My second bread
Hi everyone.
While my first sourdough starter matures, I'm training with bought baker's yeast. Here is a pic of my second ever loaf of bread.
The first one was simply follow the instructions on the yeast's box, mix, knead and to the oven. Result, not as bad as I expected.
The second one, the one in the pic, was: 500g wheat flour, 300g water, 5,5g dry baker's yeast, 10g salt.
This was my almost perfect process:
- [6h] mix flour and water to autolyse on countertop (25-30Cº)
- [10min] brief knead (I found it amazingly sticky and hard to knead after the autolyse)
- [11h] bulk ferment on the fridge. (it doubled its size)
- [<5min] press down a bit and shape like a boule. (it was very cold to manipulate. I think I'll leave it warm a bit next time)
- [6h] leave boule on countertop to grow (It became a gigantic weightless puffy balloon)
- Drop puffy ball inside cold dutch oven. (the puffy balloon got somewhat deflated to a more reasonable size)
- Put dutch oven inside oven.
- Forget I was supposed to open dutch oven after a short while
- Remove from oven when the center of the loaf was at 97Cº
- See that the crust is not brown/caramelized and curse after remembering the thing about opening the dutch oven mid-preparation.
- Find myself incapable of removing loaf from dutch oven so leave it inside to get a bit colder.
- Remove from cold dutch oven and discover (by sound) that the bread it not made (I did understand the bottom knock concept with the first loaf).
- Put the loaf back into the oven, directly on a grill rack, for a few minutes to finish cooking and have a golden crust. Without hope for any better result than "edible".
Amazingly, although the crust was too thin and soft, the bread was tight, tasty and light and I loved it with all my heart because it was mine. And we finished it in a single afternoon tea/coffee sitting.
Let's see how many of the mistakes I don't repeat and which new ones I do next time.
Process seems absolutely fine so take these as just suggestions...
1. If you have scales that can weigh to .1g then will be easier. You can drop the dried yeast to 0.5g then prepare the dough in the evening, knead till full gluten formation, then bulk ferment at room temp (21C) overnight. Next morning just knock back and shape, leave to final proof for 35-40min then bake. If you don't have such accurate scales then literally just the very tip of a teaspoon - a few grains!
2. Final proof till ALMOST doubled. How much did the dough grow at final proofing? Sounds like a lot.
Tastes nice?
1 - So, reduce yeast amount to replace fridge for countertop. Ok. I'll take that into consideration.
2 - It grew up to more than double. From about 50% of the final result It ballooned to 150% of final result. It then lost most gas when I put it into the dutch oven.
The taste was amazing, but I'm not used to real bread, so it was to be expected. For now I'm focusing on textures. I want tougher, caramelized, rich crust and lighter, firmer crumb.
A good rule of thumb is doubled for bulk fermention and almost doubled for final proofing. In some recipes the bulk fermention can go more then double but final proofing has to be caught at just the right time.
The longer the fermentation time the better then flavour. One could make the dough and shape it, allow it to final proof till ready then bake. But this doesn't mean food has run out for the yeast. So to increase the fermentation time one introduces a bulk fermentation then afterwards a final proof after shaping. You maximise the fermentation time and get better flavour. But all this has to be done before the food for the yeast is exhausted otherwise the dough turns to mush.
The gluten works like a balloon and the yeast the air. Fill it to the right amount and you get a nicely risen loaf. Too much and the dough can't hold the air anymore and it 'pops'. This is why when final proofing you don't want it to rise too much, (but OK at the bulk fermention stage as you knock it back down and shale for final proofing), as it will collapse on itself. Should this happen when at the dough stage just reshape and final proof again which will work if there is food left for the yeast.
Keeping the yeast low and increasing the fermentation time will help with flavour. Try this...
500g bread flour
300g water
8g salt
0.5g dried yeast (a few grains or tip of teaspoon)
Night before prepare the dough and knead till ready (if you poke the dough it should spring straight back up). Then cover the bowl and leave overnight. (Room temp 21C. If warmer it'll need less time if colder then more time. Go by feel).
Next morning check to see if doubled.
When doubled... Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, knocking out the big airbbubbles but not de-gassing completely, shape the dough into a boule and place on prepared baking parchment.
Final proof till ALMOST doubled. Should take 35-40min but keep an eye on it. If you poke it gently it should come up slowly. If it stays depressed its over proofed. If it springs back up its under proofed. Better to err on the side of slightly under proofed.
In the meantime prepare your oven and Dutch oven. Preheat both.
When the dough is ready, score it and transfer to your Dutch oven.
Bake as normal.
One f the things i like to do after a long cold bulk retard is to do a quick pre-shape into a boule using 4 stretch and folds right out of the fridge ans then put the ball back into the bowl to warm u for an hour. Then I do a gentle final shape but only let the dough 50% during final proof. This seems to cure the hard shaping problem right out of the fridge,
Well done and Happy baking
I'll try that quick fold and 1h warm up next time. I thought about it, but lacked the confidence in the good result of letting the dough warm.
So I waited too much on final proof. Ok. That's easy to solve.