The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Searching for tradition old school style French country loafs.

Andrewjs's picture
Andrewjs

Searching for tradition old school style French country loafs.

so iv been baking for 2 months now and am having ok success. Im trying to find some  formulas for traditional pheastant style french/ Italian bread. More so french. 

i mill and sift flour to achieve roughfy 87 % extraction flour, as well as 100 whole wheat. I love the flavor of mostly whole grain bread but love when it's slighty  chewy, mostly tinder. Crunchy crust and some good crumb structure,. I don't like sour bread, I aim for only a hint of sour at the end of the bite. 

i use a rye sour mother. Trying to learn more about Gerard's way of making a starter and doing a tripple build. I like methods to decrees sour notes and increase rise and flavors. It's all confusing.

so I need  guidance On some  formulas and methods/  techniques to  narrow in on. My head right now is going in so many diffrent detections. As stated above I'm searching for tradtion French methods But don't really know wheat to start. I'm still new to this for the most part.

very inspired by PiPs blog and his miches. so I guess that's a start? As well as Gerard'sbread and some good stuff on the perfect loaf 

hope that all makes since.

 

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I trained with Gerard for a short while back in the summer/fall of 2014. I've lost my old notes so I'm just going by memory here -- so take it for what it's worth.

When I worked with Gerard he'd abandoned the three-build process in favor of a twice-a-day feeding schedule. I believe he did this more to reduce his workload due to poor health than because of flavor preferences. His starter consisted of the same ratio of flours in his final bread, but it was stiffer and only contained 1% salt (IIRC). I think it was around 60% hydration.

The flour consisted of 70% AP, 18% fresh milled and sifted hard red spring wheat, 9% milled and sifted spelt, 3% milled and sifted rye. The starter builds were roughly 12 hours apart, and he would refrigerate it for the last 6 hours or so to keep the fermentation in check and control the acid. He was always tasting the dough for acid throughout all stages of the process. 

His final dough was anywhere from 75%-85% hydration, depending upon how it felt. But usually it was in the 78%-80% range. He used a very slow and gentle multi-stage mixing process. Autolyse for an hour (no salt, no starter), add starter then let rest 20 minutes, then add salt. The dough would bulk for around 4 hours in a wooden trough at ambient temps (no folds) and proof after shaping for another 2-3 (no retardation). 

What struck me most about his method was how he babied his starter. He cared for his starter like no other baker I've ever personally seen. He put all of himself into caring for his starter, and his life/routine would revolve around it. I have no doubt that that's a huge part of the reason his bread was so damn good.

I hope that helps out a bit. If you have any other questions I'm happy to answer them to the best my memory will allow.

Cheers!

Trevor

Andrewjs's picture
Andrewjs

thanks fir the input Trevor. Are the levain builds just feeding/ refreshing the starter as in refreshing it twice. Then he would build his levain for the final dough?

Andrewjs's picture
Andrewjs

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H022Wz9eixvyYKD9I99s4KTjHuq-j0j7yTvLGi8_VyE/mobilebasic?pli=1

so is alll the feeding before the levain build for the recpie of choice?

His starter could be used for building most breads right?