October 25, 2015 - 9:51pm
Toscana Parbakes
Here is an interesting article from 1983 describing how the erstwhile Toscana bakery in Oakland made parbakes and shipped them to Spokane and other locations.
Here is my question: After dividing, the loaves go through a rounder and are then shaped in a molder and allowed to proof. When I proof my bread, the dough tends to spread out horizontally, leaving a flat-ish, spread-out blob of dough. In this operation, how does the dough keep its loaf shape during the final proof?
Keep in mind, this is a big bread factory, not a small artisan operation where the loaves are individually shaped by hand.
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Looking at the loaves in the picture, my guess is that the hydration is lower and the gluten very well developed. I also find it interesting that for their bread the whole process took only six hours.
if they have a lot of preferment in them and handled at higher temperatures. For an 8 oz loaf to be that big it had to have high protein flour with the gluten well developed by huge machines at lower hydration levels. Years before LaBrea too:-)
363 g is closer to 12.8 oz (US) 8 oz is about 227g
loaves you have to wonder if their par baked bread had yeast in it too? Maybe the pictures doesn't match the words ?
could be they aren't matched up but it does look like a double rise on 230g of dough but the flour must be very absorbent. Do you believe the short rise time on a 1:6 almost 7 starter to flour ratio? 90# starter to 600# flour.
There is a typo... something about 10% instead of 10 minutes steam in the oven.
beating the dough for 10 minutes that would leave about 5 hours of total shaped ferment and final proof once you took out the baking, 2 shaping stages and the slashing. I suppose that would be enough time if the mixing shaping and two proofing boxes were at 84 F. It would be better with 20% levain instead of 15% but if it went into the oven a bit under proofed wouldn't be all bad either if it was par baked bread anyway. You aren't going to make a huge pile of SD bread a day without having it down to a science. You certainly had t get it all done in a an 8 hour shift
Once the levain is done the day the before and the old dough was resting and fermenting overnight I suppose I could get a loaf done in 8 hours in the summer when the kitchen temperature was rat 84 F here in AZ . I will have to give it a go with old dough next summer and see. Another fun experiment!
Where do we get that the loaves were 12.8 oz? I don't see it in the article. Another bakery's loaves were 16 oz. in an elongated batard shape.
My loaves have well-developed gluten, I use bread flour which is 14% protein and the hydration is 59%, same as their loaves. This is well documented here on TFL: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/177563#comment-177563
When I proof my loaves on flax linen, they tend to sprawl out horizontally and turn out rather flat, requiring hand shaping afterwards -- same hydration, same protein content in the flour, gluten well developed. I can't figure out how their loaves held their shape after the final proof, having gone once through the molder.
That works out to 15 B.P. starter which comports with the Larraburu recipe given here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/176197#comment-176197
The recipe for the unnamed "other" bakery calls for 20 B.P. starter.
The six-hour proof time does seem a little short
It looks like the loaves were 16 oz.
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/302807_524995007513383_1962692799_n.png?oh=d0d28c96e1c8db97c605b3a30f70c970&oe=56B2BCF8
Another S.F. SD recipe calls for 20% sponge:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/177563#comment-177563
In the article it says:
I'm going to work this out assuming they used an even number of 50-pound sacks of flour per batch:
Flour: 6 * 50 lbs. = 300 lbs.
Water: (60 b.p.) = 180 lbs.
Sponge: (30 b.p.) = 90 lbs.
Total dough weight: 570 lbs.
OR
Flour: 7 * 50 lbs. = 350 lbs.
Water: (60 b.p.) = 210 lbs.
Sponge: (25 b.p.) = 88 lbs.
Total dough weight: 648 lbs.
OR MAYBE?
Flour: 6.5 * 50 lbs. = 325 lbs.
Water: (60 b.p.) = 195 lbs.
Sponge: (28 b.p.) = 91 lbs.
Total dough weight: 611 lbs.
28% and 30% starter seem kind of high, but in the second scenario, 25% starter is still higher than the 20% given in the recipe.
Or maybe the bakery tour guide gave the reporter the wrong number when he quoted 90 lbs.?
What do we think?
Flour: 7 * 50 lbs. = 350 lbs.
Water: (60 b.p.) = 210 lbs.
Sponge: (20 b.p.) = 70 lbs.
Total dough weight: 630 lbs.
Maybe the bakery tour guide meant to say 70 lbs. of starter but told the reporter 90 lbs.?