Stress is good
A while back I stumbled upon this paper in the ‘Journal of Food Science’. It deals with the so called ‘salt-stressed yeast’ method and it concludes:
“The effect of salt-stressed Baker’s yeast in bread making process was investigated. Not only shorter fermentation time but also softer bread, and significant sensory properties for aroma, taste, and overall acceptability were obtained. It was concluded that salt-stressed Baker’s yeast had significantly improved bread quality.”
Some more articles about this technique here, here, and here . And a short discussion also here at TFL few years back.
Although the technique points to improving sweet doughs, I was intrigued to test it in a lean dough (fwys). This is my version of the method having tweaked a few things:
MIX1: 50g water ; 4g instant dry yeast ; 4g flour
MIX2: 50g water ; 8g salt
Mix1 was left to stand at ~26C for 15 minutes to wakeup yeasts and enzymes. Then Mix2 (8% brine) was added and left at roughly the same temp for 45 minutes to do its thing (plasmolysis wow!) After 1 hour total a dough like below was formed and standard straight-dough methods followed until bake.
DOUGH: 200g flour ; 100g water ; 58g salt-yeast mix
End of bulk Out of the oven
Very airy and fluffy
Very crispy
Miscellaneous Comments
Stress proves to be a good thing, especially if applied to others (yeast in this case).
Once dough is mixed, things are set on fire. Vigorous and fast fermentation, dough feels like rushing to go into the oven.
Improved crump softness/fluffiness and structure, increased crispiness of the crust and dough behavior overall.
Increased bread volume, ‘we have lift-off’.
Slight taste improvement. Better so if left to cool down for 3-5 hours before slicing.
Very simple method to implement, ready within an hour.
Sounds ideal for panettone or even ciabatta and baguettes.
What will happen if a sourdough levain is stressed, who knows….
Nostalgia Time
Vintage photo of me+mom (not in life). Memories of freshly baked warm bread aromas from nearby bakery, loaf slicing and tearing crackling sounds and gentle sour-yeasty notes still endure decades later since that photo was taken. A whole loaf of that bread was never enough nor will it ever be.
Savvas
Are you sure this awesome loaf of bread is a result of a special prepped yeast or of a very skilled bread baker? It seems like however you prep a dough the result would still be decisively great. Good vintage pic, I have a lot of them as well. Cheers my friend!
Wow! Another cool experiment. You come up with such great ideas! I'll enjoy experimenting with this.
Nice picture.
My first attempt is looking like a failure. More evidence for Ming's theory that it has more to do with the skill of the baker than the method...
I followed the plan at My German Table with 3.6 grams of salt, 36 grams of water, and 2 grams of yeast left overnight. I mixed the dough this morning and it is going very slowly. Much slower than usual.
I'm guessing the rise I am seeing is from the yeast in my FLAS starter rather than the stressed yeast.
I'm going to wait it out but I'm not optimistic about this loaf.
I now have a copy of the paper (no idea why I couldn't get it from my library yesterday) and see that I should have followed the plan suggested here.
Today's loaf is WAY too acidic for me. The pH of 4.1 is consistent with its short stature and slow rise. Thankfully these tiny loaves aren't too much of a loss.
Tomorrow is another day.
In the journal paper in the paragraph Traditional straight dough process they say
The phrase "2.5 folds more than" is strange to me. Do they mean 2.5 times the original volume? I could interpret it as 3.5 times (2.5 times plus the original). Or I could interpret to mean some other "fold based" measure that I know nothing about. Maybe a fold is related to a furlong? ;-)
I'm guessing it doesn't matter but it tweaked my curiosity.
The way I interpret it is that they mean an increase in volume of 150% i.e., the dough acquires additional volume to the original by one and a half times. From 1 it becomes 2.5
It is very common in bread recipes to read the expression 'double in size/volume'. This is a very vague statement to say that x becomes 2x (the meaning of 100% increase).
But I wouldn't stick to that. Just end the bulk the way you usually do and it should be ok.
(plasmolysis) I had to look that one up and the definition was way over my head. You certainly are a wizard with a small loaf pan. Your breads are a sight to behold and your methods are fascinating. The only recipe I can think of that is similar is a strict traditional Neapolitan pizza crust recipe that starts with dissolving the salt and yeast and adding the flour in increments. I assumed it was done that way to strengthen the gluten in weaker flour but maybe it’s plasmolysis!?
I have stressed my share of sourdough levains and not much happened unfortunately.
Thanks for sharing your concoctions.
Don
I followed the plan from the paper, tweaking my usual recipe to match their parameters. Mine differed from theirs in:
As reported by Savvas, it rose super fast; 40 minutes from 380 to 800 ml at RT=77F. It filled the 1 liter pan in another 42 minutes. It baked in 40 minutes at 325F convection starting from a cold oven. The loaf is 5.5 inches tall and has great color.
I'll let it cool before tasting.
Message me if you'd like a copy of the paper.
The taste is good. I expected it to be noticeably sweeter with 16% malt extract but it seems about the same as usual. I'm old and nothing tastes as good as I remember...
The crumb is nicely soft but strong. A thin slice holds up well. Very nice malty aroma.
Did not find a huge difference with whole wheat sourdough, I kept approx. 50 gm of sourdough starter for around 1 hour with around 190 gm water, you can try keeping it for longer time.