Whole Wheat with grains
So I just bought a dutch oven and I'm FINALLY being able to get my breads to brown!!! It's such a huge joy!
But anyway, I decided to try a whole wheat bread and followed Ciril Hitz' Baking Artisan Bread recipe.
The bread had a great taste to it, but it did not get much oven spring... and maybe the crumb was quite dense (specially towards the bottom).
So, to exercise my brain and enhance my bread knowledge for the future, so I can solve problems I might face, I am trying to guess why it did not have much oven spring.
My best guess is that it had not much gluten development. Could this be it? I don't have a Kitchen Aid, and my hands hurt when I knead. So I did not really knead it. Just mixed it, gave it a stretch and fold after 45 min, and that was it.
I followed the proofing times and I don't think it was overproofed.
Anyway, here some pics so you can give me some clues and point out some errors.
Here is the biga right after mixing it. (Does it look like a biga? Or does a biga look more wet than that? I just followed his recipe - 60% hydration biga)
Here I had mixed in the whole wheat flour and the other ingredients and had waited 45 min and then stretched and folded this dough. So the picture was taken after the 45min rest and after the stretch and fold.
Here 45 minutes more, and I have it loaded on the (cold) dutch oven. I chose the cold dutch oven, cause I have found like this it does not burn the bottom of my breads.
Here is my "great" "amazing" bread! Well, it's my best one ever, so far! haha
Here is the crumb... can you see that it gets even more dense towards the bottom?
And I took this picture below to show you the height (or lack of it)... it's really not that tall, it had almost no oven spring.
Please, any help will be greatly appreciated! I can't wait to get finally be baking one of those great looking breads that I see here.
Cheers!
1. Gluten formation : Try giving a bit more time in the mixer then proceed as normal.
2. A Dutch Oven should be preheated! for great oven spring.
Can you post the recipe?
That should help. Spring cones from a hot Do not a cold one. If your bread is burning on the bottom then take it out of the DO 5 minutes after the lid comes off and finish it on the stone, I bake at 454 F with the lid on for 20 minutes and 425 F convection with the lid off until the inside reads 205 F. WW bread will proof much faster than white bread so watch it much closer since it needs to go int the heat at 85% proof instead of 90-95% for white breads
Happy DO baking
Thanks for the help.
The recipe is:
Make a 60% hydration biga with 0.7 yeast, and let it rest for 1 to 2 hours then add the rest of the ingredients (whole wheat), water 70%, yeast at 0,4%, salt 2.5%. Mix it all and then add the grains, seeds...
Let it rest for 45 min and stretch and fold. Let it rest for 45 more minutes, then shape it and let it proof for 1h. Bake for 20 + 20 minutes.
I went for the cold dutch oven because I saw some posts here that people tried both cold and hot dutch oven and got very similar results, with good oven spring on both... So I went with the cold method because it's much less hassle.
I will try more stretch and folds as I think the culprit here was not enough gluten development to trap in gases from the yeast.
When you first form the dough knead till you see good gluten formation and dough comes together or the just do as much as you're able (about 10 Min). Then bulk ferment for the asked for 1hr 30min incorporating more stretch and folds. I'd say every 10min 4x in all then let rest for remainder. Then shape, proof and bake in preheated DO.
If too difficult to knead by hand for 10 min then ok to just do a few minutes. The extra stretch and folds will help. If you feel after 4x Stretch and Folds it needs more then just wait 10 min and give it a 5th stretch and fold then let rest for the remainder. Go by feel! You be the judge.
turned out to be a time and temperature problem for me. I also had no spring so I turned the temperature up and just burned the loaves.
What I eventually discovered is that for best spring I had to preheat my DO at 500∘ F for at least 40 minutes, then when I place the dough into the screaming hot DO (and place the lid on it), I'd wait five minute then turn the temp down to 450∘ F for the rest of the bake.
The all I had to do was to bake a little longer until my load hit an internal temperature of 205∘ F in the center (200∘ to 211∘ is just fine).
Good Luck
Yes, you want that heat in the DO so that the moisture in the dough turns to steam, propelling your dough to rise, giving lovely oven spring and a beautiful and tasty bread.
Well, I guess I'm convinced to try with the hot dutch oven.