The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Ciabatta: Testing The Limits

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Ciabatta: Testing The Limits

Feels good to finally bake again.  I took a 6 year hiatus and lost a lot of my skills in the process.  I slowly got back into it in 2020, but it wasn't until a month ago that I set myself up to bake a lot more going forward.

One of my goals was to finally delve more into Ciabatta.  One of my favourites when done correctly.  I used to be known more for my sourdoughs, multi-grains, rye breads...and less for my all white bread flour loaves.  Last week I took my first stab at a ciabatta.  I didn't push the hydration too high as I wanted to test what my flour could handle, and what I could handle!  The results were very good but I realized I could push the hydration more to achieve that custardy/wet mouth feel I love so much in a ciabatta.  Josh Berger, who used to help me a lot back in the day here on TFL, continues to help me via Instagram from time to time.  The advice he gave me to get from my first bake last week (first 3 photos) to today's (last 5 photos) helped a great deal and I believe I have found my ultimate Ciabatta formula.  A lot of happiness going on over here!

Last week's loaves - hydration 80%

 

And today's loaves with increased hydration to 85%

happycat's picture
happycat

Nice work. I didn't know ciabatta could be custardy. My experience eating it is very limited. Can you share your formula? Yours looks way better than whatever I had many years ago!

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Absolutely it can…ciabatta is traditionally higher hydration, so you do get that almost wet crumb mouth feel.  I have also had many ciabatta at my Italian friends homes over the years and had the more dry versions as well.

I have never been keen on translating my bakes to formulas, so bare with the crudeness:


Ciabatta 

 

Biga

  • 50 g bread flour
  • 50 g water
  • 1/4 tsp instant yeast

3-4 hours room temp, or until begins to fall back.

 

Main Dough

  • 375 g water
  • 450 g bread flour
  • 14 g salt 
  • All of biga

Mix on low for 3 minutes then mix on high for 8 minutes or until comes away from bowl.

Set aside and perform s&f after 30 min.  Set aside and do another s&f after 30min. Transfer dough to an oiled bowl, cover and cold ferment in fridge overnight.  Let come to room temp and double in volume approx 3 hours.  Take dough out on a well floured bench. Divide into 2 equal pieces and gently rough shape into rectangles.  Let proof covered for 45 mins. Preheat oven to 500 F.  Transfer loaves to parchment paper.

Bake at 485 degrees C for 20 - 22 mins, first 10 minutes with steam.

 

Hope this works out for you!

 

John

 

happycat's picture
happycat

Thanks very much!

Isand66's picture
Isand66

How nice to see a post from you after so long!  I was wondering the other day where you’ve been 😀.  It’s nice to see a bake from you.  Looks like you’ve found a good groove with your ciabatta baking.

best regards,

Ian

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Hey Ian!  Yeah long time no talk.  13 years living with a psycho person who hated that I baked bread at home led me to stop baking all together.  I am well into a 2.5 year bitter divorce and I feel great because I am back to baking babyyy!  With someone that appreciates and loves the fact that I bake bread.  
Hope you are well my man, and look forward to sharing our bakes again!

John

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Glad you’re in a better place.  Life’s too short to live with toxicity.  Look forward to seeing more of your bakes soon.

Ian

Benito's picture
Benito

Nice ciabattas John, great to see you back to baking.  Glad to hear that you’re in a better relationship as well.

Benny

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Hey thank you Benny and good to see you are still around!

John

mwilson's picture
mwilson

Ciabatta is always fun to make, good to hear you've turned a corner and are baking again.

regards,
Michael

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Absolutely Michael.  Thanks and Happy Baking!

John

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

You did it.  Not only hungry but have the urge to go bake something too.  You're contagious.  :)

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Hey Mini!  Glad I can still be of some influence around here with the pros!  Happy to be back.

John

naturaleigh's picture
naturaleigh

Thanks for posting...can't wait to give these a try for those family members who like their bread 'plain' but still interesting.  The crumb and crust look glorious!  Love the cross-section of the whole loaf...I bet these would make killer sammis! 

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

My pleasure!  I used to post a lot around 10 years ago (can’t believe I just said that) so it is great to share again.

They absolutely did make great sandwiches.  Italian ham, fresh mozzarella and tomato.  Or just with olive oil, tomato and salt!  Simple and perfect. 

John

Mjps's picture
Mjps

My apologies for the rookie question … Do you refrigerate the biga overnight ? Or just give it a few hours to ferment ?

thanks

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

No, the biga just ripened at room temp for 3-4 hours.  The dough however, did go in fridge overnight to develop more flavour and strength.  I’m case you didn’t see it, the full recipe was posted above.  Let me know if you have any other questions.  My written recipes are sometimes not too clear.

John

Mjps's picture
Mjps

Thanks for the help … looking forward to trying this recipe .

teejaye85's picture
teejaye85

These look amazing, and the timing is great because I've just been dipping my proverbial toe into ciabatta a little bit and have hit a couple of snags.  I'm pretty new to breadmaking in general and may have bitten off more than I can chew by "advancing" to something with such a wet dough so early in my "career", but I've zeroed in on ciabatta a bit because it's something we consume in huge quantities in our household.

On to the question(s):  I've googled around a bit looking for ciabatta recipes.  Obviously the ingredients lists are pretty similar, and generally they differ mostly in the execution (and even that part doesn't change a ton from site to site).  One thing I've found consistently, though, is that (at least to my beginner's eye), the shaping and prepping for the oven stage always reminds me a bit of the "draw the rest of the owl" meme.  It's generally just some version of "shape them into rectangles", but I find it a real struggle to actually make that happen with the wetness/stickiness.  My finished products come out generally edible and I'm actually pretty happy with them as a beginner, but they are decided not anything even resembling a rectangle haha.  Any tips on how to get the shaping stage mastered?  One thing that your recipe here has that I haven't noticed in many others is that you're doing one of the later rises in the fridge...I suspect that firms the dough up a little bit, making it easier to work with in the shaping stage, so I'll definitely be trying that on my next batch.

I mentioned somewhere in the giant paragraph above that the actual into-the-oven part is giving me trouble too...again with very little experience with wet doughs I've been struggling a bit to get them into the oven without losing their shape (even thought said shape is pretty bad even at the best of times per the paragraph above).  I've found that if I bake them on the same baking sheet they proofed on, the bottom comes out a little soft (I assume another result of the overall wetness of the dough)...I can "correct" that somewhat by baking them right on a stone, but haven't figured out a way to get them on the stone without mangling them.

Anyway, I think that's a pretty good wall of text for now.  I appreciate the thoroughness of your post, and like I said above I'm going to try brining the fridge into the equation regardless, and hopefully that will "solve" some of my issues.

Thanks in advance!