Open Crumb. Creating Fissures?
Back when I worked for an oil company and talked to geophysicists, they liked it when there were fissures in the rock strata because it provided a way for the oil to flow to the wellbore. I'm wondering if one of the factors that facilitates open crumb is creating small voids, weakness, or fissures in the dough. What I'm thinking is that if there are weak spots in the dough either where the bacteria have created a bubble or something else and where a fold has created a fissure then the steam that is created can move to the weak spots in the dough and expand. I noticed in a video I watched recently that the baker said after the first set of folds, don't compress the dough together. Maybe this avoids sealing the fold surfaces a bit. Also, another thing I've noticed is that for the final shaping of high hydration doughs, the baker will dust with a little flour on the work surface and then use her fingers to compress the dough into shape. I'm wondering if that small amount of flour (prevents adhesion but not raw flour) coupled with the finger indentations creates a weakness as well. Thoughts?
Note: I'm guessing here. Nobody be surprised when I turn out to be wrong.
I think that if this is true, it probably isn't true in a way that's intuitive or "user-serviceable". If I make an effort to cause weak areas, I'm going to get something less like a useful fissure and more like a seismic fault, prone to earthquake and disaster. I don't doubt that irregularities in the dough structure play a part in making good things happen, but AFAICT the "good irregularities" are probably at a size that's too small for human manipulation. I think we ideally try for absolutely uniform dough, and the necessary irregularities are inherent in the dough.
Or, to put it another way, I think this irregularities topic probably applies to bread only through chemistry, not through mechanics.
Right. I also wouldn't think trying to put in extraordinary irregularities would be a good idea. I'm thinking more along the lines of ways where small irregularities are introduced (or allowed to remain). For instance, laminating for croissants seems to create seams that persist. I've also seen a video where the baker did a lamination for her bread and got a very open crumb. Since I generally bake doughs with lots of whole grains, I'm going to resist the urge to press down on folds to make them seal well and see if that opens the crumb some. I'll also try very lightly dusting the dough like they do with roll laminations. Always something to experiment with. :)
Absolutely - if you don't experiment, you don't find out.
Potentially a simpler explanation (or maybe just wrong or missing your point): Excessive chasing after uniform dough texture probably causes over-kneaded/over-worked dough - it needs to be just uniform enough, not obsessively so.
Yes, I think that has been my problem.
Scoring the loaf is a way of creating the weak spots that let out the gas and help the bread rise. You might want to take a look at this video, https://youtu.be/Hm5-jG34J-A where Thomas demonstrates how different scoring techniques create different crumb structures. It's in French and the subtitles are wonky, but I think you'll get the gist of it.
In this other, longer video, he starts at about 5:00 by shaping the same dough three ways, and then at about 15:00, scores the three shapes in different manners. https://youtu.be/Z626D0cc2tk. It was an eye-opener for me.
Have fun!
Carole
I suspect that scoring is more like pleats in pants - allowing the ... umm, "dough" ? that's trapped inside, to expand further than would have been possible otherwise.
Carole, the first link seems to be for pizza romana. No scoring involved, just some real tasty looking pizza.
Nevertheless, it's mesmerizing watching them work with dough, isn't it?
The second link was great! He does the scoring so fast I had to keep rewinding just to get a grasp on it. Truly amazing work.
Jeff
Try this one: https://youtu.be/Sn0INYBr1fA
If I've blown it again, the title is La grigne in the listing of EIDB videos.
Happy viewing'!
Carole
Edit: and yes, I love watching those videos, wish there were more!
That's the one, thanks Carole
Jeff
Interesting video! I was struck by how deeply he scored the dough.