I love everything about the FWSY White Bread with Poolish recipe, but I'm struggling with a few things. For a little background, right now my kitchen is about 67°F and I use a scale with .001 accuracy for my instant yeast so I know I'm not using too much. Also, I do use 70% KAF bread flour, add 2% olive oil to the dough, and reduce the hydration to 72% (I know oil doesn't contribute to hydration, but it can make the dough behave like a higher hydration). I have a connective tissue disorder that makes the inside of my mouth easier to damage, so I have to soften the crust a little or it will make my mouth bleed. I have made this bread probably 30 times by now and I have a few issues that I'm not sure what to try next to fix them, even though I have been watching videos, reading several books, and using all of the Google skills I possess. This is a long post, but I'd really appreciate the help! I love the flavor, crust, texture, everything of this bread.
I cannot get a smooth dough using the pincer method. There are dry flour lumps in the dough that remain even through stretch and folds. Additionally, there are tough, rubbery gluten strings from the poolish that criss-cross the surface of the dough (and I assume go through it).
Things I've tried:
- Dissolving/loosing the poolish slightly in the water before adding it to a well in the flour/salt/yeast mix and slowly incorporating the flour
- Dissolving the poolish completely in the water by whisking vigorously until it was batter-like, and adding it to a well of flour/salt/yeast
- Making a well with only half the flour/salt/yeast and adding the poolish, then adding the other half of the flour/salt/yeast
- Mixing together only the flour and yeast, adding half of that mixture, mixing the salt with the last half of the flour and yeast, then adding (in case the salt was causing the gluten in the poolish to tighten around the dry flour)
- Doing the pincer method in a "checkerboard" pattern (going across the dough first vertically, then horizontally, then folding the dough over)
- Most recently, combining the vigorous dissolving of the poolish/half flour/checkerboard pincer/add salt later modifications all together AND mixing for a long time, up to 15 minutes. I know they say you can't overmix, but I might have.
Nothing has worked. Maybe I should note that I have very, very small hands. I'm a small lady and size small nitrile gloves have about half an inch of empty space in the fingertips when I wear them and are baggy and loose so I have to wear a rubber band around my wrist when I wear nitrile gloves. Perhaps the pincer method is not the right one for me?
I am scared of destroying the gluten developed in the poolish by overmixing, but I am not really sure how else to get the poolish to incorporate smoothly into the rest of the dough. It's almost like the dry flour becomes trapped in the web of gluten in the poolish or something. I noticed when I vigorously dissolved the poolish that my dough was much more prone to tearing and seemed stickier, but it was the dough with the least lumps (though still at least five or six that never fully went away, and I had to smash them with my fingers during folding). A few other people on Reddit have mentioned having the same issue with this dough and mixing method. I've tried watching dozens of videos using poolish to see how they mix it, including for this specific recipe, but no one with a video has mentioned any mixing tips or issues with dry flour lumps.
Ideas I have:
- Adding the flour in even smaller parts, perhaps in 3 or 4 parts?
- Autolysing as much of the final flour as possible (perhaps 70% hydration as a sweet spot between maximizing autolysed flour and ease of incorporating with the poolish?), mixing with the poolish, then adding the remaining flour, salt, and yeast? There's not a ton of water left due to the large amount of poolish, so not all of the flour can be autolysed.
- A sort of bassinage method with the poolish: mixing the poolish and about 67% of the water enough to loosen the poolish a bit, then adding that in parts to the flour and yeast, then mixing the salt with the remaining 33% of the water and adding that last. Perhaps a drier dough to start would create more friction that would break up the lumps more effectively.
- Making the poolish with all of the AP flour and just enough of the bread flour to get to 500g, and using all bread flour for the final dough.
The dough remains very sticky, difficult to shape, and spreads out like a pancake when turning it out from the banneton. There's definitely oven spring, but with such a lack of shape, it still looks rather pathetic when it comes out of the oven. Note: I highly prefer batards over boules, so I am shaping batards. I started with boules, though, and had this issue even with boules.
Things I've tried:
- Reducing the bulk fermentation time. He calls for 2.5x rise, which seems excessive to me. Even in my cold kitchen, the dough is looking highly fermented by the time it reaches 2x. Bubbles on top, shiny, extensive bubble network with both large and small bubbles, jiggly like jello, etc.
- Preshaping before shaping. I'm able to get a nice, tight ball, but within 10 minutes of the bench rest it's a pancake again.
