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greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

Hi Loafers! I've been baking a bit less, mainly straight dough same-day or overnight baguettes, and I figured I've posted enough baguettes to bore the most ardent enthusiast!

Made some of David's SJSD baguettes in batard form today, and they came out quite nicely. Crumb could have been better (more consistent and open), but flavor is good.

My starter has become a champ. It sat in the fridge for about six weeks, and responded to it's first feeding as if it had been on the bench with daily feedings all month. Very pleased.

Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Cheers,

-Gabe

Grigne:

Closest I've come to blisters:

Crumb:

 

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

Don't want to burn out on them :)

Made a couple of straight dough boules from FWSY to give to my dentists who, shockingly, I really like :) ; a pain de mie in my new pullman pan. I somehow managed to screw up the scaling down from a 13" recipe (KAF website)  despite using a spreadsheet. They have a recipe for the smaller pan and I guess I'll just try that next time. The one for the larger pan looked better on paper to me. Should you scale IDY by a lesser amount than the other ingredients? I didn't get the great square shape but it was tasty and very different from the stuff I usually bake.

Last was FWSY pain au bacon (all SD). Interesting but kinda weird, I'm not a huge fan. First mix-in I've done though!

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

What did you expect? :)

In the spirit of a few of David's recent bakes, these were loosely based on a bunch of stuff in FWSY, with some last minute stuff from TFL.

If memory serves:

400g KA AP
25g KA WW
25g Bob's Red Mill dark rye 
100g 100% SD starter (didn't build a levain, just dumped in from the feeding discard)
~0.5g IDY (insurance policy :)
11g salt
375g water (a guess based on flour mix and starter amount)

30 min autolyse, first S&F at 15mins, then every 30mins for a total of 5 folds. Fairly loose and a bit sticky, but not too bad. Bulk rise at room temp for maybe 4 hours. Realized I was going out and wouldn't have time to bake them first (I do this a lot, don't I?) so put the tub in the fridge at probably 5PM.

Woke up (hung over :) at 8am, figured the dough would be probably overproofed but you gotta try. Preshape, 20 min rest, shape, 30 minute rise, into preheated oven with Mega Steam plus lava rocks (thanks alfanso et al). Watched for right time to remove steam, which as last bake, to my eye was 6 minutes. Baked another 24 minutes and left in cooling oven with door cracked open for about 4 mins. I think the bake was just this side of "too bold".

They came out much better than I expected. Shaping not my best, but not my worst. I think I want to start shaping them longer again. Scoring not too bad but I completely forgot lame angle, so ears were not really present. Oven spring was much better than I thought it would be given the long proof.

I was very pleased with extremely open and custardy crumb, and crust was thin and (to use a phrase I love and first heard on TFL) shatteringly crisp. Taste was great. Not very sour, but nutty, delicate and fairly complex. I love a bit of rye flour, seem to put some in every bake these days.

The Missus and I ate one for breakfast, gave one to our upstairs neighbor/favorite bartender, and will probably have another with a dinner of Cock-A-Leekie pie. Happy Pi Day!

-Best,

-Gabe

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

I lied. I changed more than one thing and I made two batches again! But it worked out this time, or at least one batch did.

First I made a batch of Forkish's FWSY all-levain overnight country blonde, but I messed up by using my 100% hydration starter where he uses 80% (I'll figure out the math one day). The dough was extremely slack, despite six stretch and folds. As I mentioned in a comment elsewhere, I ended up with a bastard child of ciabatta and baguette (ciabette or baguetta?), but I have to say they were delicious. Nice and tangy on the day of baking, a bit mellower next day. I'm proud of my Brooklyn SD starter! Hard to shape and score due to the slackness. 

Crumb was nicely holey and glutinous/custardy:

As soon as I saw these were not going to be my breakthrough baguettes, I started a batch of txfarmer's straight dough. As usual I traded 50g of AP for 25g w/w and 25g dark rye for flavor, and added a 30 min autolyse. After my last failure I was taking no chances and put one cast iron Mega Steam pan and one plain CI pan (getting lava rocks this weekend) on the oven floor as I started preheating. I got more steam than ever before! It was billowing out of the vent (I tried to block it with tea towels) and even out of the sides of the door—never seen that before!

