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Mixing Ciabatta

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

Mixing Ciabatta

HI Fresh Loafers

I have been making ciabatta and mixing it by hand and doing the turn and folds, as alot of bakers have recommended. I am pretty aggressive with the turn and folds to get as much gluten development as possible. I do this 5 times every 20mins, and then pop it in the fridge overnight, about 8-10 hours.

When I divide it , it is still a bit sticky where I have cut it and doesn't separate and hold its shape very well. When I lift it out of the couche onto a paddle, ready for the oven, I feel like the pieces have spread to much and not held their shape. Once in the oven , there is enough oven spring and the crumb of the finished loaf is airy and the taste is good and looks like a real ciabatta should.

Is the dough floppy because it has not got enough gluten development in the first stage due to not having used a electric mixer ? is it  possible to get the right amount of gluten development with only hand mixing ? I am mixing a dough of 2kgs that gives me 4 x 500g loaves, but i want to up scale this to 10kg and don't know if the hand method will work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

pmccool's picture
pmccool

And it will spread out into something amorphous.  The redeeming grace is the massive ovenspring, as you have noticed.

What flour are you using, and what hydration?

Have you heard of, or are you using, the bassinage / double hydration method for gluten development?  In short, it involves using part of the formula's water to create a workable dough in which you can develop the gluten thoroughly, then working in the remainder of the water.  You can search for either of those terms to get a fuller description of the process and pointers on how to do it.

Paul

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

HI Paul

 

I haven't heard of that method before. I mix the flour, water and yeast until the dough is fully hydrated. I let it autolyse for 30-40 mins, then add my salt and begin to do the first hand mixing and turn and fold. I read in the Bread Bakers Apprentice - Peter Reinhardt, that you can mix by hand, but I never seem to get a dough that is as light and airy as what you get when mixing by machine.

Thanks for the help, I'll try the Bassinage method.

 

Cheers

Warren

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

Oh , and I forgot to tell you, the hydration is 90%, really wet but I'm getting used to handling that type of dough.

pmccool's picture
pmccool

SteveB's formula for ciabatta is just slightly below 80% hydration.  By using the double hydration or bassinage technique, he is able to hand mix the dough.  No reason that you can't do it with 90% hydration, although it may take longer to come together after the final addition of water.

BTW, the usually accepted definition of autolyse is a mix of water and flour only, no salt and no yeast.  

Best of luck with your ciabatta.

Paul

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

HI Paul

I have tried the double hydration method in the following way. 

I mixed my 1000g flour with the regular instant yeast and made sure they were well mixed up. 

Then I added 750g water. I let that stand for 30mins. Then I added my salt and another 100g water. I then did my turn and folds every 20 mins, 4 times. After adding the second lot of water the dough had begun to rise a lot more than ever before. And with every T and F, it got more airy and fluffy. The final loaf had a lovely texture And open crumb. So I am going to stick to the bassinage method, it definately works. 

thanks 

pmccool's picture
pmccool

Isn't it wonderful when something works as advertised?

Paul

HPoirot's picture
HPoirot

Thanks for that link! i'm interested to try making ciabatta too.

Will i still benefit from double hydration method if i mix via machine?

I have an DLX Assistent that seems to handle wet dough well via the roller attachments.