Good Morning...

I had a pleasant surprise this morning while doing my usual Saturday morning bread baking. We were out late last night and I was a little low on sleep, got up early and started mixing up a fav no-knead recipe of mine. After putting all the ingredients in, mixing by hand, and putting the dough to bed, I realized that I forgot the salt!

Since it was only a couple of minutes later, I got the dough back out and added salt... after about 3 minutes of mixing the gluten seemed to be developing already!!!  I was totally amazed and surprised by this... so mixed for 2 more minutes and did a few stretch and folds over a period of about an hour. I have the most beautiful dough I have seen in a long time!

I am thinking it was the higher proteins in the flour that causes this... and because I am sure you will want to know which brand... it is Stone-Buhr flour that I was using.

Here is the recipe if anyone is interested... Basically it is a 1-2-3 sourdough

   

• 160 grams sourdough (100% hydration)

     

• 320 grams water

     

• 450 grams of flour ( 130 whole wheat and 320 unbleached all purpose, Stone-Buhr Flour)

     

• 30 grams of toasted sesame seeds

     

• 9 grams of kosher salt

Method is easy... after hand mixing and kneading (or no kneading LOL), let raise until doubled... form loaves... raise for another 45min to 1 hour... bake at 450 for 30-35 min.. use steam for first 15 minutes.

I am working on learning the other more involved techniques I see on this awesome site, like bigga, poolish, soakers, stretch and folds, rest periods, etc... but this simple method makes a decent bread when you don't have a lot of time to bake.

Sooooo my question is... why did the glutens develop so easy? Is it the proteins in the flour that causes this?

Thanks in advance... Steve