SOS baguettes turned out bad
The baguettes had a very short rise time of about 30 minutes before there was almost no spring left when doing a finger poke, and not much spring left in the oven either. they came out dense, tough crusted and close crumbed, if that's any kind of way to speak english. Just worthless. Here's the background:
flour: 3/4 Milanaise whole wheat bread flour (strong; same amount of protein as KA), 1/4 standard whole wheat flour
preferment: 94g flour, 61g water, trace of instant yeast (65% hydration) (1/3 of total flour)
final dough: added 181g flour, 126g water, 1tsp salt, 2/3tsp instant yeast, bit over 1tbsp sugar (68% hydration, tacky not sticky)
1. hand mixed preferment, let sit for 20 hours
2. mixed everything
3. fermented 2 hours with 2 uneventful stretch and folds (not high hydration=not supple I assume)
4. preshaped, let relax 15 minutes, shaped
5. let rise, scored and baked 440f with steam 12 minutes then let steam out and removed vessel and baked 400f 26 minutes with door slightly ajar (to help with drying crust)
Thoughts/ questions/ suggestions?
boosting the water in the preferment from 61g to 94g boost yeast from a trace to 1/4 tsp. Let that sit 8 hours not 20...mix stretch and fold 3 times in 2 hour period then let it sit for an extended period or in fridge overnight. Good luck!!
As mentioned above increase the hydration in the Pre Ferment so it is 100% hydration and a poolish opposed to a biga. More importantly though use this when it has peaked which with a pinch of yeast (or .1% to the weight of flour in the poolish) should take roughly 12 hours depending on temperature.
Use less yeast overall @ about .33% of total flour weight which in this case would be just shy of 1 gram. That's probably a total of 1/4 tsp. So a pinch to the poolish and the remainder to the final dough.
You could but don't have to increase the overall hydration by at least a few percentage poitns especially with 25% whole grain. I'd be aiming for 75+% based on this formula.
Then mix all ingredients until well combined but not developed. About 5 minutes by hand. Follow this with three folds @ 20,40,60 minutes. Then let rise 2 hours before dividing and preshape. Rest. Shape. Final proof should be 50-60 minutes or so. Bake hot with as much steam as you can generate for the first 10 minutes. Then finish in a dry oven.
All in all this is a Poolish baguette combined with Tradition technique.
Hope some of this helps
Josh
I went with the 65% preferment I had already made, but I increased the overall hydration to 72%, lowered the Milanaise bread flour to 50% of total flour, and added half the yeast. Tough and dense samey same.
So my new preferment is 80% and will be used after 8 hours, also I gave it a bit more yeast, and I decided to drop the bread flour altogether because the terrible results came with it. The bread surely won't have an interesting structure but at least it's got a chance to be potable.
I think I have something similar in my brot korb. Husband just stuffed it with prosciutto and ate it.
If I read the formula used correctly, Sebastos15 is making baguettes with 100% whole wheat flours - a mix of two brands. You are not going to get an open crumb as you would with white flour. Well, you might if you use a very finely milled WW, maximal gluten development and very high hydration.
Considering your original formula, the baguette doesn't look bad at all. But, if you want a more classic baguette, you need to use a more classic formula with all white flour (or nearly).
David
So I came back to my original flour which is a 50/50 mix of supermarket whole wheat and white flour. Also, the preferment was upped to 80% and proofed for 10 hours. The baguettes were fine! very enjoyable to just rip pieces off And eat em. The crust was much better, barely tough. And lots of it which is great for a crust lover like I am.
That bread flour consequentially was truly a calamity. I'm gonna get the same brand but white all purpose just to see how it goes. And do some experimenting. One thing I'd like to try out is kneaded high hydration dough à la Bertinet.. but I hope it's useless cause who wants to have to knead.
in the meantime I'd like to send my thanks to the folks who answered me!