The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

A Tale of Three Mixes by Charles What-in-the-Dickens

alfanso's picture
alfanso

A Tale of Three Mixes by Charles What-in-the-Dickens

A fabulous and incredibly informative set of email exchanges on Mariana’s part a few weeks ago had me:

  • Decide to run my own little test.
  • Buy the Kindle version of Michel Suas’ Advanced Bread and Pastry @ $45USD

I ran the wonderful and wonderfully reliable Hamelman Vermont SD formula 3 consecutive times over 2 weeks.  I’ve baked this enough times, now always using a rye levain vs. his white flour levain.  And I'm certain that I can reproduce it with consistency time and again.   All activities were the same across the 3 bakes with just one major exception each time.

  • 1st bake was hand mixed my standard way – 300 French Folds, generally traditional, until mechanized means were introduced.
  • 2nd bake was “mixed” in my 35 year old Kitchen-Aid stand mixer with dough hook.
  • 3rd bake was mixed in my 35 year old Cuisinart Food Processor with plastic dough blade.

Having counted RPMs of the stand mixer’s dough hook, the plan was to run on 4th speed at 124 RPM for 5 minutes. A total of 620 turns of the hook.  This should approximate a short mix, which was itself pretty much designed to approximate mixing by hand.  However, there was some sand in the Vaseline here.  The dough repeatedly and almost immediately decided to catch a free ride by climbing the hook, creating a fair amount of invalidity to this comparison.  The stopping and starting of the mixer to clear the hook made for a frustrating experience and certainly not worth repeating.

Cusinart  phone support stated my food processor model was rated at 1750-1800 RPM – based on “load”.  Of which they could not be more specific as to how those RPMs were affected by “load”.  I loaded approximately the maximum flour weight recommended.  With a relatively low hydration of 65%, I ran the machine for 50 seconds, attempting to get somewhere in the imagined neighborhood of 1000 total revolutions.  Or what would fall into the category of an improved mix.

**Late Edit** I neglected to mention that those 50 seconds in the food processor rose the temperature of the dough from ~78-80dF to an unreasonable 87dF.  Therefore, I reduced the timing of the bench rise from 120 minutes to 90 minutes with folds at 40 & 80 minutes instead of the standard 50 & 100 minutes.  If I were to mix in the food processor from scratch, I'd use iced water to keep the dough temp down.**End Edit**

Because I could not taste the three at the same time, there is no way of discerning whether there were any flavor differences.

1.    Hand Mix.  These had the most obvious oven spring of the three batches.

2.    Stand Mixer.  A pretty close match to the hand mixed batch, although I left this about two minutes too long in the oven.

3.    Food Processor. Still looked consistent with first two, but I have the notion that the crumb was not quite as open as the others.

Although I gave away the pick of each litter, I warehoused 1 from each of the first 2 bakes.  Here are the 3 results side by side.  The club-ended baguette was the pure hand mix, and the center baguette was the stand mixer batch. 

In summary, I didn’t see a lot of difference, other than mix time among the three mixes, although even with a good oven spring, the food processor batch had what seem to be a more regular crumb with smaller holes.

The stand mixer was a bust and the food processor was a nuisance to clean.  Additionally, it takes the sheer joy of hand mixing away from my grubby little mitts.  And I like doing that.  Cathartic, satisfying, hands in the dough at all times.  And easiest to clean up.  What’s not to like?  Plus, if it gets me a few millimeters closer to whatever the term artisan means this month, then I find that to my liking as well. 

Each batch was ~400g x 3 baguettes/long batards

 

Comments

bread1965's picture
bread1965

Al.. where's the three side by side crumb shot? !  Any real difference? The two at the top of the email look great!!   Bakers want to know!   Let's see..

 

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Crumb shot! Crumb shot! Crumb shot! ?

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Okay, Crabby - crumb shots added.  After which I'll do some tequila shots.  Although not lined up side by side - it's against my religion.  Thanks, alan

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Looks like there are slight differences in crumb  but nothing that would really move me to use one over the other. 

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

that exchange with marianna was awesome indeed.  I sympathise about dough climbing! hand mixing is  certainly a more enjoyable method for me as well.

look forward to crumb shot ?

alfanso's picture
alfanso

There are a few folks who've passed through TFL - Ice Demeter if I recall correctly is one, who have hand strength and/or manipulation problems.  For those few, it is imperative that they have a mechanical means to mix unless they go the no-knead route.  That may produce a great loaf, just as D.O. baking almost always does (once one gets the hang of things).  

