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Hydration level and related

Punta Espiritu's picture
Punta Espiritu

Hydration level and related

hi,  here's the formula for a bread I make that is having an issue of sometimes breaking apart when sliced

486gr sourdough (243gr water, 243 Central Milling og unbleached flour

611gr giustos whole wheat fine flour

15gr sea salt

6gr instant dry yeast

220gr water

34gr agave syrup

seed soaker

46gr oats

30gr chia seeds

30gr quinoa

150gr water

 

my 1st question is what is the hydration percentage?  (Do I include all the water of the seed soaker or only part as some of the water is now in the seeds/grains)

 

sometimes when slicing this bread it splits. I believe that I'm doing a good job shaping it and homogenizing the seam on the bottom so I'd appreciate any suggestions.  

In researching causes for this type of problem I have seen having a higher hydration percentage could be a solution, but 1st I need to understand what is my actual hydration.  

 

Thanks for any replies,

 

Seth

 

 

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

Well, if you want to be completely accurate you should count all the water that goes into the dough, whether it's in the starter or the soaker or just added by itself. If you didn't pre-soak the seeds they would soak up the other 'free' water, no? So, about 72%, I'd say. Pretty standard for a sourdough, though the added grains will make it stiffer. You could always add a bit of water to make the dough texture softer.

That seems like a very high percentage of starter to other ingredients, especially with 6 grams of dry yeast in addition. How long (and at what temperature) do you proof it (bulk and final)?

tgrayson's picture
tgrayson

I'd put the hydration at about 54%. The water in the soaker isn't available to the flour, so I don't think it would affect the dough handling characteristics.

Arjon's picture
Arjon

Is this true? While I have no scientific basis to cite, it seems - to me anyway - that if the soaker is wetter than the hydrated flour, some of the water would be drawn out of the soaker, although it would take a lot of soaker and a meaningful difference between the soaker and flour hydrations to make an appreciable difference in the dough. 

tgrayson's picture
tgrayson

It takes many hours for seeds to absorb water, so they're not going to give up the water very easily. If they did, wouldn't be much point to the soaker, right?

And I don't really know what it means for the soaker to be "wetter than" the flour. or how you would measure that.

 

 

 

Arjon's picture
Arjon

but I'd guess that if the soaker isn't hydration neutral, it will either release some water or absorb a bit more. 

as for measuring relative wetness, I don't know, but a possible starting point would be hydration % of the soaker to the hydration % of the dough not including the soaker. I suspect that since different soakers absorb different %s of water, the hydration neutral % for the soaker would have to be factored in.

tgrayson's picture
tgrayson

The hydration of the seeds can't be compared to the hydration of the dough, because seeds are not flour.

Regardless, the OP's dough is relatively dry, which might explain his problems.

Arjon's picture
Arjon

I didn't say the seeds should be considered flour, but for example, if I make a soaker with say 100g seeds plus 100g water, is that soaker not 100% hydration? 

Also, does the concept of hydration neutral not suggest that hydrations of the soaker and of the dough not including the soaker can or maybe even should be compared, taking into account what the hydration neutral % is for the specific soaker? 

tgrayson's picture
tgrayson

"if I make a soaker with say 100g seeds plus 100g water, is that soaker not 100% hydration? "

Sure, but it's a meaningless, useless number. Hydration is only useful as a relative measure of dough characteristics when all other factors are equal. Different materials absorb water with greater ferocity. Whole wheat, for instance, absorbs a lot more water than white flour.

 

Arjon's picture
Arjon

so I'm not seeing your point in stating this. 

And I've also said comparing hydrations won't be useful very often, but I'm not seeing how or why it can never be. If, for example, I see a recipe using a decent proportion of soaker that I know to be less than hydration neutral, say rolled oats at 50% hydration, I'd know expect to expect the dough to act like its hydration is somewhat lower than what it is nominally / without the soaker. If that's useless to you, fine. It's not for me. 

Les Nightingill's picture
Les Nightingill

the BBGA has some comments on soakers here.

In diagram 3 they introduce a soaker, with the comment that it may take some trial and error to make it "hydration neutral". So assuming that your formula has been correctly calculated, you can ignore the soaker water in the final hydration calculation.

Even if the soaker is not correctly formulated, the it would have to deviate grossly from "hydration neutral" to affect your final hydration by any significant amount.

So I think that 54% is a pretty fair estimate of your hydration, as tgrayson said.