From the UMFRK : why does it hurt when i knead..?
Hiya People,
Carried out with the unattended success of my first post and, notably enough, with Serenityhill's extended knowledge of our beloved Inspirator, FZ, opus, i thought it'd be a good idea to try an develop a bit the very secrets laying behind my first successful attempt at making what looks and, definitely enough, tastes like an artisan bread.
As a matter of fact, i thought the best way for such a journey would probably be, as for any electronic project, to thoroughly document each and every step through it.
So, here it is.
Tonite, the cranky and deadly yelliow snow virus got on me again and, considering these two packs of whole wheat flour sitting in my cupboard, i just couldn't resist tryin to put some water on it.
So, i reserved about 20 grams of it, which i mixed with an equivalent quantity of water, a couple tablespoons of white granulated sugar, and a couple tablespoons of dry yeast.
Stuffed this into a jam jar, and poked the lid with a knife before setting the whole device on a plate, to make sure i wouldn't end up with a gas bomb in the morning : this'll be my poolish.
Then, i went on to the next step : autolyse, preferably long and cold from what i just learned doing my last batch.
Here we are : two kilograms (sorry for all of you anglo-saxon people, i just speak metrics but, hey, where doses the best bread come from ?) of whole wheat flour. Reffering to french standards, it's labeled 110 which, to my very knowledge, is far from being "whole". From what i actually read, a 110 gauge actually matches a semi-whole wheat flour standard.
So here we are, with 2 Kgs of 110 gauge flour and no idea of how much water to add into it.
I surely could go just as i did last time, stopping adding water as soon as my dough deels just right under my thumb, which provided me with about twelve delicious and lovely lookin loaves, but that wouldn't help me document my experience much.
So, i progressively mixed 1 800 ml of very cold water to my flour, before rapidly kneading it, filming it with plastic alimentary film, and putting it in the fridge until tomorrow morning.
One could say 1 800 ml of water is an awful lot, sufficient to make an overhydrated dough and, while brushing one's scapular aside, may proceed into concluding it'd gonna be just impossible to knead once properly worked.
Well, i must say this is untrue. Coz, you know what ? Autolyse precisely makes this possible...
By expressing all of the available gluten (the proteinic part of the flour, which gives it its "breadable" power) in the dough, a long and refrigirated autolyse both gives enough strength to your dough for it to be later worked out, and makes most of the embedded sugar available to the evil yeast we're gonna add to it in about, say, 8 or 9 hours.
But that's another story... See ya tomorrow, for the first sequel of this passionate journey !
Seb
"There is no hell. There is only France."