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I baked this recipe for the third time tonight, and I am still scratching my head.   For this iteration I made the following adjustments:

1)  Reduced the malt to 10 grams, based on Eric Hanner's parallel bake comments and results here.
2)  Reduced my mixing time to 10 minutes to reduce the level of dough development.
3)  Added a wire rack to the middle of my oven to avoid baking directly on my quarry tiles.

The results are strange, to say the least, and certainly not "right" yet.  Here is a pictorial tour:

After 10 minutes the dough still seems fairly well developed, but it is certainly much less so than the previous iterations.

This blurry shot shows the dough at the very beginning of bulk fermentation.

Here is the dough 45 minutes later at the end of bulk fermentation.  I may have let it go just a bit too long.

Divided into 2 loaves of 521 grams each, shaped and panned,  and ready to proof.

After 45 minutes they were proofed to show above the top of the pan.

Here are the panned, slashed and egg-washed loaves in the 350 F oven (that really needs a good cleaning so please ignore that if you would).  Note that the loaves are even, there is good clearance all around, and the slashes are down the center.  I am using conventional heat, not convection, so the fan at the back is not in use.  From here it gets really strange.

These loaves baked for 35 minutes.  I tested the internal temperature of the one on the left at 25 minutes, and stuck my big thumb into it getting it out of the oven.  That is why it has the big dent in the end.  It was not up to temperature yet so I put it back in the oven for 10 more minutes.  After a total of 35 minutes the internal temperature was 207F. 

The loaves rose unevenly in the oven, or so it appears to me.  The slashes now appear to be off center, and the outer edges of the loaves are taller than the inner edges.  This could be from weak shaping, or from uneven temperature, or from something I have not thought of.  They also have the same caved in side profile (see the next photo) that the previous bakes have shown.

I have not yet cut a loaf, so I do not know what the crumb looks like, or if there is a compressed doughy line up the inner or outer sidewall of these loaves.  I do expect to find one, but I will do that in the morning and post it back here then.

Edit on Tuesday, 11/8/2011:  Crumb shot added below.  This is the less distorted of the two loaves posted above.  There is an only-barely-visible compressed doughy line up one side of this loaf, and the crumb is a little less airy and insubstantial than previous bakes.  The largest holes seem to be smaller than in previous bakes.

My next steps are going to be to buy some true All Purpose flour, remove my baking tiles entirely for the next bake, and recheck the temperature of my oven in several locations to make sure I am still getting even and accurate heating.  It was accurate and consistent (as much as can be expected from a home oven) just six months or so ago, but this project requires re-verifying everything.  I will also consider modifying the shaping from that commended by the authors.

Thanks for stopping by.
OldWoodenSpoon

More then a few times now I've stroked my ego and declared, “grilled burgers with handmade hamburger buns!” Each time I might add, it has been in front of the eyes and stomachs of my friends. Whatever they happened to think of my attempts and the results that they ate, I knew the truth. They were horrible! Not surprising, considering my experience up until this point has not been in straight doughs, has not been in hamburger buns, and I really didn't know what I was talking about. Give me some dough to laminate, some brioche to mix. I can make several different types of hearth bread shapes, but more “American” type breads I am ashamed to say I am somewhat ignorant.

That last statement would be true up until about two months ago when I started working at an establishment that focused on making hamburger buns and dinner rolls. Sure there are some other types of breads, brioche pullman loaves for example (brioche toast for breakfast?), but more then anything else, we make thousands and thousands of rolls and burgers. And it really blew my mind, one of those steps. It makes sense though, if you want a wide, squat, cylindrical bread, your bread shape has to be wide, squat and cylindrical. You take a nice well rounded roll, let it proof up, then you smash it flat. I must admit, it hurt to flatten my little burger babies.

Sure at the other bakery I worked at we did the same thing. But we didn't do it anywhere near to the same extent. We didn't let them proof up, but more like like them rest. We didn't flatten them completely either, seeing as how they weren't particularly relaxed after being rounded. Just a gentle love tap all across the top. They were slightly flattened, and it was visible in the final product, a somewhat squat, yet quite tall, “hamburger bun”. But what they have me doing now, its totally different. Everything gets smashed flat. All the burgers that is. Kaiser rolls too, and the result is just like at the grocery store! Which is not necessarily a good thing, or a bad thing for that matter. It is different. A different shape for a different job I imagine. So tonight, having gotten out of work early armed with the knowledge working at an American bakery has equipped me with, I will be having hamburgers tonight.

