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Today's Disaster

louiscohen's picture
louiscohen

Today's Disaster

I'm trying to work on high hydration high whole wheat percentage straight doughs.  My previous attempt was OK, and I thought it would be better with a few tweaks.  Today's just spread out all over the peel after proofing.  

Kindly suggest places where I might have screwed up and what I could have done to fix it, if possible.

Formula:

Whole wheat flour (KA)   85%

High Gluten flour             15%

Water                              100%

Salt                                   2%

Instant yeast                      1%

Procedure:

  1. Mixed flours (total 900 g) and 810 g water for a 30 min autolyse.  I keep the WW flour in the freezer, so I used hot tapwater.
  2. Mixed in the remaining 90 g water + 18 g salt and 9 g instant yeast.  Mixed briefly in the stand mixer to incorporate, then did the first of 6 stretch and folds
  3. Total of 6 stretch and folds; one every 20 minutes over 2 hours
  4. Put the dough in the fridge.  In just a couple of hours in the fridge the volume doubled, so I degassed and did another stretch and fold.
  5. Next morning, dough was pushing on the container lid.  When I opened the lid the dough dropped back by about 1/3.   
  6. I divided the dough into 2.  Preshaping into rounds with a turn and tuck kinda sorta worked, but the dough was so soft that it didn't seem to tighten much.  I expect the worst at this point but continue just in case.
  7. Rested for 3 hrs at room temp
  8. Folded in some sauteed chiles and onions with stretch and fold
  9. Tried to shape boules with tension-pulls but the dough was so soft that it wasn't getting much tension or shape.
  10. Put each sort-of boule in a greased bowl for 3 hours.  I poked the dough with a wet finger and it bounced right back.  How could it be underproofed after 3 hours?  Would more proofing time have made any difference?  
  11. Dumped the first bowl onto the peel and it spread like pancake batter
  • Too much water for 85% whole wheat?  But the other 15% of high gluten flour also sucks up water.   I had intended 85% hydration but I must have had a late night brain lock-up when I wrote down the numbers.  
  • Should I have mixed the dough in the mixer, 5 minutes on 1st speed, 5 minutes on 2nd with no stretch and folds  to build more gluten?
  • Less yeast?  Cold tapwater?  Could it have overfermented? 
  • Would more time resting or proofing have made a difference?
  • Even before folding in the add-ins, the dough didn't seem really strong.  An 80% hydration dough supported some chopped olives pretty well.  But maybe 100% hydration can't support any extra weight?

Thanks

EDIT:  I baked the dough anyway.  The one that spread all over the baking stone actually had a nice open crumb, what I have been looking for, and a nice crust. And it tasted pretty good.   The only problem is that the loaf was one inch high.

The other loaf I stuck back in the fridge to proof for a while longer.  Then I baked it in a loaf pan.  I have not sliced it yet, but it did spring a bit and should be OK for sandwiches.

 

 

 

WatertownNewbie's picture
WatertownNewbie

The problem seems to have occurred overnight in the refrigerator.  Using hot tap water will speed up fermentation.  A refrigerator that is not cold enough will not retard fermentation sufficiently.  There could be other factors, but these occur initially to me.

louiscohen's picture
louiscohen

I probably should have used room temp or cool water for the mix.

Thanks for the suggestion

suave's picture
suave

Look, it's a 100% hydration dough, how can you possibly expect it to do anything except spreading out?

louiscohen's picture
louiscohen

https://www.rootsimple.com/2014/01/dave-miller-on-baking-with-100-whole-wheat/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-makes-whole-grain-bread-so-hard-to-bake-63878/

I was more or less following the Dave Miller procedure but with stretch and folds and an overnight bulk fermentation.

suave's picture
suave

A. This guy mills his own flour, and you don't know if he tempers his grain.  B. He lives in bone dry Central Valley.  This can easily account for extra 10-15% of water compared to the experience of someone who lives in, say, Midwest or New England and uses commercial flour.  May be more than 15%.

louiscohen's picture
louiscohen

I live in a dry climate as well, and use commercial flour.  I'll try 85% hydration, and better handling.  Maybe a little less yeast for an overnight bulk fermentation.

DesigningWoman's picture
DesigningWoman

this one https://youtu.be/jd_r69WauPk?

Enjoy your bread. 

Carole 

louiscohen's picture
louiscohen

Thanks, that was interesting.  Most of the other stuff I've read describes 30 minutes as a long autolyse.  

DesigningWoman's picture
DesigningWoman

about this burning topic. Here's one that might be interesting to you: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/33183/mixed-flour-levain-long-autolyse.

And to get back to Elly's overnight-autolysed whole wheat, it works pretty well. I can only say "pretty well" because after seeing that the autolyse was successful, I started mucking around with fermentation times and add-ins, which means of course that I got a different loaf than she did.

Have fun.

Carole

louiscohen's picture
louiscohen

A 1 hr autolyse followed by mixing and folding and an overnight bulk fermentation fits my schedule/temperament pretty well.  I don't think I'm prepared to add another day to the process.