Problem with Spring in Baguettes
Hi wonderful people!
I've been having some difficulty with getting baguettes to rise in the oven. I'm very happy with the taste and fermentation (which you can see in the photos), but they're still coming out flat. Below is a brief overview of my process.
(Hand-mixed):
Levain 1:1:1, 3 hours at 80F.
Autolyse for 2 hours (just flour and water)
Mix in levain and salt. Bulk for approximately 3.5 hours, coil folds every 30 minutes for the first 2 hours.
Cold ferment overnight.
Next morning, preshape and shape straight from fridge. Proof en couche for about 1-1.5 hours. Bake. I'm baking in mt new RackMaster RM2020, which is an absolute beast and works wonderful.
What could be the problem with spring here? Do I have to look into shaping more tightly, for example more pinching or tighter folding? Or might I be proofing too long and would best bake straight from the fridge without a final proof?
Here are the links to the images (apologies, couldn't upload to the forum):
Hi Matt,
My own recent experiment with sourdough baguettes didn't have a usual amount of oven spring either but then I did overferment them by ~25% (simply through absentmindedness!).
Beyond needing to get to (better) grips with sourdown baguette baking in general (and scoring specifically!), I did learn a few things while baking a dozen baguettes out of 4 doughs over 10 days recently.
The most pertinent here is that I found that, while dividing straight from the fridge was great, pre-shaping cold was not. For what I was doing, I was taking one portion of dough per day.
My process was:
However, pre-shaping the dough cold in an earlier test was not great - for me. The problem was that I found the dough to lack the requisite extensibility for a decent, tight-ish pre-shape.
Whether this actually matters or not is another question and perhaps I will test this in another experiment but once I'd started that way in my recent testing I was obliged to continue as it would have been a poor experiment otherwise!
And of course, your baguettes look fantastic. Perhaps I shall move to your single long score as that gives an agreeably rustic look. (And, after a dozen baguettes with poor 'regulation' scoring, maybe I should just do something different!)
Dan.
Hi Matt, you don’t say what the flour composition of your dough is. If it is mostly white, then 2 hour autolyse is more than necessary. Depending on your room temperature, I think what you might want to do is reduce the final proof en couche. I suspect that is causing a relative overfermentation and leading to your issue with rise. During the baguette Community Bake we did last summer, we found that baguettes that are a bit over fermented will be flatter and have less ears while having great crumb. I found that using an aliquot jar was handy, I needed to get my baguettes in the oven by a rise of only 30% by aliquot jar, my kitchen would have to be super cold for them to get into the oven with a 30% rise having a 1-1.5 hour final proof.
Benny
Hi all!
I've tried baguettes again with much better results!
Photos: https://imgur.com/a/ecS7Oyd
First, I lengthened the bulk to 5-5.5 hours, then cold proof in the fridge. The next morning I preshaped from cold, 30 mins rest, and baked only 15 minutes after final shaping. I think with a longer bulk, and a shorter final proof, you're getting the best of both worlds: amazing fermentation, but also enough spring with a still-cold dough. Although they were slightly difficult to shape when cold.
My flour composition is 70% Strong Canadian White, 20% semolina, 10% strong whole-wheat.
Nice improvement Matt, you must be happy with that.