 1x bigger than the 2x he usually recommends. But that's what he said he wanted - the dough to triple in volume. But typically I'm shaping within 2 hours or so of morning mix. This time he said go for 3 - 4 hours and dutifully I did.
So my conclusion is that it was likely a combination of too warm a room from what you've said, and I let it over- ferment. I think the only two variables I can't control relative to his book is how humid my flour is, and how warm my room is - relative to his baking environment when testing the recipes...
Good tips, thanks David! But do let me know if you use your fridge and/or of my thought of using my cold room. Will post a picture of the crumb later tonight..
Do you have a bulk fermentation container that has volume measurement imprinted on its sides? I use a plastic food container with marks for every half and full liter up to five liters that I bought at a restaurant supply store. I find it handy since all I have to do is to note the starting point of my dough and then go through bulk fermentation procedures until it hits the desired mark. I can ignore time statements and focus simply on the growth because my kitchen is on the cool and slow side from late October to early May. Currently, time descriptions have to be abandoned because the average temp is somewhere between 76 and 82F. Instant yeast is an appropriate description right now.
If you've got such a container, use the markings instead of the times given in a book. If you don't, either buy one or make your own. They do help a baker achieve better and more consistent results.
There's an easy way to judge the fermentation of your dough. When a few lar bubbles start appearing on the surface of your dough, bulk fermentation is ready. As fof the final proof, sprinkle some flour in the middle of the dough top and poke your finger about 1.5 - 2cm. If the dough comes back slowly and closes the hole by about a half, proofing is done and it's the right time to bake. If the dough bounces back more quickly and closes the hole completely, it's not ready so wait for another 20-30 min (depends on your room temp, strength of your yeast/sourdoug, etc) or so and repeat the same test. If the dough doesn't come back at all, you've over-proofed it. Start baking asap and hope for the best!
These bubbles/finger-poking tests work every time for most types of bread as long as the dough is not very high in rye, like well over 60% rye.
And the golden rule of bread baking is never watch the clock, whatever a book says.
Lumos, you raised an interesting comment. I thought that the fermentation was done when the surface of the dough was cratered with a sea of small bubbles having popped, not just a few. When I woke up yesterday (probably by 8am) there were a few bubbles on the surface. I then let it sit for another 2.5 hours because I was going by time in the book. I ended up having a few more bubbles, but nothing dramatic. I guess the thing to understand is what stage the dough is at when you start to see a few bubbles and how much longer to let them go. From your comment, you seem to recommend to use the 'start' of bubbles as my guide to begin the secondary mix.
But, if the point of the pre-ferment is to develop flavours in the bread, then should I add the secondary ingredients at the start of bubble or further along? I admit I should read up on the chemistry of dough to understand this. In one of the book's recipes I made, I woke up to find a pre-ferment that looked like the surface of the moon. It was beautifully aromatic and the bread was spectacular. I've not been able to repeat that "pock-marked' experience.
As to proofing, I do use the finger dent test - I think it works well.
I don't specifically measure the level of growth of my bulk ferment as it develops. I 'eyeball' it. I guess that makes no sense considering I'm measuring yeast and salt by the gram, I should too be more accurate. I'll get a container with measurement and give that a try. Thanks!