The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Assistent mixer

petejw's picture
petejw

Assistent mixer

Recently purchased this incredible Swedish mixer. My problem is when I make dough with it, the dough tends to be very sticky after the first rise, please help! what am I doing wrong. 

jaywillie's picture
jaywillie

What recipe are you using? I think you'll have to give all the details about your dough to get viable answers.

bshuval's picture
bshuval

Hi, 

I have an assistent, and I love it. I find that it makes excellent dough. For wet doughs I use the roller and for heavier doughs I use the dough hook (I always use the scraper in conjunction). I always get great results. My guess is that your recipe is off. Always use a recipe from a reputable source, and use weights and not volumes where possible. (I weigh everything: flour, water, salt, etc.). 

Good luck!

petejw's picture
petejw

The recipe I use is for wholemeal loaf. It is from a book by Paul Hollywood who is a very good baker. I am new to the Assistent mixer, so maybe I am not kneeding the dough long enough ? Yesterday I made fruit buns that I have made before by hand, these ended up with a sticky dough but the bake was fine,very tasty.

I live on my own so I do small bakes, 500gr flour,(400 wholemeal +100 white flour) 7gr instant yeast, 10 salt, 320ml water. Would this make a difference using the Assistent.

thanks for all your comments

 

 

bshuval's picture
bshuval

Hi, 

Could you explain what you mean by sticky, then? Could you take a picture?

It is possible that the dough is wetter than you are used to, especially if you compare it to kneading by hand. Often people that knead their doughs by hand add too much flour to make the dough not sticky. This makes for a dry dough and worse bread, in my opinion. When kneading by machine there is no extra flour, so the dough may turn out wetter and stickier. This is a good thing. 

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

I recently purchased a large commercial mixer (Univex 30 quart), because I make dough in larger batches, sometimes 12 or 14 loaves at a time. That's too much to do by hand! I find that some of the wetter doughs that I make are quite sticky too, and have learned to not be too worried about letting the mixer run until the dough is really smooth and elastic. That seems to help. Your dough is 64% hydration which isn't high (75% to 80% is a pretty 'wet' dough), so the dough should not be sticky from that amount of water.

Also, do you stretch and fold the dough at all after it comes out of the mixer? As it is a yeasted bread (commercial yeast, not sourdough levain), you probably don't want to let it bulk ferment for a long time, but you could try putting the dough in the fridge for a period of time to let it firm up and become easier to handle.

jaywillie's picture
jaywillie

...I think the mixer takes a little getting used to. It's different from hand kneading and the KitchenAid, that's for sure. I've done about five mixes, and I'm just starting to get comfortable with it and noticing when and where I need to intervene. So I would say give yourself some time to learn the mixer. As others have commented, your recipe seems OK and the hydration is not overly wet. So maybe you are just not giving the dough enough time in the mixer?

petejw's picture
petejw

I  think I  have now sorted out my Assitent problem re the sticky dough. Releasing that the machine takes longer to knead dough than a stand mixer has sorted my issue out. Being apprehensive of over kneading my dough i only let it run for five minutes, on trying 8 minutes it worked fine. Made nice tinned loaf. Would like to thank everyone for their help and suggestions.

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

to take 8 minutes to knead less than 1 Kg of dough tells me that you are running at a relatively low speed.

If you run at step 5 or 6 (though 6 may be a little too fast for dough that is 64% hydration) you should be done in around 5 min. For a 67% hydration dough I mix for about 6 min at speed 6 (the last one before the two that are hatched)