New baker, struggling to shape loaves
I'm a new baker, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. I bought the book Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast and tried making some of the recipes there. I really like the idea of baking artisan bread at home. I bought a 24cm dutch oven for baking and a banneton for proving, and a large plastic scraper / bench knife.
I have tried to make two loaves so far from the book, with mixed results. The first one was the Saturday White Bread with 10% whole wheat (72% hydration) and the second one Overnight White Bread (78% hydration), again 10% whole wheat. I find the fermentation step goes well, but I'm really struggling with the shaping. The dough looks far wetter than in Ken's videos and sticks all over the countertop and my fingers and in one instance, it stuck to the banneton itself.
Good thing is that the bread still turned out mostly OK, although it didn't have a lot of height.
What could be going wrong? Should I lower the hydration levels until I can handle the dough better?
Shaping a high hydration dough is an acquired art form and trust me, you'll get it. Over time you will learn how to manage even the wettest dough with very little additional flour and almost no adhesion to your hands or tools.
I recommend that you visit this site www.breadwerx.com as Trevor Wilson demonstrates some very good techniques for handling wet dough. YouTube is loaded with examples as well.
I find that wetting my hands and tools helps a lot. I have also found that short, pronounced contact times instead of prolonged handling makes the release much more effective.
Practice makes perfect!
Jim
Is there a specific benefit to having a metal bench knife vs plastic? I have what looks like a large dough scraper, 20cm wide).
I use 3 different bench knives and scrapers and here are some links to examples:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/king-arthur-bowl-scraper
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/heavy-duty-dough-scraper
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/king-arthur-bench-knife
The first example I use to get dough out of bowls and mixers. It is very flexible and contours to the shape of bowl. The second example is stiffer and hard to bend at all. I tend to use it during the intermediate development stages, like when I am preparing for stretch and folds or dividing, because the texture of the plastic retains the lightest dusting of flour or droplets of water. I use the bench knife in my final shaping because it has the highest contact adhesion with the dough. It is very effective at developing the final tension we desire before proofing.
These are all personal preferences. I am sure everyone has their own.
Jim
Thanks, mine is fairly similar to the "heavy duty dough scraper". I use it to gather the dough in one place after tipping it onto the bench. The actual shaping step, I seem to struggle with. Will what's called "pre-rounding" / resting dough on the bench for a bit before shaping make shaping easier?
No matter what stage of development I am in my final step is creating dough tension. If I dump the dough onto the bench for a series of stretch and folds my last step will be to shape and "drag" the dough across the bench. If done successfully all of the irregularities in the surface of the dough will begin to disappear because I am creating surface tension with every shape and drag exercise. This surface tension helps to develop gluten and it also makes the next handling exercise easier.
Whether it is stretch and folds, dividing and resting, or final shaping, my last step is to create tension. The proper tool helps a lot in this process.
Jim
Thanks for the encouragement. Problem with videos is that they make it look so easy! I've also read that European flours are less absorbent than North American flours and that you need to use less water. I don't know how much of the difficulty when shaping is due to my lack of experience and how much of it is due to dough being wetter than it should be.
To get the same dough consistency drop the hydration by 5% if using European flour. It's always wise to do so even if not using European flour just until ones skill level improves. Then slowly increase the hydration. Now just because European flour needs less water there is no exact hydration level for any flour. There will always be a range. At some point it'll be too low and it'll be very dense. At the other end of the scale at some point it'll be too high for the flour to absorb. But there will be a range in between. Doing the hydration called for in a north American recipe with European flour will test ones skill level more but is by no means impossible. But as I said before to drop it about 5% should give you a good feel for the hydration called for on the recipe.
like no more than 65%. The dough will be firmer, which will make handling and shaping considerably easier to learn.
High hydration doughs are a challenge for anyone but the most experienced baker. Do a bunch of loaves at 65% and then gradually work to a higher hydration. This will also give you a better understanding of the flour you use and what it's hydration tolerance is. IMO, it's always easier to add water to a very dry dough than to add flour to a very wet one.
I agree too; I've got quite a lot of experience but have re-calculated some of the FWSY formulas to have a hydration level between 72% and 74%. Easier to handle and the bread still turns out lovely. A 1:2:3 sourdough (1 part starter, 2 parts water and 3 parts flour) will give you an overall hydration level of around 71% if you use a 100% hydration starter. That might be a good one to try to see how well you can handle it. Oh, and don't forget the 2% salt. :)
And yes, letting the dough rest on the bench for ten to twenty minutes will generally make it easier to handle. I also probably use a bit more flour on my bench than Forkish does, but then I don't have a wooden bench, but rather a regular kitchen counter surface which is a little shinier and 'stickier'.
As a rule, reduce all of this time recommendations.. most people find that if you follow his time guidelines the breads can be a bit over fermented and structure is lost, also making them hard to shape as a result..
I went to a local baking course (by Claus Meyer) and there we baked a 25% whole grain (Ølands Wheat) and 75% white flour sourdough bread with almost 90% hydration. This was really interesting, since the recipe doesn't really involve any shaping or final proofing.
The process is as follows:
1. Mix all the ingredients (25% whole grain, 75% white flour, 7.5% starter, 1% fresh yeast, 2.5% salt, 87.5% water)
2. Do a series for stretch and folds over the course of 3 hours (about 6-7) until you pass the gluten window test.
3. Put the dough in the fridge for 12-24h
4. Take it out of the fridge 1h before baking to bring it up to temperature.
5. Put the dough onto heavily floured bench, fold it in half, loosely shape using a bench knife and put it in a warm baking stone/tray.
A video of the final step can be seen here (some text in Danish)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tefH_iPQKA4
This really gave very good tasting results.