When I saw the strong proofing OWS was getting from his attempts at baking the Vienna Bread from Inside the Jewish Bakery.  I baked this as a tester a long time ago but this is the now released version so I thought I’d give it a whirl. It's a fast rising enriched dough that just takes a few hours to complete.

The first thing I noticed is that the volume amounts an gram measurements don’t line up just right for me. The flour I scoop and level weighs 135g per cup. The recipe calls for 4-1/3 Cups. In my kitchen that would be 584 grams where the gram number is 620g. The oil is 2 T at 3.0 grams. I measured over 3 T of oil to be 30 grams. I didn’t go down item by item to see how they all worked out, I figured these are really Norms recipes and he would have kept notes in percents, Cups and pounds/ounces. I chose to use the gram weights and ignore everything else.

Another variable I had to make a decision on was the dough temperature. The recipe calls for warm water. I figured if the water was 82F the dough would come out near 78F after adding a cold egg and the other room temperature ingredients. That worked out perfectly. My dough temp was 77F.

My standard bread flour is Gold Medal, Better For Bread in the bright yellow bag. I think it’s right around 12% protein. The recipe calls for bread flour so my BFB should be OK.

One other thing that caught my attention was the use of malt and sugar. I only added 1 heaping teaspoon of dry malt powder where as the recipe calls for 2 T of dry or liquid malt or 20 grams. 2 T seems like a lot for under 4 cups of flour.

I used my Kitchen Aid mixer for this 2.3 Lb batch. It took 10 full minutes to reach a semi smooth consistency and a decent window pane window.  I think I could of continued a little longer and fully developed the dough in retrospect. After removing the dough and manually kneading it for a minute or so, I shaped it in a ball and returned it to the mixer bowl and put it in the proofer, set at 78F. The dough was at 78F and after the rise it was still just where I wanted it, 78F. It took just 1 hour to double as you can see. I divided and shaped it into 2-534g logs. The recipe calls for 510 g pieces but this is what the recipe gave me. I don’t think the additional 24 grams will cause any serious over flowing of the dough. But considering what OWS has been seeing, it’s worth considering.

I egg washed after slashing and baked for what turned out to be 30 minutes at 350F to get an internal of 205F. I’m a little surprised the top tore open so much but It looks nice. The crumb is soft and tight grained as would be expected. The crust has a little bit of crunch where the egg wash came in contact with the sides of the pan. Sugar is caramelized slightly. I followed the directions pretty near right like the recipe called for, except for holding a little malt back. Looks OK to me and tastes great. This would be a great French Toast. Actually I almost made rolls out of half the dough and stuffed them with stewed onions. The girls loved this bread.

NOTE TO OWS: The only thing I am aware of that I did differently than you did is change the flour and held a stable dough temperature so I could judge the oven spring fairly. The spring seemed about right to me. Oh, and the malt may have been lower.

Eric

No collapsing here. Just a great enriched dough loaf.

After 8 minutes the dough looks about there. Total mix/kneading was 10 minutes

I would call this the right size pan for 534 grams of dough. 8.5X4.5 inches

Finishing proof at 78F at one hour.

Divided and shaped

Back in the 78F proofer for another hour.

Proofed to just over the top of the pans. Looks good.

Better lighting, proofed.

Egg wash and slash.

They look pretty good to me here.

Not overly expanded. Just right. They didn't collapse after cooling

I desperately need help with crust. what I want is a paper thin, shatteringly crisp crust. but all I can achieve is moderately crisp but thick, hard, turtle shell crust. I have tried everything imagineable. dutch oven, cloche, steaming, misting absolutely everything I can think of.  KA AP, Gold Medal AP, bread flour ..got desperate and  yesterday I even used 1/2 C rice flour .. got the shattering part, but under it was 1/4 inch of turtle shell. (great rise and crumb) Fortunately my sandwich loaves are most always good. specially James Beard's sour cream bread. I'm still working on a satisfactory graham flour bread like I was raised on (70 years ago) Your help is appreciated ..