Pre-shaping and shaping problems. Is it the flour?
Hi!
I just moved from Berlin to Cluj Napoca, Romania, where I've been having trouble with my bread. The problem already shows up while mixing the dough, but it is more present by pre-shaping and shaping. My dough just doesn't seem to hold enough tension. After observing and trying a lot of different things, even reducing hydration, I think I am ready to blame the flour. Is it possible that the flour quality here is just low and the gluten doesn't develop well enough? I didn't have this problem in Germany, even the cheapest flours there would give me a great dough to work with. I did experience something similar in Brazil, though. That's where I started baking bread and I know the flour quality there is mostly quite questionable.
I've also asked myself if it might be a problem with my sourdough, but it seems to be behaving quite well. The funny thing is the bread turns out to be quite good in the end, it has great oven spring and the crumb has nice wholes. But as soon as I stretch my dough for the shaping it just breaks apart.
I'd be very thankful if you guys had any interesting comments to share on this.
Filipi
"breaking apart"? Does it appear that the gluten has degraded? Could this be over fermentation?
breaking apart means that even though it develops a relatively smooth skin during pre-shaping, this skin doesn't seem to be able to hold on when I start shaping, it becomes a very sticky and lumpy dough as soon as I perform my first moves, that makes it really annoying to shape. It seems that the gluten is not really well developed or something.
And, like I said before, the bread grows nicely in the oven and the crumb is also great. That's why I would disconsider over fermentation.
Thanks, though!
Is you're tightening the dough too much with the pre-shape. And when it comes to shaping you're compromising the skin. A pre-shape should be not too tight. Then the dough should be given enough time to relax after which shape again and this time make the skin more taut. If you're making the skin too taut with the pre-shape and then you shape again tightening even further (and possibly not giving it enough time to relax in-between) then the dough will begin to break and it's difficult to start again if at this stage the fermentation has been taken to the optimal level.
definitely a possibility. I have a dough bulk rising right now. I will take your comment in to consideration when I pre shape it, which will be soon. Thanks!
It is very possible that your flour is too weak (I have no local knowledge to lend you on that side of things). It is said that the Italians used a biga to combat weak flour. I am not sure about your technique, or anything about your starter, but I would suggest that using a larger portion of a stiff starter might help in the same way.
One way to see if it is your starter would be to make a loaf using commercial yeast (or a hybrid by adding some yeast to your normal sourdough recipe).
Edit to add: It might also be worth asking around about different flours. It is possible that ones suitable for bread go by a certain name or other distinction.
Another edit: Another thing that I should have thought of right away was to try adding some Vital Wheat Gluten if your flour is too weak. I did look it up and am wondering what flour you are using. I think the 650 should be strong enough.
That's the thing. I've made pizza dough a few times using dry yeast and it works much better. Plus, the flour I am using is the 650. I've tried others, but that's the one I settled on.
I might research about Vital Wheat Gluten, maybe that'd be an option. I'm not really familiar with the biga, I baked a ciabata once using a biga, but I basically just followed instructions. That might also be something to consider.
Thanks a lot for your help.
...to do is go to a local bakery and buy some of their flour? Or show them what you've been using and get their comments? Or both.
Do you know about flour protein levels? From your description it sounds like you cannot get enough gluten developed. As a rough guide, 12% is a good level for most bread. Less than 11% and you really struggle, it's only much use for pastry. Above 13% and it's best used for making bagels. In many parts of the world, the percentage protein has to be printed on packaging.
The protein level on the flours I've tried go from 10,5 to 11,5. And I've had great dough to work with using flour that had this level of protein before.
About going to bakeries, the problem is the bread here usually sucks! I've met a woman who has a bakery where she bakes good sourdough bread, maybe I can get some advice from her on which flour to use.
Thanks!
and found myself dealing with flours that were totally unfamiliar to me, I mixed several different doughs one morning just to get acquainted with the flour. Each dough was identical except for hydration, with hydration levels ranging from 50% upwards. That let me see how the flour behaved at different hydrations and gave me some insights as to its strength, too.
If you can't get information from the manufacturer or local residents, you might want to do something similar with your flour.
Paul
the idea itself sounds fun, to say the least. I'll definitely put it to practice once I have the time. Thanks for your advice.
I have no experience with Romanian flour, but have some experience with Serbian, Croatian. I think that the whole Balkan area has very similar gluten content. Here in Slovenia the strongest flour regarding gluten content you can get is probably 11.5% while most of the flour has around 10% only. Same is true for Croatian and Serbian flour which I could get.
The trick witch such weak flour is to do more slaps&folds. Personally I prefer the method used by Trevor Wilson - he named that “stretch and scoop” (here you can see his video). Doing that for about 10 minutes with a several minutes brake in between you will get much more developed gluten and your dough will get much more strength and elasticity.
I had to lower the hydration for all American recipes for about 5 to 10% to get normally workable dough. With only white bread flour with 10-11% of gluten the highest possible hydration I can reach is probably 73-75%, beyond this the dough is really sticky and hardly manageable.
The other thing you can try is to use some spelt flour which will give a lot of extensibility to your dough.
Just my two cents!
Happy baking,
Joze
I have exactly the same problem. I wonder if it will not be temperature, I live in Sintra Portugal and it is a cold and humid area (my house is usually 15 degrees Celsius, and when I turn on the heating (whenever I'm at home in the fall and winter it's 19) I can never do that window test correctly. Could it be the temperature?