August 31, 2010 - 2:55pm
a question for David
Hi David,
I've been working hard on my baguette skills recently, but the rate of progress is regrettably slow. I apologise in advance for troubling you with yet another question regarding your time at the SFBI, but I was wondering, to what extent do they degas baguette dough? After dividing the fermented dough, and immediately prior to pre-shaping is the dough degassed at all? At this point i tend to get larger bubbles which if left make the final shaping a little more tricky and seem to make the dough feel weak and slack in my hands.
Thanks in advance for your time
ben
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Hi, ben.
Yes! Dough was de-gassed immediately before pre-shaping and again before shaping. How vigorously depended on how gassy the dough was.
Large bubbles were purposely popped. When examination of the baguettes' crumb revealed holes that were too large, the instruction was to de-gas more vigorously next time.
David
thanks david! It makes sense to me to degas, but then you read in certain books that you have to preserve all the air... I think you have said it already, but the true benefit of these classes is not recipes but to see and feel the bread and dough. A class at the SFBI or KA is definitely on my to do list for the near future.
Thanks again!
ben