Shaping and scoring were decent, and I think I helped my effort by making 16" demis instead of my usual 20" demi+ size. The smaller size made it easier for me to limit myself to three slashes rather than the four or five I usually attempt. I made a very conscious attempt to overlap by 30% and tried to keep the lame angle correct. There's still some inconsistency between the scores, but overall I am pleased. Watched the bake like a hawk; steam came out at 6 minutes, total bake was 30 mins +5mins with oven off and door cracked.

 

Ears! Not Spocklike (RIP, Leonard), but better than usual. Less Nessie!

Crumb:

And just to prove I'm really a Brit :-D

Thanks once again to all the fine folks here for the encouragement and insight. Now to try it with other recipes and aim for consistency!

-Gabe

 

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

So not such a success yesterday.

I'll keep it short(ish:) but I figured even though it didn't go well I'd post so hopefully others on the baguette path might avoid the same mistakes.

Mistake #1 - I ran two batches at once (dmsnyder's SJSD and txfarmer's practice baguettes), and inadvertently had them both wanting to go into the oven at the same time. The SJSD were seriously overproofed by the time they got into the oven.

Mistake #2 - I tried dabrownman's simpler method of Sylvia's MegaSteam, and I messed it up, probably not enough preheat, because it sure didn't make as much steam as last time. I also used pyrex dishes instead of a superheated cast iron pan.

Mistake #3 - all of the above! I vowed that this bake was going to be about changing just one thing from the last batch (removing the steam at the peak of bloom), and ended up doing a bunch of things differently. 

So here's the bread:

Practice baguettes:

These went into the oven first and weren't as overproofed, they probably would have been pretty good if the steam had been there. One ear from 15 slashes! :) I subbed 50g of AP for 25g w/w and 25g dark rye and added 5g of water to compensate. I did like the taste better this way.

 

Crumb not too bad:

 

But what's going on with the lumpy Nessie profile?! I'm positing that I didn't overlap the slashes enough, and wondered if I made them too deep. Tried to remedy both on the SJSD loaves, but hard to tell because they bloomed so poorly.

 

SJSD:

Crumb too dense and almost zero bloom. After my previous SJSD bakes I took the dough out and let it come to room temp for nearly three hours. That, plus the delay in getting into the oven (plus the warm kitchen due to the oven) resulted in ridiculous overproofing. Despite all that, the taste, as always, was great. If I wasn't going for classic baguettes, these were actually quite nice tangy sourdough ficelle-like breads.

Anyway, there you have it. I wish it had gone better, but I'm not disheartened. I will get this!!!

Thanks all,

-Gabe

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

Sorry, these endless, near identical baguette posts are probably becoming terribly dull, but I get such great feedback and advice from you guys.

So, as I want to get more practice with baguettes, I decided to start doing some less time-intensive recipes than txfarmer's 36hr and dmsnyder's SJSD recipes (both of which are amazing). I recently found txfarmer's straight dough practice baguette recipe and gave it a try in order to work on shaping, scoring, and especially to try out Sylvia's Mega Steam method as recommended to me by alfanso, dmsnyser, and dabrownman. 

I think this was probably my best shaping and scoring effort so far, but by far the best things to come out of this were:

  1. seeing how great Mega Steam is, and 
  2. proving David's comment that too much steam (i.e. steam for too long) can work against ear formation by allowing the crust to collapse on itself.

We don't have a microwave so I rolled up six bar towels and tied them into bundles, soaked them in boiling water and used a lobster steaming pot to preheat. I considered using a pressure cooker to superheat them as a microwave would, but you have to draw the line somewhere :) I had a large cast iron pan on the floor of the oven and a heavy duty baking sheet above the baking stone during preheating.

I put four towels on the sheet and two in the CI pan, loaded the baking stone, poured boiling water on both and closed the door. Huge plumes of steam ensued!

I was keeping an eye on the bake through the door for the first several minutes, and watched as the loaves bloomed like crazy, and produced fantastic ears. Success! Then I made the oft-repeated mistake of starting to watch the clock instead of using my head. Steamed for 12 minutes total (added water to the skillet about 8 minutes in) and then removed the pan and skillet. By the time the bake was finished The ears had been completely subsumed back into the loaves, and the loaves overall had flattened visibly. 

