The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Improved Burst (aka Spring, Ears etc)

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Improved Burst (aka Spring, Ears etc)

Hi and thanks to some of the members for advice on oven spring.  Finally got some better improved presentability with my baguettes - specifically with some of the defined ears and burst along scores.

I added some snaps - the bottom baguette in this picture is the one that seemed to finally start doing what I wanted.  The two above were shaped and scored slightly differently from the lower one.  The one at the bottom was scored much more shallow and this time as low and angle as possible.  In addition, a little mist was applied before scoring.  Notice also the crust is much nicer as the above two are a little dry and dead.  I've been trying to improve presentation mainly because I'm one of these guys who cares more about the flavor and structure of the crumb.  This is one of the more satisfying bakes.  Tks ! 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

All the things I said before: good shaping, good oven spring, good consistent scoring.  All three more so that a lot of others on TFL who try to do baguettes.  What's to complain about ;-)

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Not complaining now!  Btw, when I saw your lava rocks on your youtube, I went outside and started chipping away at lava rocks in front of my driveway (I'm sure the neighbors were wondering what's gotten into this guy).  They work amazing !  Fyi, this batch I was abso to replenish my fresh yeast supply from the local bakery who will see a pound for $3.50.  I used identical method to last week's instant yeast batch and the difference is profound. I guess it's just a matter of knowing each ingredient :) 

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Btw, can you see that the one I sliced was rolled a little too much.  Notice the interior crumb has become sort of twisted.  Since you know a thing or two, I'm self-concious of your skills at interrogating ! 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Not MY lava rocks.  There are so few truly original ideas these days (cronuts being an exception for example) that everything is a riff on someone else's idea.  I know you were using the term colloquially, but I think that I first read about the lava rocks on one of David Snyder's posts when I was struggling to find a good source for steaming.  

It really doesn't matter what is in the pan so river rocks, nuts and bolts Aunt Fanny's heavy costume jewelry, etc are all fair game.  The idea being to get a big mass o' sumpin' to heat up sufficiently that will create a vicious flow of steam.  Lava rocks are cheap and light weight and do the job quite nicely.  And once that source of steam has dissipated, Syvia's Steaming Towel will still be chugging away generating a little more steam until the towel is removed.

As far as interrogation goes, that's why we have Mini Oven, dabrownman, David Snyder and a host of other long-in-the-tooth TFLers to do the heavy lifting.  I'm only so good as in my little corner of the baking universe.  Those are the real long-term champs of diagnosis and detection.

I blew your picture up to 200% and it still wasn't clear to me the torquing that you are referring to.  In the photo, it looks as much like a bit of uneven sawing of the baguette as much as a twisted dough.  And that's one of the fun things about these little dough tubes of joy - they are a might harder to shape than a batard or boule.  As you well know the consistency of the shaping across the entire dough needs to pretty much be there with application of even pressure.  

If you haven't seen it yet, my most recent post includes a picture in the comments area of what my early baguettes looked like.  A sad sad tale to tell.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Made another small batch today and getting more of that defined ear shape yay!. Seems angle helps a lot - I'm going in at quite a low angle bow. Only regret this time is that I should have given them an extra few minutes to get some darker color on the edges but hey, just exited :)

kendalm's picture
kendalm

You are a real crack up man - very colorful descriptive posts. I'm not sure if your aunts jewelry would work so well. The rocks I took from my my driveway are very much like sponges only made of stone and soak a ton of water. I didn't try the towel only because I feel a new one might be the best idea - not too keen on building a atmosphere of used towel micro droplets.

I will check out your early pics. I have plenty of disaster photos most of which highlight inner crumb eaten to the nth degree by diastase. Btw I have some French flour in the mail and really interested to see if it can provide a better flavor profile. Although I feel close with what I baking now I still want to get that real authentic flavor. Its really amazing how the real deal French made in France baguettes taste. There just no equal !

Noted on the gurus - pretty new to this group but seems like a ton of good input and once again thanks so much for all your feedback !!!