Hello
I'm new to spiral mixers. First test run with the sunmix:
room temp 19c
15% bread flour, new flour to me never used it before
1kg flour, 550g water, bassinage tried to get to 700 but did not make it all the way
23g salt
pinch of idy near end of mixing
45 minute autolyse with the 500-550g water at 500 rpm 3 minutes, then covered bowl
after the autolyse and started mixing at low, the dough came together pretty well. pumpkin was beginning to form. i started bassinage slow, pumpkin reformed.
Then the problems....
each successive water addition created more and more problems, sticky dough, dough riding up hook, dough ball split into one small piece that kept rotating and not combining with the larger mass. large mass of dough wrapped around hook. i probed temp at 23c, it rose from there i think to 25/26 by the very end. most of the way i had speed at 70, raised to 100/120 a few times.
after 25 minutes i started adding flour to try to get rid of the stickiness, helped a bit but not enough. gave up at around this time.
it was a bit difficult getting all the dough out as it was still sticky.
cleaning was huge pita
room temp overnight proof in closed oven
dough rose crazily high, most i've ever seen, however not sure it was overproofed since the flour is so strong. will know soon enough
and the dough actually is quite nice, holds shape, but i lost a lot of the volume during pre-shape
my suspicions
- new dough, needs a very long autolyse, 45 minutes did not cut it.
- temps got too high during mixing
- maybe should have done another long rest in the middle of mixing to help hydrate
i think i will retry similar procedure with flours i've worked with before but longer autolyse and much lower water dosing during bassinage and only add more if there is a good pumpkin. i probably added too much too soon at some points before the pumpkin was formed well.
will try weaker flour
colder water from fridge, not tap
ice cubes ok? or will destroy
also want to try 100% whole wheat but i'm a bit nervous to create another cleaning disaster.
thx in advance
It would help any diagnosis of your problem if you gave full details of your recipe and also the flour you used.
For instance does 15% bread flour mean that 15% of the flour was bread flour or do you mean 15% protein? and is that 15% measured on the US/Canadian sytem or European?
And you talk of mixing the autolyse for 3 mins at 500rpm - is that speed even possible in your mixer?
As a basic method, I would say to do your autolyse at 66% hydration. Put water in mixer first, then add flour. About 3-4mins at 100rpm should have it all mixed in. Cover and autolyse for 30mins.
Then add levain or yeast (not sure what you are using), mix in at 100rpm for 3mins. Add salt, mix in at 100rpm for 3 mins.
Now mix at 200rpm for 1.5mins, rest 2 mins, 200rpm for 2 mins trickle in bassinage for the last minute to get up to a hydration of, say, 72%.
Always worth checking your dough strength by windowpane while you are learning the mixer.
In bowl rest, covered for 10mins, then dough out and onto bulk. Aim for a dough temp of 24-26C.
Lance
Thank you for the response.
500rpm was a typo, it should have read 50rpm.
15% protein european.
I find many of the local flours i'm buying are not accurate whatsoever in their protein listing.
However this one may have been accurate since it was extremely sticky.
Your method is in the ballpark of what I have read.
I'm going to chalk up the failure to either flour or a user error in measurements.
I can test this in the future by adding gluten to weaker bread flour and see if this causes the same issues.
My second attempt was with 100% whole wheat flour
1kg whole wheat
2.5g fresh yeast
25g sea salt
73% hydration
similar method as first post, but 90 minute autolyse in mixer bowl covered , ~600g water
The rest of mixing worked well, no crazy sticking or overhydration, easy clean, etc
I'm going to avoid the bread flour I used in first post.
The whole wheat dough went straight into fridge for long bulk. Shooting for 3-5 days.
Do you have any tips for high hydration whole wheat in the spiral?
i.e. for this whole wheat it seemed to pumpkin nicely, dough was not sticky, and then the last 3% of water caused slight stickiness, not terrible at all, but I was afraid of overmixing and pulled it perhaps too early.
Also, in your experience can you mix for an extended period of time to build gluten strength vs no or a shorter autolyse, or does autolyse trump mixing time?
I have seen some recipes that look excellent using overnight autolyse and then hardly any mixing the next day.
Well, 15% protein bread flour is about as strong as it gets, often found as Manitoba flour (but not necessarily from Manitoba). Normally it absorbs water pretty well and is good for at least 70% - and often more.
So I am surprised that you are struggling with it at much lower hydrations - what is the brand name?
I am not an expert on 100% WW loaves, as I find them rather heavy. TFL member barryvabeach specialises in them and I think he uses a spiral mixer, so search through his posts, or maybe he will chip in here.
Regarding autolyses, I find 30-60 mins is fine for most doughs. I f you really want to do overnight ones, I would mix them with 4C water and store them at 4C, or you will be excessively degrading the gluten. And also consider the hassle of getting everything back up to DDT!
I think the main use of the autolyse is to hydrate the flour and with WW flour, I would probably sift off the bran and do a salted (2%) cold overnight soak with water weight 2x bran weight. Add this into your dough after gluten development so the bran doesn't cut the gluten strands and take account of the soaker water as part of your bassinage.
Lance
I've used caputo manitoba before, but not in the spiral. It mixed up very nicely and easily. The flour i used was some sort of local special wheat called king wheat. I'm going to try one or two of their other other products with a wary eye.
