Hamelman's Rustic bread
So I checked out Techniques and Recipes, read it cover to cover, and chose this as my fist recipe. I'm looking for something that will be relatively straightforward to produce, adaptable for most any meal I might prepare, but also flavorful enough to be eaten on its own or as a sandwich; this recipe seemed a likely candidate. I built the 100% poolish last night and by this morning it had doubled and smelled wonderful. I assembled the bread from that point as directed, using an autolyse and keeping mixing time to a minimum. Thus far all has gone well except for the consistency of the dough: it is completely unshapeable. Folds have been difficult as the dough just wants to blob out, and absolutely require use of a scraper. Forget shaping; I'd be left with the worlds largest tortilla. Fortunately I have several pans that together will hold the dough volume so I will have bread tonight. Still smells great. Anyway, I found a couple other threads referencing this recipe, both of which made it clear that their authors made the dough at significantly lower hydration than the recipe in the book I have before me (p. 111 gives it as 69%). Any thoughts?
EDIT:
So it's now several hours later, the bread is out of the oven and cooled. It is without a doubt my best effort thus far, although yhere is certainly room for improvement. I baked for the first 20 min at 375, then upped it to 425 until I got 210 on my thermometer. The crust is perfect to my taste: crispy but not hard or too thick, chewy, lightly golden. The crumb seems like it could have baked longer (a common theme in my breads) but it's not doughy and has a wonderful flavor. It should stand just fine up to my slicer for sandwich bread!
Don't have the book so I don't know if periodic folding to develop the gluten is mentioned in the recipe.
Maybe, refer to some of the videos here about folding wet doughs.
Then use a couche/banneton for final loaf proofing.
My everyday bread is 68% hydration and is still easy to handle, or at least not too hard. I guess the kind of flour makes a difference.
Anyway, I have nothing against tortillas :-)
I made it quite a few times exactly the way it is written up in the book, 69% hydration. If you use KA bread flour there should not be a problem. If you have weaker flour you may need to adjust amount of water.
I used Gold Medal Bread (75%) and A/P(25%) flours...ran out of bread. I haven't been using KA because it's only available at one store locally, a natural foods place that caters to a fairly wealthy clientele. It's in the oven now and smells heavenly, but it was so loose that I couldn't even slash it properly before baking. The VERY sharp knife (with Pam on the blade) only dragged the top along instead of cutting, so my loaf volume will suffer. Until I can get ahold of some KA I'm going to knock the hydration down a bit.
I make this all the time using Gold Medal Bread, I also substitute Robin Hood Multi grain for the wheat and rye, plus add some pumpkin and sunflower seeds. It starts out very slack but after the first stretch and fold it is manageable I suppose the seeds help the hydration. I,ve never tried KA but our local store just started carrying it so I'll have to give it a try.
I am going to make a couple of guesses. Using A/P will make the dough wetter and that is likely to be a problem for a beginner. Also, you indicate you minimized mixing and that is probably a problem also for you probably didn't work the dough enough to have it really come together. It was almost certainly major underkneaded. While folding can overcome that and resolve a lot of the problems you had, you say it didn't and that suggests your folds weren't effective (which is more challenging with a really wet dough. And, last, but not least, did you scale the ingredients? And even if you did, flours can have very different humidity levels that require adjusting the water (a baker I know recently got some flour that he had to mix at bakers percentage 58 to get the texture of 65 - the flour was really wet!)
I use KA most of the time but I have no qualms about using GM Bread flour. It isn't hugely different but I do find KA to be more consistent.
I strongly urge beginners who are struggling to cut back the hydration a bit to make the dough a bit more manageable until they can get some experience and get comfortable and then start upping the hydration.
Good Luck!
Jay
I scale everything with a digital scale. Also, the mixing and kneading times were those given in the recipe. I suspect humidity might have something to do with it...it has been pretty damp around here lately. But as I have no real idea yet what a given hydration is supposed to feel like I can't really judge as I go; this I know will come with practice. I'm going to be trying it again on Saturday and will cut back on the water some.
I made this bread last week. The final dough was very loose/sticky. I noticed that the final weight was less than the recipe stated. I ended up kneading in another cup or so of bread flour, and did the final rise in bannetons. Came out great.