A question about strength and structure
New to baking and new here so greetings to everyone!!! Congrats to the mods and contributors to what seems to be a very active and friendly forum.
I have started baking with “Brilliant Bread” by James Morton and moved on to making sourdough breads from “Bread” by Jeffrey Hamelman. I have probably made 40 – 50 breads to date.
My home adaptation to Hamelmans recipes is that I mix in the mixer for a long as he advices (a couple of minutes speed 1) and then I knead by hand (slap and fold) for another 15-20 minutes.
I develop gluten but never get to the stage where I can get the windowpane test working which is consistent with what Hamelman advices.
I come from Cyprus so temperature in the house is now 30c/86f.
I try to manage the temperature challenge as follows:
- I use cold water (my kneaded dough turns out to be 27c/80f whilst Hamelman advices for 24c/76f)
- I reduce balk fermentation (instead of doing 2 folds @ 50 minutes, I do 2 folds @ 40 minutes)
- I reduce final fermentation (Instead of doing 2,5 hours I do 1,45 hours)
I use regular flour called Farina 00 here in Cyptus with 11g protein. The description is as per below
All-Purpose Flour ( Farina “00”)
All-purpose flour is the finely ground endosperm of high protein wheat, separated from the bran and germ during the milling process. It has great gluten strength and can be used for a wide range of yeast breads, rolls, buns, crusty breads, breadsticks, pizza dough, and pitta bread, as well as specialty bakery items such as pastry shells, cookies, pie dough, biscuits, pancakes, waffles, doughnuts, brownies and many other cakes.
I bake my breads @230c in a Dutch oven for 20-25min lid on, for 20 min lid off and for 10 min on the baking stone.
Crust has been generally good.
Crump has been fairly airy but in some instance chewy.
My biggest issue has been structure/strength of the dough before baking.
During shaping my dough cannot take a lot of tension without tearing.
After the final proof (usually in a banneton) my shaped breads do lose a lot of the height I created through shaping (although oven spring does bring back most of the volume to the bread).
In general my shaped breads are very fragile. They often collapse during transfer to the oven.
Any ideas where I get things wrong??!?
I have added a pic from a recent bake just to make the post a bit more colourfull!
when people come on here with a bread problem then show us a photo of a really lovely delicious looking bread.
That looks lovely and I give myself a blessing that ALL my problem breads look like that.
I don't think you're doing anything wrong. The only advice I can give is try using strong bread flour if it's possible to get hold of any.
I have also learned that our European flour need less water than American flour. So if you're finding it too hydrated and getting less structure then try a slightly lower hydration.
Otherwise... what a lovely loaf and crumb.
Many thanks for the response!
:-) you are absolutely correct in that I posted one of my better breads which is not very constructive given the theme of my post.
We do get the UK brands of strong flour here in Cyprus (like Doves strong white bread flour or Allinson Strong white flower). I was using them at the beginning. I changed to regular flour based on Hamelmans suggestion in his book. I have nothing to loose by giving them a try again.
I find what you say regarding the hydration % very interesting. Hemelmans sourdough breads are 65% hydration which seems low per what is discussed here on the forum. Nevertheless as a newbie I do find the doughs pretty wet!
Some Allinsons or Doves strong white bread flour and they work then why not? I too tried some AP flour following some American recipes and i'm not convinced we're all talking about the same thing. We tend to use AP flour for cakes and biscuits etc but in America it's used a lot with breads. It is rather confusing and I've had many discussions on this subject. Still not 100% certain but pretty sure something is lost in translation here. You can always do a mix. Afterall it's what works at the end of the day.
I did a 65% hydration all white flour sourdough the other week and I too found it quite on the high hydration side and sticky. As a general rule wholegrain needs more than bread flour and rye needs a very high hydration. But it is worth noting that when following an American recipe that our European flour needs less water. Just bear that in mind and adjust if you find it necessary. Also if it's very humid where you live it'll need less water due to the moisture in the air. So by all means adjust to what works for you. I'm learning to do this and have been doing so a lot more nowadays but small steps at first.
Hi,may I suggest to incorporate half bread flour and the other with all purpose. Reason being is I used to use 100% bread flour but I find the dough too dry and and elastic, ended up adding lots of water in my final dough. By doing so, the shape and oven spring of my bakes are way better than before.
My indoor temperature ranges from 27-29 dc daily, quite similar with your end. So I am just doing what you did all the time and then cold retard the dough and bake it whenever I need it. Just made 2 batches of sourdough today, same recipe, same hydration but the 4 loaves don't 'behave' the same during bench rest. Sometimes, am really intrigued with wild yeast. Oh well, you just need to fine tune it your own way till you get it right!
P/s: that's one good looking bread to me.
Regards,
Sandy
I never took the time to report my progress to the forum on the above.
I first tried replacing 100% of my “00 Farina flour” British (Allison’s) strong white bread flour. All other variables held constant. The resulting dough was much easier to work with and the shaped loaf was not fragile. During bake the loafs did not enjoy as much oven spring. The finished loafs were taller but smaller and more dense.
I then tried a 50/50 flour combo. As expected dough and shaped loafs were more fragile and more prone to over proofing collapse. I have tried the 50/50 version 4 times and when I get the fermentation/proofing times right the resulting loafs are excellent. I also gradually increased hydration from 65% to 68%.
One thing I noticed is that my crump has been getting softer (less stretchy and gummy) than in the past (100% 00 Farina version). I am not sure whether this is down to the flour choice and hydration % or whether it’s down to kneading.
With the added confidence coming from the “strong flour” I gradually reduce my kneading. I also tried stand mixer kneading for a couple of minutes instead of 15 minutes slap and fold hand kneading. Overall I noticed that less kneading (nowhere near the windowpane test level) does result in a less gummy (almost creamy) crump.