More consistency, but let's talk about steam
I've posted these before, the Hamelman sesame semolina batards alfanso-style - meaning subbing out the very liquidy bread flour levain for my very liquidy rye flour levain. Delivering 15% rye flour (all through the levain) to boost the flavor in this bread. The composition of flours is; semola rimacinata 60%, bread flour 25%, and rye flour 15% @67% overall hydration.
I believe that I have the consistency part down pretty well. So instead, let's talk about steam, shall we alfanso? Okie Doakie, let's roll... Recently there has been some interaction on the part of a few participants including myself and Doc.Dough, with a series of private messages between myself and the good doctor. Including this top notch video and blog entry courtesy of Doc.Dough - lots of steaming discussion included in the comments.
As with others on TFL, I employ a double dose of steaming components which have me insert one loaf pan with a Sylvia's Steaming Towel into the lower rack of the oven ~15 minutes prior to the bake. Once the dough is loaded I add 2 cups of near boiling water to a lava rock filled casserole pan. This creates dabrownman's so named mega-steam effect. Historically I've been leaving the steaming going for somewhere in the neighborhood of 11-13 minutes. And I'm sufficiently happy with the outcome.
Now along comes Doc.Dough with his micrometers, calipers and what-not trying to upset my baking pushcart. Purveying the notion with engineered knowledge that the effect of steam is negated after somewhere around the 5 minute mark. Anything beyond that is equivalent to window dressing.
What is an alfanso to make of all this fact based information, when all along I've been getting the job done by nothing more than "educated" guesswork, experimentation and personal experience? Well, if I were me, I'd be curious enough to see where the oven spring has taken my dough at that 5 minute mark. Because as with all of us, I hope to get better and more understanding of baking over the long haul.
For these past few bakes, instead of setting my timer to the trusty 11-13 minute mark I've been setting it to the 5 minute mark so that I can peer through the oven door window and take a gander at what's what. And ya know something? For the most part I'm becoming a believer! The baguettes do open up (almost) all the way at that mark. However, I find that the batards still have not maxed out yet, and they take a few minutes more.
And so I've turned a corner here and pretty much gotten on board. I still like keeping the steam going for close to my requisite time, but I can now see the doc's point of view. I don't see any downside to leaving the steam going, although my experimentation has been limited to maybe 3 or 4 bakes. So I'l continue to slog on and see how this goes with some other types of dough. Always something new to be learned in this doughy business. Thanks, Doc.
And now a very few words on the consistency thing:
Nov., 2016:
and this morning:
Comments
wrap it in plastic wrap after it cools, the crust will be soft as can be 8 -12 hours later = perfect for kids and us old timers with bad teeth:-)
The larger the loaf diameter (actually the larger the minimum dimension) the longer it takes to raise the core temperature to the ~95°C point where it is fully cooked. So long as there is still a way for the loaf to expand it will do so in response to increasing internal pressure from heating of the CO2. If the outside surface is fully cooked and sufficiently strong to withstand the internal pressure, oven spring may be brought to a halt - but any weak spot is subject to blowing out like a weak spot in a tire.
I am not sure there is such a thing as "over steaming", though there is a point where steam no longer contributes significantly to the baking process. I suspect that your shorter (40 vs 50 min) oven time served to reduce crust thickness and probably some browning.
result in that loaves come into the dry phase already almost cooked, and then as crust and color forms, the crumb becomes over cooked and the result is a tough, gummy loaf?
That is definitely an impression I've got, being a guy to "over bake" my loaves, as seems to be the consensus that Forkish's timings are off. My breads were coming with great color, but too tough. I seem to now prefer paler loaves, but friendlier to the teeth.
I know there must be a conciliation of softness and color, but I'm still in the process of finding it. This is a great thread in that direction.
After some searching, I found a very interesting paper (Impact of starch gelatinization on the kinetics of Maillard reaction in potato dehydrated systems) that discusses the variation of the Maillard reaction rate as a function of starch gelatinization and relative humidity (RH). The experiments were run with potato starch so there is perhaps some difference when the results are reinterpreted for wheat starch, but their was a definite (and I thought non-intuitive) variation over the range of humidities with low browning rates at both low and very high RH and relatively high browning rates at intermediate RH values.
I ran an experiment in a 100% steam environment and demonstrated that bread would brown, but the required temperature was higher and the time longer than I expected (which I guess confirms the general observation about Maillard rates being lower at very high RH. The resulting color was also different from what I see at lower oven temperature and humidity levels in that the bread surface was more of a golden or yellowish tone than a toasty brown. So if dark brown is the baseline for color, then high steam seems to suppress it at least at temperatures below 405F. The surface was also covered with blisters even though the dough was not retarded.
From a 30 second SFBI video of baguettes that are stated to be under, over and "properly" steamed. I'm here to restate that I steam, with billows of steam, for 11-13 minutes. With no further background from this video of what the definition of the three terms really is, I don't think there is a vast disagreement that what this screen capture shows is really not very accurate. But just for the record...
BTW, for the most recent bake that I posted, I once more set the timer at 5 minutes to check the bloom on the dough. None of the three distinct shapes and weights displayed anywhere near a full bloom. But at the 13 minute mark they were just about fully bloomed.
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