High hydration dough breaking during final shape?!?!?!

& watch the video.  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/49534/80-hydration-pain-au-levain .

But his is "only" 80% hydration dough here.  Yours is well into in the category of ciabatta dough which should be handled with kid gloves ultra-carefully.

That video link is to Mac at SFBI...really great stuff, but he is a real expert and makes it look deceptively easy.

A few things that you may or may not notice and that aren't always pointed out (much like watching videos of Chad doing his dividing and shaping):

- regular dips of the free hand (the one without the knife) into flour, and the use of those floured fingers to support the dough while removing the bench knife

- similarly with shaping, occasionally picking up a bit of flour from the bench for one's hands

- *knowing your dough and your process and being able to judge just how much flour is needed

- *having well developed dough, as underdeveloped doughs are more likely to tear...as Mac says in the video, if you put two rounds of wet dough next to each other, that shouldn't be a problem to separate them...they should be separate, cohesive masses, IF they are well developed.

- then there is just having confidence that comes with practice, and the ability to be quick-decisive-gentle.

The last class I had with Mac, we were dividing 100% hydration whole grain doughs without any flour on the bench or the dough...At first I said 'no way!' but then just went for it and soon was able to make it work (but again, that was just dividing and scaling, and there were still dips of the free hand in flour).

All that said, I am still amazed when watching Chad Robertson shape, as he gets away with so little flour with really wet doughs.

Good luck...

When I make ciabatta I use quite a lot of flour. As long as you're careful to not get raw flour folded into the finished dough, you should be fine. You can always brush it off at the end (after baking even) if you don't like the look.

Another suggestion in handling dough that is very wet is to use your bench scraper to support one side of the dough while you use your other hand to shape.  I also like to wet my hands if the dough is very sticky rather than using a lot of flour.  It all depends on the dough and your preference.  Also, is the dough you are working on 100% commercial based white flour or are you using whole grain flour?  Whole grain flour will absorb a lot more water and an 87% hydration dough is nothing like a similar white flour dough.