I'm looking forward to next time and will remove the steam when everything looks to be at its peak in terms of rise and ears. I also wonder if I overdid it the steam and it lowered the oven temp. I didn't get the darkness of crust I would have expected for the amount of time time the loaves were in.

Verdict on the bread: the recipe produces good loaves for the low effort. Certainly nothing like the complexity of taste present in either of the two recipes mentioned above, but easily as good as, or better than, the baguettes available in local (non-"artisan") bakeries. Nice thin, crisp crust, and good open crumb. 

Anyway, sorry for the lengthy post, but all-in-all a very valuable learning experience, one I'll be repeating, and hopefully next time will be better. Thanks for all the help!

Cheers,

-Gabe

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

Had another go at David Snyder's fantastic San Joaquin Sourdough Baguettes today. I've still a ways to go, but I saw some improvement from the last batch, so I'm happy. 

This time I added a 3 hour warm up on the bench after the long, cold ferment. I do suspect it's the coldness of my fridge that makes that step necessary for me. Definitely seemed to make a big improvement in the crumb, it was a lot more open. If one thing gets better each try, all is good :)

After this batch I think David's comment on my last attempt that I need to examine my steam is spot on. I scored these fairly well, I think (using ElPanadero's suggestion of less scores, though I ended up with four rather than three - just felt right), but no ears. It's entirely possible that I was focussed so much on other aspects of the cuts that I let the lateral angle get too vertical, but I think I do need more steam in the first 10 minutes. I suspect it's drying out early in there. I probably need to work on a tighter cloak during shaping, too.

Taste was fantastic, just like last time. Crust maybe slightly thicker and crunchier. Had leftover roast chicken sandwiches with homemade mayo for dinner tonight. Definitely a keeper! 

Cheers!

-Gabe

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

Started these guys at 7am on Wednesday, took them out of the oven a couple of hours ago.

I'm fairly happy with the shaping, and although I didn't get impressive grigne and no ears are present, I feel like the scoring was OK, I think other factors contributed to the low bloom. First time attempting an epi, made quite a mess of that, obviously need a lot more practice there!

The cold bulk fermentation ended up being more like 36 hours rather than 24, but there was hardly any (if any) increase in volume. I think my main mistake with these loaves was not going with my gut as I did when making txfarmers baguettes and letting the dough rise at room temp until the dough increased in volume and was bubblier. 

Crumb not nearly as good looking as my last batch, but I think the factors above are the cause of that also. 

The taste is wonderful - delicate and complex. The crust is perfect - thin and very crunchy, and the crumb texture when eating is great, very soft and slightly chewy.

I'm happy overall and will definitely try the recipe again and follow my instincts next time.

Any other thoughts or insights welcomed!

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

Looks like a few of us making this one this week! I made one last week but gave it away, I get to eat this one! Tasty flour blend.

I threw a bit of ice in the combo cooker before it went in the oven. Think the extra steam may have given slightly better bloom. Scored with a straight razor. I feel like I've got the banneton flouring about right these days, a HUGE help for me was watching the Forkish video where he gives the bannetons a sharp rap on the bench to get the proofed loaves out. I had a lot of trouble with long proofing before that. I'm just using AP flour, no rice, may have to try that too, everything helps!

greenbriel's picture
greenbriel

I was very skeptical when I took the dough out of the fridge after 24 hours, as it didn't seem like it had risen at all. I felt like the youthfulness of my starter had failed me, but what the hell, give it some warmth and see what happens. After maybe 5 hours on the counter we were in business! Nice bubbling and doubled in volume! I couldn't believe it.

Preshaped, shaped, proofed on a couche and then into the oven with steam. Shaping and scoring probably not as good as the last batch, and no ears, but the crust and crumb were good, and the TASTE! So delicious! I gave one to a friend who went to meet friends for a drink and they ate it at the bar within minutes!

 

At the risk of this sounding like an Oscars acceptance speech, I'd genuinely like to thank David (dmsnyder), dabrownman, and Hannah (a_warming_trend) for their encouragement regarding the move to SD baking. You were right, it’s a whole new ballgame, I’m hooked! I can totally see why and how people get so attached to their starters. Still working on a name for mine :)

And of course a huge shoutout to txfarmer for the encouragement and AMAZING recipe. You are a wizard [tips hat].

This site has improved my baking enormously in just a couple of weeks! Thanks Floyd!

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