The Baker's Whole Family Could Sleep in this Loaf
I made JoeVa's sourdough with Durum Flour and while very tasty there are more holes than crumb. Anyone know why? I followed his formula but added 1 TBLS. vital wheat gluten because I was using all purpose flour with the durum and thought the AP might need a boost. When I took it out of the fridge this morning it looked ready to bake so as soon as the oven was ready I put one in then baked the other when the first came out. This photo is of the second loaf. The crumb was not as open on the first but almost. You can see I did not get the lift that Joe got. Like I said, the taste was very good.
I plan to do this again soon using higluten flour and I just might bulk ferment the dough overnight and stretch/fold and shape/bake the net day.
weavershouse
Comments
even with the rooms!
Sylvia
and tastey too. It sure looks better than my attempt of making gluten free bread two days ago. For some reasons, the top crust completely separated from the crumb and it looked pretty much like an indoor football stadium. If your loaf could house the entire family, the "cave" in my gluten free loaf could have accommodated the entire community! LOL
... with admittedly gigantic holes. Try to spread some butter on these slices! :)
Your loaf looks so artistic and wondrous! I'm always in search of those big cosmic holes in the crumb - I think you ought to be proud!
Erzsebet
I have some questions to you. I hope I can help you.
If I can, I suggest you to focus on one bread (ie one formula + one process) bake it a lot of time till it is almost perfect and you get consistent results.
So the goal is (almost) perfect and consistent.
When I started my baking experience (2 years ago, and 1 years ago with sourdough) I used a methodical approach. My thought was: if a man/woman, let me say in US/Australia/China/Russia/France..., can produce a good sourdough bread with a ingredients+formula+process, why I would not be able to bake this bread at home here in Italy? From that time I baked, tested, trashed :(, ... and learned a lot. So, day by day I changed my approach from applying a receipt to understand the receipt, how it works, the backgrounds. This is not easy and I am at the very beginning. I love what you can do with only 3 ingredients: flour, water and salt (I think to (wild) yeast not as an ingredients ... it's already present in the flour and you only have to bring it to life!). Yes, only 3 ingredients, but a lot of variables!
I'm sure every formula+process needs to be tweaked over time and space (even in the same bakery day by day).
1) Flour: I can only say a good US AP flour is OK (proteins 11.5/12.5%, hard winter wheat, 250<W<350, P/L~0.6, FallingNumber~250s), and durum you know ... What are the specs of you flours?
2) Crumb: the crumb says a lot about bread. Hole vs alveolus. I call holes the cavities you get with bad shaping and alveoli the cavities you get from the expansion of small bubbles from yeast fermentation. How is your crumb, if you virtually remove the "big holes" (airy, soft, light)?
3) Shape and lift: you can get high loaf with both wet and stiff dough. With stiff dough is easier, with wet is more difficult. How was the hydration of the dough? My goal with lean sourdough bread is a medium soft dough (not wet dough) but this is me (I do not like ciabatta sourdough style bread, for wet dough I prefer fresh yeast and indirect method).
That's all. I hope to be not too much boring.
Happy baking.
Giovanni
Your posts are never boring and thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I'm one of those bread bakers that make bread without much of a "methodical approach". Wish I paid more attention to the details but I mostly wing it and hope for the best. I have good consistent results with some of my breads but I like to see what someone else is doing and give it a try myself. Often enough it works pretty good and I'm happy with most of what comes out of the oven. That being said, I'll try to answer your questions.
1) I usually use King Arthur All Purpose Flour, I think the protein is 11.5. I buy my Durum Flour at an Italian Foodstore in bulk and know nothing about it.
2) The crumb in this bread was soft but not very soft. The crumb of your bread looked so much nicer. I will pay more attention to shaping if you think the big holes were from poor shaping.
3) Again, I'm sorry to be so lax about this but all I know is my dough was not wet, it was soft but firm and the gluten was very well developed, it seemed, because I did the last stretch and fold on my board (the other s & f's were done in the bowl) and I was able to stretch it almost two feet across. Maybe I overdid it? I trust my hands to decide if there is enough water. Usually my hands know more than my brain so I let them lead :o). Every batch is different, right, and each has to be adjusted so I'll never have an exact hydration to use every time. I did find it interesting that you prefer a wet dough like ciabatta to be made with yeast and an indirect method.
I love your passion for making bread and I feel the same way but I guess my passion will always be 1% wild. That's the only percentage I know. LOL
Thanks again for your help.
weavershouse
I think you have found the "problem": you said - I was able to stretch it almost two feet across. My dough during s&f develops the gluten but becomes more and more elastic, instead your dough becomes extensible.
This is exactly what happens to me with some different flour.
With some flour your dough start sticky and after gluten development (autolyse + s&f) "it drinks" the water a comes together in a beautiful elastic dough; but with other flour the dough does not support the water contents and becomes extensible (I think the gluten reached the upper limit, but I'm not sure).
With other flour the dough seems dry but after gluten development It becomes more soft and elastic.
I have read again J.Hamelman receipt "Semolina Bread" and I think we are right, he said - correct the hydration as necessary, keeping the dough just drier than normal.
Thank you to give me the opportunity to compare baking experience I found this really instructive. I would like to know the opinion of other people (for example Dan DiMuzio).
Edit: the wetter is not always the better!!
Giovanni
Thank you for your suggestions. Next time I'll try it a little drier.
weavershouse
thank you so much. i came home after a pretty grim day and your loaf made me giggle! candis, marooned in a field in oxfordshire, england
this bread looks like it would be very tasty. i can almost taste it as toasted with hummus &/or olive tapenade
claudia
Thanks for all the nice comments! This bread was very good toasted this morning and my husband wants it to be his supper tonight. That sounds easy to me.
weavershouse
This bread looks like my image of the ultimate goal, in artisan bread. I'm jealous.....
I'm glad you like it even though I think it's too open.
weavershouse
Well, achieving what YOU set out to do is the criterion on which you base success or failure; so the comments here will be helpful for me to achieve what you don't consider complete success. Thank you for creating this thread.
I recognize this problem. Many time my bread looked the same. Big holes and a gigantic rise in the middle. For me the solution indeed was let the loafs proof longer. And I found out that my starter was not active enough. Using warmer water when feeding it did it for me.