December 17, 2019 - 7:55pm
The problem from "Bien Cuit: The Art of Bread "
Has anyone ever tried the recipes from "Bien Cuit: The Art of Bread "?
I bought the book and want to try its bread recipes. In the book, the author often mentioned let the dough sits at room temperature for several hours for fermentation (4~16 hours, depend on different bread).However, he never mentioned what is the room temperature in his environment. I feel confused, because the range of the room temperature could be hunge.
Could anyone give me some suggestions about the room temperature in his recipes? Thanks~~
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I haven't read the book, but many here will tell you watch the dough not the clock. Most writers will give hours as a suggestion, but will also describe volume - such as let the dough double in size. You want to go by the volume measurement, not the clock, and it helps a lot to have straight sided containers, and use a rubber band, or post it note, or even marker, to mark the initial level. It is extremely hard to determine percentage increase in a container with sloped sides. BTW, even if you knew his room temperature, you would still have differences based on the finished temperature of you dough when you started BF ( which can vary greatly based on several factors included what type of mixer you used and how long ) as well as the strength of your flour, your yeast, etc.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language identifies room temperature as around 20 to 22 °C (68 to 72 °F). As Barry said, watch the dough.
Thanks for barryvabeach and HansB's useful suggestions~ The bread's pics in this book look great, but there are seldom descriptions about the temp and states of doughs, the only exact temp number is about water, and usually 15 °C. For example, in his Lthuanian Table Bread recipe, first to do is making a starter: incorporating the sourdough starter 20g , 15 °C water 40g and flour 40g, then cover the container and let sit at room temperature for 10-16 hours. The starter will be at its peak at around 13 hours. Next step is mixing this starter with other ingredients to make a dough. I am a newbie of sourdough making and live in Asia. The temp in my kitchen is often from 25 to 30°C, different from USA typical room temp(20 to 22 °C). Because there isn't any description about the states of the starter, if I follow the recipe to let the starter stay 10-16 hours in my kitchen counter, it should overproof. The better way should as your suggestion--watching the dough instead of watching the clock. Q: what are the features of this starter at its peak?? Any suggestions appreciated ~Thanks~
Mary, there is an old joke about a person getting on a bus, and asking a fellow passenger how to know what stop to get off at to get to a certain street, and the passenger says, it is quite easy, just watch me, and get off two stops before I do.
It is pretty easy to determine when the starter is past its peak, it will start to recede - so it is at its peak just before that . If you have the time, make a similar batch - 1:2:2 ( that is the ratio you are using, starter, water, flour ) and put it in a narrow clear straight sided container, and put a rubber band or post it note, then check back periodically, moving the rubber band up to keep up with the level of starter until you start to see it start to recede - So about an hour or so before that, it will have a dome on it, and that would be what it looks like at its peak. If you don't have the time to do this experiment, just use the quantities called for, and as soon as it starts to recede you can use it - you can miss the peak by a fair amount, and the recipe will still work. The flavor of the bread changes a little based on how developed the starter is - young will be less sour, more mature will generally be more sour, but a few hours either way won't make much difference. BTW, for every 17 degrees F warmer, yeast activity doubles, so as a rough guideline, your starter may be at its peak in 7 hours.
Here is a time lapse video showing you what Barry mentioned. You can see the recession of the dough near the end. Right at or just after the starter begins to recede is where your starter has maxed out the yeast.
https://youtu.be/xtucjcPaZNY
NOTE - that particular video is dealing with a dough, but the same thing happens with your starter.
Danny
Thank you, Danny.
The time lapse video is very clear. I also find there are lots of good tests in your channel! Keep on watching ~
Cool!
Barry, I think l lost myself too much in the texts of recipes before, and forgot "seeing is believing."
Thank you so much for the detailed suggestion.Can't wait to do the test~~