The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

The doc abides

kendalm's picture
kendalm

The doc abides

Doc dough sent me some gas oven hints for Browning earlobes and thought I would post the results. First thank docdough for chiming in and second I want to point out that today I resorted to pulling an old bag of central milling T70 which despite all the hooplah I don't really enjoy using this flour but spontaneously thought lets try it again...why ? I thank lepicerie.com for shipping my next supply on Friday (the day it was supposed to arrive ... Sank you very mooch phillippe ! Sheesh).

A little side note on central milling and their 't70' this apparently is their attempt at mimicking French flour and I understand they spent a year or so consulting bakers in france asking questions ranging from color, protein content etc, umfortunately, only the color seems to come anywhere close to what I've become accustomed to. The very first thing you find is that their flour is really strong and contains a lot of bran which the French mills would otherwise pulverize as contributors to the higher mineral content. The end result is something more like a wheat / white mix and it performs less like a bona fide t65 than. Does a standard ap from the market.

Ok,so what the goal here is to experiment with gas oven and caramelization. Here's the advice,from the doc. 1. Lower hydration and 2. Shut off the oven for the first 5 minutes and plug the vents to trap the steam. I did exactly that and came out with the above results. What I also noticed upon re-firing the oven was that I lost about 100f of heat, so now I finally have an idea roughly how much heat is being lost from opening the door. Starting at 550f and baking at around 450 is a little low but despite that I do think there's some improved Browning going on here.

Over all these loaves are underwhelming - I am not used to contending with so much resistance in the dough and been spoiled with the Moulin d'auguste flour which I usually use - its such a joy to watch this stuff glutenize in 2 minutes and the final dough is like a baby's tush ! It forms window panes by gravity alone and produces a flavor that blows any other flour away. These loaves today sprung up ok and some of the scores look nice whereas others just stretched. The last time I made baguettes with this flour all of the scores simply stretched so looking forward to trying this technique again with a weaker flour and doing,some,research on preserving heat - meanwhile we got a few loaves of edible bread for a day or so !

kendalm's picture
kendalm

kendalm's picture
kendalm

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Since it was experimentation day - here's the loaf that came out nicest and what's interesting is that I decided to try scoring on the down slope (which I have noticed is more common - usually I ,score upwards) 

 

 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Nothing like a little experimentation, as long as it is controlled and not all over the board, else we could wind up with something akin to Frankenstein's daughter and not know how we got there.

I like the darker coloration, but then again, I always do as my own personal thing.

As far as scoring goes, I've seen videos where a number of pro bakers will turn the lame the opposite way, where the 'C' curve in the blade is facing away from them and score that way.  Whatever seems to work is the right choice.

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Agreed this depth of color is much nicer - gotta say though I feel I have spoiled myself with the flour I have been using these, even though they were on an 18 hour retard were (flavor-wise) nothing like what I have getting with Moulin d'auguste. This obsession all started as a flavor experiment the day when my wife came home with 'mini baguettes baked in france' from trader Joes. At first I thought no way and then thawed one and took a sniff and was instantly transported back to antibes the first time i went (I used to be an athlete and travelled quite a bit). The bread there just smells and tastes so darn good. So far I just cannot get that same character with any flour grown and milled here in usa. Actually the experiment began after traders stopped selling them - they were fantastic. Actually quite a lot of the baking experiments I have engaged started by trying to get an authentic this or that. With baguettes it has now progressed to shape perfection (a long road but with persistence it shall hapoen !!!!)

kendalm's picture
kendalm

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

looking at those pictures.  Well dine and happy baking

 

BreadBabies's picture
BreadBabies

 

Can you go more into the details on which flour you love and how you source it?

Nice baguette!