- Reducing the hydration to 72% from 75%
- Switching from stretch and folds to coil folds and increasing the number of coil folds, including one coil fold at the 1.5 hour mark of bulk fermentation
- Reducing the fermentation time of the poolish (I am fairly certain I'm not using overfermented poolish in any case)
Ideas I have:
- The autolyse or bassinage methods above might help with gluten development?
- A cold final proof in the banneton and baking straight from the fridge. However, due to my schedule it would need to be overnight, and with the final proof only being about 1 - 1.5 hours, I'm afraid it will overproof in the fridge.
- Reducing bulk fermentation time even further.
Any assistance you can offer is so appreciated!
You have written a lot, and I don't have all the answers, but there are some things I can say.
Do not worry about overmixing. Working by hand, you basically can not overmix. If you ever do find the dough weakening and falling apart during
maxingmixing or kneading or later stretch-and-fold sessions, then there is something wrong with the flour or water.Not a surprise, especially with small hands. So use some other method. I suggest trying this: add all the planned water to the poolish. Add enough of the planned amount of flour to make a batter that is not too thick to stir. Then use a wooden spoon or a spatula to stir it in a circular motion always in the same direction (let's say clockwise just to be definite). Give the batter about 100 strokes. This sounds like a lot but I have found it goes very quickly.
Now add more flour, turning it in with the spatula or spoon, and keep adding until all the flour is in and you have a dough. Finish rough mixing by kneading a little by hand. I often do this in the bowl, by pressing down with my hand or fist, then pulling one of the edges up and over the dough mass. This becomes more of a stretch-and-fold session, but that's all right. It's low-effort and easy. At this point, you only need to get all the flour wet enough that there isn't any (or not much) visible flour. Then rest the dough for say 1/2 hour (the exact time doesn't matter much) before. After the rest, finish kneading or stretching. It will be much easier now.
Add the salt right from the start. This will help tighten the dough. Reduce the hydration some more.
This is concerning. The most obvious thing would be not enough S&F action. I don't know how often or on what schedule you've been doing them. Typically, after stretching the dough will relax over time. The next S&F will make the dough smoother, more elastic, and stronger. It will still relax but that will take longer. More S&F sessions will enhance these properties and the dough will take yet longer before relaxing. If it doesn't take longer to relax after more S&Fs, that suggests some other problem.
You also didn't say how long you are fermenting the dough for (and my copy of the book isn't accessible just now). Time helps develop the dough, even without S&F sessions. So a long bulk fermentation usually tends to make up for a small number of S&F sessions. If that isn't happening, it would be unusual and a matter of concern.
What I do at preshaping (and shaping) if the dough seems too soft or extensible is to stretch it first or as I (pre)shape. If the dough seems very tight and elastic I stretch it as little as possible and may even skip the preshape step completely.
If S&F isn't the issue (I mean you have done enough and yet the dough still relaxes too much), then your water may be the problem. Some people have found that using bottled water, not distilled but with some mineral content, made all the difference in their bread. You might want to try it yourself.
In the meantime, if you dough pancakes again, bake it in a loaf pan - it won't be able to spread out, and it will most likely taste good.
I suggest you try a simpler bread to make sure the flour and water behave properly. Any simple lean formula will do. E.g., 63% hydration, 2% salt, instant yeast. To be concrete, though the exact details shouldn't matter at this point:
Add yeast, salt, and about half the flour, then stir as I suggested above. Then add the rest of the flour and follow my suggestions. Even though the dough is yeasted, still give it a rest of 15 - 30 minutes before finishing kneading. Give it one more S&F session after roughly another half an hour, and maybe one more if the dough hasn't developed as much as you expected.
I'll stop here - this post has become way too long already!
TomP
Hope this helps!
Rob
I'm going to take it you are not using commercial yeast. In which case either you haven't developed the gluten - or it is breaking down. As you describe it falling apart to early - the starter is off. If your starter is too acidic - this will happen.
You can wait till it balances - expect a while - as in weeks. Or to make a loaf now - use half starter and add a little yeast - like 1/2 tsp. You can make bread while the starter comes back. Enjoy!
The one time I actually managed to overknead a dough to the point that the gluten started loosening and falling apart, it was with 20 minutes of fairly vigorous hand-kneading in addition to roughly double the “standard” kneading time for my machine. With hand kneading alone, it would have taken me at least an hour, and almost certainly several, to reach that point.
Truly, don’t worry about over mixing by hand. The gluten in KAF can take more kneading than you’re ever going to have patience for.