Whew! It wasn't what I thought.
Last couple of times I made bread there was little gluten development despite using a combo of french folds and stretch and folds. The doughs just collapsed into an unstructured mass of glop. I tried baking in pans which was my original intent anyway since I was trying to make pain de mie but had no spring and a gummy interior. The doughs were naturally leavened so I thought it might either be my starter or maybe the kitchen had become infected by those insidious strings that mini oven has had trouble with. I should also mention that the dough had some sprouted flour, about 25%, in them but I have never had trouble with that amount before and trying the sprouted flour in the pain de mie was my reason for making this bread in the first place. There also were eggs in the dough since the hens are laying prodigiously this winter for some reason.
I decided to go back to the basics and make two boules each with only flour, water,and salt, one leavened with commercial yeast and the other with my starter. That way I could tell if the starter was still good and if the kitchen needed to be decontaminated. They were made a day apart using roughly the same procedure. Luckily both turned out fairly well. The one on the right is the commercial yeast and had just a touch more loft than the naturally leavened one on the left. Both have a good flavor with the naturally leavened one better of course. These are half sized loaves based on 250g flour which was half AP and half white whole wheat at 70 plus% hydration and I think I misjudged the proof a bit in both cases, but at least I can look for other causes for my bricks.
In the background is some pasta made with a 50% combination of fresh ground durum and Kamut along with the aforementioned eggs drying on a homemade rack. It will be tossed in a sauce made with mussels and whatever else sounds good at the time and accompanied by some of the bread slathered with roasted garlic butter. A veritable carbohydrate fest on a snowy winter evening. Maybe I'll throw in a little salad just to keep balanced.
Stu
Comments
Looks like all is well. I'm sort of getting hooked on SD pasta. Much better than non SD - just like bread! Well done and
Happy baking
Rope! For some reason strings came to mind instead. Sourdough pasta sounds like an interesting thing to explore.
kinds of holes in the crumb, I'm thinking... final shaped too early. Knock them down with another folding and let it ferment (proof) some more. Get the yeast all excited with fresh food so it can pump out some more gas but do a more even job of it.
What do you think? Can't clearly see the denser crumb but would like a close up. Higher hydration doughs do benefit from more folding while the dough is bulk rising.
Try repeating your experiment with a yeasted dough and when you think it's ready for the oven, take a sharp knife and cut the dough in half and look at the bubble structure in the dough. See how the gas is distributed. (take a picture) then slap it back together and reshape for another proof. Pay close attention to the outside dough feel before cutting it open and as it proofs toward baking. You can always cut it open again and look before baking. If the cut dough looks ready to bake, just sit the two sides next to each other cosy like (think of it as a supper slash) and bake out the dough.
Yeah think I hurried the dough. Time is the best thing for bread within reason, but I was more concerned with the gluten development in this particular experiment.
I'm thinking to cut the dough up next time to see its texture. The breads I recently baked got huge holes in the middle. I guess I didn't give them enough time to proof and the big whole came from the expansion during baking. I baked them in dutch oven. Right after removing the lid, the bread looked really flat. However, at the end, they would form a dome-like shape.
I often do this combination too of a fresh loaf and fresh pasta. Try sourdough pasta I have a feeling you will enjoy it!
It's on my agenda for next time I make pasta which is only about once a month. I have found that fresh ground flour with just the big chunks of bran sifted out, usually about 95% extraction, and free range eggs make the best so far.