The whole wheat fermented ok, but it had the bitter taste that i'm in process of deciphering. Likely rancid flour. And I suspect a LOT of supermarket WW's are rancid.
So I'm trying caputo WW, and maybe consider getting a mill.
Did brioche yesterday for first time. Mixed up nicely. Maybe a bit dense after cooking but I can have fun tweaking that recipe.
I want to see if I can get something close to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK87F3EbSnU
but with yeast not sourdough and spiral.
Bran is known to give a bitter flavour, often offset by adding some kind of sweetener to the dough. White whole wheat is less bitter and a good candidate for a blend with red whole wheat. Unfortunately it is very hard to find in Europe. US, Canadian and Australian residents are very lucky to have it freely available.
There is one brand in the UK - Marriage's Golden Whole Wheat Bread Flour, of which I keep a stock, but no others.
Lance
Do you have any tips for high hydration whole wheat in the spiral?
I use winter white berries that I grind at home, so it may react differently than store bought flour. I autolyse 20 minutes, ( I usually use put the flour and water in the bowl, then use a spatula to mix, I am trying to avoid having parts of the dough dry on the spiral hook.)
I then add the starter and salt and run at low speed for about a minute, and then turn it up to medium speed for 9 to 10 minutes - I use a Famag, so not sure how that speed would compare on the Sunmix.
I then take out and cover and give it one set of stretch and folds after 20 minutes. If it seems strong, then into the proofing container. If it seems a bit slack, I wait and give it another set of stretch and folds after a second 20 or so minutes. If you include the starter in calculating hydration, I am at around 84%, and don't have a problem with stickiness. Just slightly tacky.
Progress with whole wheat
As suspected, I purchased Caputo WW flour (integrale) and it was excellent. No bitter or rancid tastes at all.
So it could be the storage methods of the local mills, different strain, or unknown. Caputo uses triticum aestivum.
I would be very curious if Barryvabeach a/b'd his home milled whole wheat against caputo.
The difference here from local store bought and caputo is more than night and day
Pizza dough is coming along. have a bunch of new flours still to test out.
I've never used Integrale, but I read that it is very finely ground, including the bran. This probably helps to give a lofty, good looking (at least to my eyes) loaf; flavour, of course, is something else.
Lance
it feels nicely fine ground, maybe not quite as fine as atta (indian stone ground) but nice. I think they leave some texture in there on purpose.
That reminds me to get a bag of atta to compare to everything above.
I could tell right away with the caputo before baking, flour smelled sweet in the bag. I remember atta had the same sweet smell last time I purchased.
Atta that I have used is a lot weaker than Integrale. I would blend it with stronger flour or you could add some VWG.
Atta also has more starch damage.
maybe i'm improving skills with the mixer
tried a batch of 13% protein casillo tipo 0 flour, 61/62 % hydration, .023% sea salt, inexact amount of idy maybe .2g
all water in
then flour
3-5 minute 50rpm mix to combine
1 hour autolyse
pumpkin seems to always form fast after autolyse, but there's no strength
salt and yeast in and a dash of water to help
2 sets of 3-4 minutes at 50 rpm, with 10 minute rests
dough still very weak. this is where i've run into issues before.
sometimes i'll add water, which i think is a mistake
or pull it too early thinking i've overworked the dough.
it's hard to tell if dough is over or underworked so i guessed under and cranked to 150 rpm for about 3-4 minutes and things came together well. nice pumpkin, decent strength but no windowpane. could have gone perhaps 2-10 minutes longer?
very easy release and clean.
overnight proof in plastic container inside oven
i think the next rounds will be trying to err to overmixing just to get a feel for it
these doughs are mainly for pizza. balled and frozen after bulk.
after a freeze and thaw usually it's a bit too slack so i'm trying to keep hydration lower
albacore: yes atta is weak. i'm not interested in rising it, it's for flat stuff. and i'd like to figure out how to make a very fine version of it at home.
I have found that a flour mix of 80% atta, 20% bread flour makes perfectly good loaves.
TomP
well i had a nice streak of successful doughs with strong bread flours
then i tried a 100% WW with caputo integrale
(note this flour is 8.5% fiber, less then most WW i've seen that are around 12%)
500g flour
370g water
12g sea salt
2g idy
flour and cold water combined by hand in bowl
6 hour autolyse in fridge
transferred to spiral 50 rpm 2 minutes
6 minutes 100rpm
things went south from here
dough was just not coming together
riding hook
smear of dough on bottom of spiral mixer bowl
i figured this would be a wash so i just guessed it was overhydrated and kept adding flour
estimation i added about 3/4 cup whole wheat
then it still was not coming to together and added another 1/4 cup of 13% protein caputo nuvola
cranked it to 300 rpm, just to get it to mix, temps got to 92f
this was just to get the dough to form so cleaning wouldnt be horrendous
overnight rise in container in oven, baked it up, not horrible, edible, too doughy in the center
Can someone point me to a good starting point for 100% whole wheat yeasted bread in a spiral.
Ideally, something similar to artisan long cold fridge ferment.
as of now i'm thinking maybe hand mixing is better, but i hope i'm wrong