The Fresh Loaf

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Soft sandwich loaf

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Soft sandwich loaf

My wife asked if I could make a soft sandwich bread for this weekend, so I did another round of my Pullman pan test loaf.  Just increased the size of the loaf.

For the levain, I used a combination of Raisin Yeast Water and little bit of mother starter in the build.  So...  I guess we'll call it a sour poolish.  :-)

Overall, everything went well, but my dough seemed to be tearing during the FF.  Not sure if the dough hadn't developed yet or if my technique was poor, so I stopped after 200 and switched to some hand kneading.  I had a conference call so I stopped dough development and started bulk fermentation.  Made sure I did some folds to continue development.  

Stopped doing folds when aliquot was at 30%.  I decided to push deep into bulk this time and waited until aliquot was at 90% before pre-shaping.  Aliquot was over 100% when final shaping was complete, and was pushing 150% when it went in the oven.  Will be interesting to see if it is overproofed, but I did get good oven spring.  I degassed hard before final shaping, so I'm hoping to have a relatively tight but uniform crumb.  The feel of the loaf seems like it will be nice and soft.

Ended up being 30 minutes with the lid off and the last 5 minutes out of the pan and on the rack.  I removed the upper element shield when I removed the Pullman lid, but the top of the loaf never really browned much.  The rack was placed in the middle position.  Final internal temp was 205 deg F.

Crumb shot tomorrow!

 

EDIT: Crumb added...  Not great.  Not terrible.  I don't think I was overproofed, but don't think I could have gone much longer either.  Maybe seeing a little compression on the bottom of the loaf.  Hard to say though because I did degas hard before final shaping, and I was working the final shape pretty hard to get some tension in the dough.  This is one area where I really need to get some consistency.  My shaping techniques are kind of all over the map.  Loaf is still pretty soft though, so I'll take it!

Comments

meb21's picture
meb21

Beautiful loaf! Your bread formula sounds delicious!! Interesting about aliquot - I have often read about using one but have never tried. Soon :) 

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Thank you!  It's a simple loaf, but it does have nice flavor.  The small sourdough seed gives it just enough flavor to notice it.

The aliquot jar is very helpful in judging how far along you are in fermentation.  I'm sure many folks can do it by eye and feel, but I'm still very new to bread baking and haven't developed those skills yet.  It's definitely worth trying if you're having trouble judging your level of fermentation.

Benito's picture
Benito

This looks quite promising Troy.  I wonder why you’re not getting the top crust to brown better than that though, especially since there is brown sugar in this dough.  Baking on the middle shelf the dough is quite high in the oven, I would think it would have browned quite well.  Looking forward to the crumb.

Benny

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Benny,  I was pretty surprised too.  Loaf was maybe 1-2 cm from the top when I removed the lid, so I don't think it was overly shielded by the pan.  I expected it to brown up similar to the sides, but it just didn't happen.  Oven was at 350 deg, so maybe that's not hot enough.  Also, I might try turning the convection on next time to see if that helps.

Benito's picture
Benito

Yes I’d say you should try baking hotter.  That possibly is causing some of that compression although some compression is very normal.

justkeepswimming's picture
justkeepswimming

It is interesting re your crust. Let us know how it goes with the convection baking approach. 

And I can relate when it comes to shaping. I'm getting there slowly.... It's hard for me to get the right amount of degassing, depending on what bread I am making. I'm learning to be a lot more gentle with artisan loaves, and do more but not over do it with sandwich bread. It feels like a fine line some days. Hubby loves them all and says they all eat the same, lol. 

Mary

HeiHei29er's picture
HeiHei29er

Mary, Sounds like your hubby is my kind of guy.  I always say function before form, and whenever I start getting too worried about shaping, I just tell myself that it needs to taste good first, make good toast and sandwiches second, and everything else is a distant third.  ?