October 2, 2020 - 4:57pm
Baguette/hoagie bread
I have been using the same recipe for these loaves and whatever variations I make they always crack open on the sides. Please someone let me know what I may be doing wrong. Recipe is:
19 oz bread flour(I tried AP and a mix of AP/bread flour)
1 1/2 C water
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
Conventional oven 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes , water pan in oven for steam, spritzed with water before baking, rotated and spritzed with water again after ten minutes.
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Lots of surface tension and no scoring on the top of the dough. Try a few experiments with one long centered slash, along with baguette style slashes. There are lots of videos/tips on TFL on the baguette style slashing.
One tip is to use a sharp knife, make sure to wet the knife prior to each slash.
Thanks so much for the tips. I did score but likely not deep enough. Also, thanks for the wet knife tip. I will try that out.
state your entire process mix knead fold proof times temps??
Place yeast and warm water ~100 degrees in large mixing bowl. Let bloom
Add flour, I never add all at once to avoid dry dough. Once the dough is mostly combined I dump into table and knead adding more flour as it gets too sticky to knead. Knead ~7 minutes until I get it to spring back from a finger poke. Return to bowl with a light coating of oil and and a damp linen over the top. Then let rise roughly two hours. It was chilly in my apartment for this batch so probably 2hrs 15 mins in my turned off oven ~70 degrees.
Once dough has risen to doubled size, push all air out and divide into two equal pieces (yes I use a scale for this). Roll dough into balls and let rest 15 mins. Pat dough balls down into rectangular shapes and roll tightly into loaves. Continue to roll (like gnocchi) Until have an evenly shaped loaf. Sometimes the seam isn’t completely straight so it’s hard to get the whole seam on the bottom.
After loaves are shaped I sprinkled a little flour on top of loaves and put a damp linen over them and let raise about an hour or until doubled in the same ~70 degree oven. Once risen I scored about five slashes on a bias at roughly a 45 degree angle, probably not deep enough this time but the same thing happened when I did score deeper on the two previous batches.
Pregeat oven to 450 degrees with steam pan on bottom shelf and bread two racks above that. Baked in center of oven only two loaves at a time using a half sheet pan, so plenty of space. Spritz, bake 10 min, turn and spritz bake another 10 min. Rest dough on cooling rack until cooled to room temp.
try with less yeast. I use about 1tsp instant in mine I also do all mixing in the bowl and an increased hydration. Add all ingredients and bring together in shaggy mix place in oiled bowl. Four corner folds and a flip every 30 min for 90 min for a total of 3 Refrigerate for 1 hour( longer is fine) Take out divide in 2 rest covered for 20 minutes. Cold makes shaping easier Shape into baguette place on floured pan rise covered 45 minutes slash spray and bake 450 17-20 minutes spraying again at least one more time in the first 2 minutes. No stone Usually preheat the oven to 500 to make up for heat loss from additional spray just make sure to lower it or bake time will be shorter .Also you might look at this
https://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Metallic-Commercial-Non-Stick-Perforated/dp/B003YKGQWO/ref=pd_ybh_a_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=2YEPB0K4Y9RC10E4N0QG
Lot of variations available but I found this brand to retain non stick a lot longer and easier to clean.
When I’ve made the Bouabsa baguettes which use IDY, for 500 g of flour which is about the amount the OP used in his recipe, one uses only ¼ tsp of IDY. That formula is wonderful and creates a very open crumb and thin crisp crust. If you’re looking for a different recipe to try, this one comes hugely recommended by many who bake IDY baguettes on this site. Annis Bouabsa Baguettes Original Thread here.
Thank you so much I will try this method on my next batch. I appreciate the help.
2teaspoons diastatic malt powder
and deeper. Skip the second spritzing, it lets more heat and steam out of the oven than what is added. Looks like the crust set too soon or top skin was too dry when it went into the oven. Maybe the coils were still preheating baking the top crust too soon. Placement in oven could play a role. Lots of "could bees" so the more info you can provide the better. Could also be crouding the loaves in the oven. The loaf broke open where the skin is weak or soft during the oven spring. A crumb shot may help. If the bottoms of the loaves are pale, try getting more heat under the loaves...lower the shelf perhaps? For a first bake, i try to position the shelf so the top of the baked bread is dead center in the oven, then see how it bakes out. Your results can vary, but it's a good place to start.
If you change anything for the next bake, change only one thing at a time. I'd start with a longer deeper score first - cut just before going into the oven. .
Thank you very much I will try scoring deeper next batch! Also, yes the bottoms are rather pale maybe I should also lower the rack in the oven.
When you are shaping your baguettes, do you keep an eye on the seam? If that seam isn’t on the bottom when you place them in the oven they will blow out.
Are you scoring them, it is hard to tell from the photo you shared, but you may need to score a bit more deeply to get the baguette to bloom where you want it to instead of where it decides is the weakest spot.
If your oven steaming is sufficient, then opening the door to spritz with some water will cause more harm than good. There should still be steam being developed by your steam set up and you will release it and the spritz of water won’t be enough to compensate for that. For my baguettes, when I stop steaming after 13 mins and open the door, I get a good blast of steam when I open the door. For steaming I use a cast iron skillet and a Sylvia towel and it is quite effective.
Not sure if you’re interested or not, I just posted in my blog some videos of pre-shaping, shaping and scoring baguettes.
Benny
My seams always end up kind of twisted, I will try to keep them straighter and on the bottom next batch. And I did score, just not quite deep enough in this batch. Thank you for the pointers and I will check out your videos!