July 30, 2018 - 4:02pm
small vs large holes in crumb
I have been dreaming of a loaf that has a more uniform distribution of holes. As you can see in the photo, I have a fair number of large holes, but otherwise, they are tiny.
This is the basic SFBI baguette recipe (about 73% hydration) with 3 hours bulk fermentation (with stretch and fold), 30 minutes second, and about 30 - 40 minutes for final rise. This is a 500 g batard, but it pretty representative of whatever shape I make.
I would appreciate any hints as to how to improve this. Many thanks,
Mark
Share
Try degassing like a boss and reduce that to a small say 250g batard - them work you way up to 500g. Don't load up your oven with more than one loaf until you dial in and nail the mini by itself. That just my 2c !
Thanks for the tips. I have used the same procedure and dough for baguettes which are in the 250 g range. However, I have not tried the degassing. In fact, I have tried to be careful not to! I'll give it a try and see how it goes.
degassing in particular was to address your desire for uniformity - since you say you already do smaller (assuming shorties) baguettes I am also assuming you're facing challenges with them as well. if that's the case may i ask how many you are baking at a time ?
Yes, my baguettes look the same--some nice dappling with big holes, but with rather dense bread in between. I often make a kilo, and bake one 500 batard with 2 250 baguettes at the same time. I have a baking stone, and use a spray bottle to get some moisture going just before and just after putting the bread in.
so you have a kilo of dough in the oven. Betcha one of those loaves if you half that quantity in the oven you'll see some improvement ;)
I think you need a bit more of final proofing and maybe slightly longer bulk fermentation. The crumb is pretty much dense and needs more time to develop bigger alveoli (holes).
I would suggest you to read my latest blog entry for 50% whole-grain wheat community bake bread. I think you will get a lot of possible details there and you can try to make that bread. You can use sourdough (SD) levain instead of yeast water (YW). Actually both type of levains are giving almost the same results. The SD version of bread has typical SG*D tang which is absent in the YW version.
Of course follow also advices that you got in previous comments.
Happy baking Mark!
Joze
the tighness and shape does tend suggest more proofing. Do you think it's the size of the bubbles or the nature of the dough reaching a certain point of elasticity ... or maybe its both ?
Thanks for all of the comments. I will be baking this weekend and will certainly try these suggestions out. One difference is that I will be baking in an outdoor wood-fired oven, so I shouldn't have the problem of too much bread in a small space.