But they don't turn me on vs. the hand mixing, couching and open deck baking.  We each have our own levels of interest in this caloric hobby of ours, and that is mine.  And it doesn't have to necessarily abide by or disagree with anyone else's ideas or interests.  Makes it no more or less valid, but that's part of the fun in that there are many dozens of ways to get the finished product to market (or to dinner table!).

I will use the mixer for the few times I do enriched doughs or ciabatta, but try to limit it there. 

thanks, alan

PalwithnoovenP's picture
PalwithnoovenP

How about the "eating" textures and flavors? Any differences? That was a long exchange of information. :) I didn't know gluten development has effect on staling. If a well-developed gluten achieved by intensive mix is necessary for a great crust and crumb or overall texture and keeping qualities, how about the flavor department? If my memory serves me right, Hamelman said in Bread that long mixing oxidizes the dough that results in the loss of flavor compounds and the short mix done by bakers before there were machines produces breads with superior flavor.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

over the course of a week and a half.  So no way to compare one to the other and my taste bud memory is starting to match my cranial memory - not as sharp as it probably once was ;-) .  Although all three were certainly tasty.

If I've got this right, a short mix, while trying to imitate hand mixing, generally requires the longest retard to develop the dough.  But also elicits the most flavor benefiting from the lengthy retard.  Intensive mixes were done to facilitate a quick turnaround in the bakery in order to maximize profits at the expense of denigrating the bread.  Eventually the compromise improved mix was introduced in order to address the problem that intensive mixing introduced.  

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

for small batches of bread.  That of course, leaves me out completely but, for us older guys, we need something to do besides tequila shots every day too - bourbon neat comes to mind as does a nice glass of red wine for a chaser:-)  People don't realize how stressed out retirees can get and a little bit of something relaxing to do with the hands keeps us from worse things like shooting heroin in both kneecaps at same time, or wanting to vacation in North Korea for fun.

Love your bread as usual and even Lucy is starting to come around to baggies!

Happy baking Don Baggs

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Bourbon/red wine boilermaker, yum!.  There was a time when my stomach was young enough and strong enough to tolerate such things, along with listening to the Dead at volumes designed to wake the dead while watching the Yankees or Knicks, and eating bags of Lay's Potato Chips (crisps to all those who speak the King's English!) at 4 AM - washed down by some liquid similar to the aforementioned.

BTW the beaches in N.K. are lovely this time of year.  

I think that I'd find this whole bread/hobby thing a lot less attractive if I were to use a mixer.  Getting my hands in the dough gives me level of understanding and satisfaction that wiping down the dough hook would just never duplicate.  It helps to educate me on what the differing doughs feels like/should feel like at developing stages.  Of course, if I were ever foolish/ambitious enough to want to scale up to levels that "require" mechanical mixing, that would be a different approach entirely.

 

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

of Michael Suas book.  Dumb sounding question I know, but every time I try to do that, it is not available! and I have bought kindle versions of FWSY, several of Peter Rheinharts books without any problems.

Leslie

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Leslie,

https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Bread-Pastry-Michel-Suas-ebook/dp/B00B6FL912/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=

Now, this is a U.S. based web page so what may be available to you could be quite different.  The pricing structure could also be different.  What I also like about this purchase is that I downloaded the Kindle app to multiple platforms - laptop, tablet and old and new iPhones.  And was able to download the book to each of them.

Good luck, alan

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

sadly I still get the comment - not available on kindle! must be just US.

Leslie

alfanso's picture
alfanso

One click on google had this link at the top of their list: 

https://www.howtogeek.com/328197/how-to-change-your-country-on-your-amazon-so-you-can-buy-different-kindle-books/

Since howtogeek.com is a "normal" website, vs. something like "www.letslaundersomemoney.com", I feel that it is legit.  In fact I've referenced it a few times before for step by step instructions - my Nest thermostat, for example.

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

Tried using my ipad, didn't work.  I have just done this using my PC and yippeee it worked and I am downloading the book now.  A book I have wanted for some time so this is awesome.

Happy baking Alan  :) :) :)

Leslie