June 10, 2011 - 12:20pm
baguettes, weight, length
hello, I need an advise regarding the right proportion between the length of the baguette and the weight of the dough. My oven (in fact, the stone inside it) is 39cm wide. If I want to make baguettes of 35 cm length, how much dough should I use for one, to obtain a proper ratio of crumb and crust? I guess I'm not the only person out here with a small oven, maybe some of you had the same problem before and can provide a good advise. I made baguettes before, but usualy they were too thin, and once they were too fat (large in diameter)... so, I would appreciate any advise I can get.
codruta
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Hi codruta,
A finished full baguette traditional should weigh 240g and will be 60cm in length. The scaling weight of dough required to produce this would be c.340g.
For your stone, you can produce a baguette approximating to 65% of this length.
So, your dough scaling weight should be 220g.
You may be surprised that they often turn out thinner than you may imagine, but I believe the weights I publish are typical of the finished bread, and reflect high moisture content loss in a long bake.
I've looked over Hamelman's weights and believe he is on the generous side.
Best wishes
Andy
Andy, that's exactly what I wanted to know! I hope I'll be able to show you soon some lovely baguettes! best wishes, codruta
I shape 350g baguettes, that typically yield 290g finished loaves. I preheat at 500°F and bake at 450°F, 10 mins. with steam on conventional bake cycle, and 10 mins without steam on convection cycle in a home oven. Internal temperatures reach 208°F to 210°F. Dough hydration is usually 68 to 70 percent. My 290g final weight is in line with Hamelman's page 25 comment re moisture loss; i.e about 20%. My proofed loaves are typically 51 cm long. Your 340g proofed loaves loose nearly 30% to finish at 240g. I'm curious what time/temperature/steam profile you use, in your words, for a "long bake".
Frankly, I'm very content with my much fine-tweaked, but basically unchanged Overnight Baguettes formula and process. However, I'm always open to try new techniques.
David G
P.S. And when you speak, I listen :-)
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17118/competing-louis-lesaffre-cup
Hi David,
Thanks; I took my information from the work I did for the Lesaffre Coupe.
Actually, I should have said 325g, having now read the original post more carefully.
I'm thinking that my baguettes at 60cm will have greater weight loss proportionately, given the greater surface area to weight ratio. I used hydration at 66%.
I note you say that your baguettes have been much tweaked. Not the case for the bake I did for the Coupe. The ovens were a type I'd never used before, and I was sharing them with other competitors, and with exhibitors, demonstrating products too; so, less than ideal. If I remember rightly, I set the loaves at 240*C, on the sole of the oven and used a reasonable amount of steam. I dropped the heat to 210*C after 10 minutes, and pulled the dampers 5 minutes later for the final 5 - 7 minutes. Again, using dampers will tend to increase weight loss. Anyway, corrected this works out to 24% weight loss, although I tend to look more at the moisture lost in the formula.
Still ,we seem to be much closer in figures, once I've added this correction....apologies for that.
I reckon for my Lesaffre Coupe baguette, the scaled dough piece contained 127g of water. The weight lost was 85g, so the residual water in the baked bread was 42g. Quite a loss; no wonder baguettes have no shelf life.
Thinking through your formula, scaled dough piece contains [and this is approximate!] 145g of water. So if your baked loaf loses 60g, then the residual moisture is double, at 85g. That really is some difference!!! However, I do confess that I cannot really remember what the final weight of my baguettes were on the day. I do remember being quite happy when it was all over, and the baguettes were done on a 6 hour retarded fermentation, so they were the last things I pulled out of the oven. Such Competitions are incredibly stressful!
Even at 260g finished weight, there is a discrepancy of over 20g. But, I think the different ovens used will account for this, plus the surface area: volume ratio. Some conjecture going on here; any thoughts?
Best wishes
Andy
I think further attempts to account for the differences would be futile. You were satisfied with your results; I'm repeatedly happy with mine.
On the other hand, I'm a bit jealous. Despite the long hours, and high stress, I would like to have been there with you!
David G