Mixing problems with FWSY White Bread With Poolish
Hi, I've been a long-time lurker but I am so frustrated I decided to make an account. I love Ken Forkish's White Bread with Poolish recipe, but no matter what I do I cannot get the dough to not have gigantic lumps of flour in it. I'm using KAF AP Flour, SAF Red, and tap water.
I have tried powdering the salt, adding the salt later, adding only some of the water at first, adding the flour to the poolish instead of the poolish to the flour, creating a well and mixing in a circular motion (hard to do, because the poolish has such a high volume compared to the dry flour in which I create the well), not using the pincer method and just mixing it... No matter what I do, there are huge lumps of dry flour encased within the strings of gluten from the poolish. The only way that I can even remotely get the lumps out is by absolutely smashing, twisting, and squeezing the dough in my fists (so it squelches between my fingers) for close to twenty minutes!! This causes a really dense, closed crumb because I'm destroying the gluten, and even though it's delicious, the texture is not right and I'm clearly doing something wrong.
I thought maybe the lumps would just come out on their own, but they don't, and when I just left the lumps and mixed using the pincer + fold method there were weird dense gluten streaks in my loaf that encased the dry flour. They didn't come out.
The only thing I can think of is that I am a 5'0" woman with tiny, tiny hands. Sometimes it's hard for me to even encircle my fingers all the way around the dough while trying to use the pincer method, and my wrists tire really quickly. Maybe I lack the appropriate strength to mix the dough appropriately this way? I don't own a stand mixer. Can someone help me figure out how to get these lumps out of my dough?
Something many people do here is a prolonged autolyese. I've made most of Forkish breads without this problem.
Do you have a large container for your mixing? I think the large container helps the do relax over a large surface area letting all the dough incorporate.
How long do you do the autolyese?
I don't do an autolyse... It isn't mentioned in the recipe, so I haven't done one. It is possible that my container is too small. I know Forkish recommends one that seems quite large. They don't sell them at either restaurant supply in my area (they have large square ones, but not large round ones). However, now that I think back, I did try using a large round salad-type bowl that I have because it was clear and I wanted to keep an eye on the bubble network underneath, and it still was not much easier. It is such a large amount of dough for me to handle by hand. To put it in perspective, my ten-year-old son and I have the same size hands!
Sugar_magnolia,
I would recommend to sift your flour, even more than once, if necessary, it definitely helps with lumps.
Also, double hydration method is good. First, you add flour and yeast and maybe a portion of water to poolish and mix to homogeneity. Let it rest for at least 20 min. MIxing to homogeneity is achieved by fraissage and by actually kneading the ball of dough about 200 times. Fraissage to eliminate dry bits is shown here, starting at 2:50min. It takes less than a minute. Seconds, really. It is a very effective technique to get rid of dry lumps.
Then add salt and the remaining water to your dough and mix to homogeneity, kneading it 100-300 times more depending on how strong your flour is. How to do it by hand is shown here, starting at 4:13
Let it rest, folding as needed, then ferment, shape and bake.
I see that you tried all those methods, minus sifting as you blend and fraisage which actually eliminates lumps right in the beginning. So try sifting flour and rub your dough against the table surface, doing fraisage and you'll be golden. I guarantee, no lumps.
best wishes,
mariana
Can I fraissage with 100% hydration poolish? I also think the slapping and folding would essentially change Forkish's recipe.
Yes, sugar_magnolia, you can. It doesn't matter whether you add pure water or liquid poolish to your flour when you make bread dough. Both will moisten flour. And in both cases you do fraisage to eliminate dry bits of flour in the mix. When you do it by hand, it is called fraisage. When done in the mixer, dough is rubbed against the walls and the bottom of the mixer, it's the the same process of rubbing.
Slapping and folding 300 times is simply a method of mixing ingredients to homogeneity, moistening flour particles, when you are doing things by hand, it changes nothing in the recipe per se. It is not kneading, it's mixing. Kneading begins after the first 300-600 slap-n-folds, only then gluten development happens.
And it will definitely help you to achieve the crumb that you are aiming at - open, with holes throughout, instead of the lacey, tight crumb that you were getting before. When you slap and fold, you introduce air pockets into the mass of dough, it helps with an open crumb later on, when the loaf is baked.