February 8, 2016 - 5:00am
Hello from the UK
Hi
I'm brand new to baking bread having moved to working from home I now have a bit more time on my hands. So far I have had varying success with sour dough, but want to work up to some high hydration recipes. I tried on at arrow 70% and sadly the loaf wouldn't keep shape.
Looking forward to learning and sharing.
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Make life easy for yourself. Start at 60%. Lean some different kneading and shaping techniques. Get used to handling dough, then gradually increase hydration.
Would be my suggestion...
Even though I've made 70%+ breads with UK flours, I'm still convinced that UK flours don't handle the same as US flours used in most of the high hydration recipes you might see in books and on the 'net.
Welcome!
-Gordon
(In Devon)
What Gordon says... Made the same mistake as a newbie and ended up with an unholy mess... Start low and work upwards to a level you feel comfortable with. Different brands of flour behave differently as well. Though if you really want to try that level of hydration, then nothing says you can't use a tin to give the dough the support it needs.
I normally work around 65%, but typically my flour mix is 30% wholegrain. Wholegrain absorbs more water than ordinary white bread flour. But if I go much above that, I start to struggle.
My current go-to bread is a 3:2:1 sourdough with 2% salt. But instead of removing some of the water, I add 7% (which is 45g) porridge oats, which gives me a dough that's just right... Oats are a great soaker-upper of water if you've ended up with a dough that's too sticky ;-)
P.S. A denizen of north-east Cambridgeshire here :-)