February 8, 2016 - 5:08am
Increasing hydration practise recipe
Hi all, so far I have just been doing quite dry doughs for my bread and would like to be able to start working on some of the more hydrated recipes.
I believe that building up to this is the way forward. Does any one have any pointers towards some/a recipe that would give me a bit of a start in working up to something that is around 70% eventually?
All tips are gratefully received!
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My favourite mix has 80% white and 20% wholemeal in it. (This is probably what most generic "country" bread recipes have, more or less)
So e.g. 500g flour - that's 400g white, 100g wholemeal - then 7g dried yeast (my usual guide is 7g dried yeast for every 500g flour), and 8g salt.
Now the water - 60% of 500 is 300g. 65% is 325g and 70% is 350g. Pick your starting point...
Then.. decrease the yeast and increase the bulk fermentation time, then join the real bread campaign ;-)
The technique needs to change as the hydration increases - you can't just use traditional kneading techniques - you can move to the French style slap and fold, (Search youtube for Richard Bertinet) or Whitleys "air kneading" (which I don't recommend - mostly as I ended up with dough all over the place when I tried!) but that'll only get you so-far. Above 65% you might need to look into autolyzing then stretch and folds - which is actually very easy to do, but you need to increase the fermentation time a little to allow you to do the stretch and folds - do that by lowering the amount of yeast or moving to sourdough.
Or look at some of the no-knead techniques.
So much choice - how much bread can you & your friends & family eat ;-)
Cheers,
-Gordon
Thanks Gordon! Much appreciated! I'll give it a go later on once my starter dough is ready.
you have. In the UK, 70% hydration would be high but in the US and Canada even the basic SD 1:2:3 recipe starts at 71 % hydration. some SD breads with 25% whole grains in them might be 78% hydration.
It is best to work your way up.when it comes to hydration. At such low hydration, I would assume you are hand kneading the old fashioned way and higher hydration would require a different gluten development technique like slap and fold and or stretch and folds too,.
Happy baking
My first step toward attempting to become a serious baker was buying Bread Baker's Apprentice (BBA) last year. The first recipe I tried was a very wet dough, Pain a l'Ancienne. I think it's about 80% hydration. It is fun to make, and an adventure to be sure. I've made the baguettes and used the same dough for focaccia as per the book. To form the baguettes, I simply lifted the divided pieces and moved my hands apart. Here's a link to a very nice photo series of someone making the baguettes.
http://pinchmysalt.com/bread-bakers-apprentice-challenge-pain-a-lancienne/
Rustic Light Rye as posted by the incomporably fine baker ZolaBlue from 2008 here
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5500/pierre-nury%E2%80%99s-rustic-light-rye-leader
ZolaBlue's is darker i d killer in every way........ with no slashing required or needed! The first time I pulled those lumps of dough out, seam side up, and plopped them back down on the parchment and then baked them immediately i though my leg was being pulled. Then when they came out of the oven I about died and immediately realized anything is possible with SD bread!
Happy baking
I've never seen color like that before. Wow.