doronin

Any importance of a relative temperature between the parties (the cognac and the chocolate)?

You're right, although if the dough was more extensible, the gas cell membranes were thinner, cells larger, and there would be no skin issue. You know, it's a strange feeling when you try to stretch a ball of dough, and it tears instead... Doesn't happen to me often, perhaps something wrong with the flour. Now the question what extencibility depend on.... That sounds very convenient, time wise. Gonna try it, though it's kinda difficult to me to adopt this idea since all the books I read call to prolong, and prolong, and prolong... the fermentation time. As for autolyse - I used to consider it as a good aid for gluten development, given whole grain is limited in it... Do you suggest to drop it just as unnecessry stage, or 'cause it harms the process?

I had exactly the same problem when tried to prepare chocolate fondue... with Grand Marnier.

Funny, that was my first bread book, but I believe it actually slowed my progress in bread making significantly. Very confusing in explaining principles. I wish I bought Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice or Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes instead. Would save me a year or so...

Hi guys, Sorry for delay in responding to your posts, I was out for a while... One pan of dough consists of 400 g whole wheat (you bet, alanamoana ) with 80% hydration, which comes to... 320 g of water. I really expect it to fill my regular 5x9 pan pretty much... What can be defined as "too much rise"? Important: The final skin looks somewhat better if the dough was very wet, I'd think because even at final stage such a dough stays very sticky and as a result more extensible. If I go with 70% hydration or less, the resulting dough doesn't feel sticky, but it's not extensible at all - it tends to tear when stretched regardless of the mixing time. This makes me think that lack of extensibility is the root couse here - skin just doesn't hold when the loaf rises in volume. Well, it is overproved on the picture, but the holes appeared much earlier. Now, the details: Basically it's the same formula I used in the recent thread about the yeast behaviour, corrected as Dan advised there. Starter: 250g coarsely ground organic whole wheat 300g lukewarm water 1/4 tsp instant yeast stays at room (23 C) temperature for 8 hours, looks full of bubbles by then The dough: 550g coarsely ground organic whole wheat 340g of room temperature water *mixed with starter and leaved autolisys for 30 min 2 tsp salt added Mixed for 5-6 minutes. At 80% hydration dough looks very "all together" and stays on the hook, at higher hydration it rather stays in the bottom of the bowl. Bulk fermentation takes about 50 min - by then it rises somewhat (far from doubling). All this happens at room temperature, i.e. about 23C and not 30C. Divide/shape/go to the pans, where it stays for another 50 min - 1.25 h until rised to something resembling the loaf. Now, when I catch it at about 3/4 height of the pan and bake I do have ovenspring, but when I send the loaves to the oven I can clearly see how the skin breathes, i.e. gases inflate the skin, but almost immediately escape, so the loaf would rise much higher if I could hold them... It really depends on amount of the yeast. The Dan's advise not to use yeast straight in the dough - prepare starter with a little yeast, don't add more yeast afterwards made my life much easier, and dough stays alive for far longer then 1 hour. I'm pretty sure that the problem here is not with yeast, but with escaping gases. Exactly. This is my passion, to make a good bread without any use of white flour. Isn't it a worthy challenge?

This is a fully risen loaf on the picture, about 1.25 hours after shaping. I'm seriously concerned with its skin (or absent of such... notice the holes). The loaf stays pretty low, and doesn't have ovensring (even if I don't wait until it that risen) - in the oven it can be seen that surface "breathes" severily, i.e. gases intensively go out through the holes... Before it went to the pan it seemed to have nice and smooth surface. What's wrong happened with the loaf? There was no retarding.

RE: wet dough... Look into this thread, it has few very good points...

Hmm.. I feel we're drifting slightly off topic, but I just can't stop here How do you manage to avoid excessive picking up the raw flour from the workbench? What's true, with that hydration it doesn't rise high, I'd even say it stays pretty low. However my last two attempts produced quite thin webs, holes in range of 3-5mm, and quite pleasant taste. But, getting back to proving, I couldn't get the skin any tight, which might explain the resulting height. Shaping of wet wholemeal dough is still a problem for me...

That's interesting, may be the white flour from your preferment consealed the difference. I used wholemeal preferment. By the way, what flour did you use to flour the workbench? I tried both, and white flour coating seals the bread surface much better then wholemeal. The other thing is that I do it with +-90% hydration. I tryied adding rye, from 20 to 40%, but with yeast dough it doesn't seem to enchance the taste - I'd guess rye goes better with sourdough. And yes, it adds stickiness. Neither me Well, I used to taste local breads always when I travel, and I have to admit I know only one case of successful whole wheat boule, meaning that all the rest of very good 100% wholemeal breads I tasted were made in pans. That boule was Montignac Whole Wheat Sourdough of Montreal's Première Moisson bakery. But it was so unbelievably good for a whole wheat bread, that my unconscious still can't believe there was no either some 30-50% white flour, or some magic in the recipe - and I failed to get the list of ingredients. As for the crumb, I'd say either relatively fine, or irregular structure with small-n-medium sized holes. Whole grains are usually good in finer crumb. BTW whole grains - I tried to add whole grains a couple of times to my bread, but even after overnight soaking in initially hot water they were too hard... Should I have boiled them?

Well, now after you've read Peter Reinhart's BBA, I'd strongly recommend to get familiar with Dan Lepard's approach, here on eGullet - it may save you a lot of time.

Jack, With regards to your recent experiment with wholemeal boule, do you mind to share your impression from proving wholemeal dough? The skin it formed, was it just as the skin on the white flour loaf here? I mean, was it tight and springy, or fragile and sticky? I found behaviour of these two kinds of dough to differ a lot. Where white dough would be nice and supple, wholemeal one is still sticky and easy tearing, so I have difficulties to form a good skin during shaping without expelling most of the gas...

Well, I started to get some consistent results of my experiments with bread made of 100% coarse ground whole wheat flour using the flow suggested by Dan (with 90% hydration), now I'm posting the pictures. I baked it in a pan because something tells me that for this crust, color, and crumb texture "brick" shape suits better then the classic boule. On my next attempt I've got slighly more open texture (no pics), but really slightly. It's visibly overproofed, as it collapsed a little in the oven, but when I tried to bake it earlier, I had ovenspring, but bad crust, and dense and tasteless crumb. This one tastes exceptionally good for this kind of flour. Any ideas how to save the taste and crumb but get it higher?

Thanks Dan, I think I got the idea. I also would like to thank you for actually resolving the problem I opened this thread for - that was indeed the yeast exhausted, after I stopped adding the yeast into the dough in addition to a preferment, those undesirable effects have gone. I tried to work with very wet dough, and have to admit oiling the surface helps much better then flouring (flour is getting abserbed very quickly). I had troubles with shaping of such a dough into a boule: with little flour it sticks, with oil it moves too freely... Last time I increased the salt content from 2 to 3 tsp and water by 10%, which, I'd think, caused the dough to behave weird: during proof it didn't want to raise at all, even after 1.5 hours, but in oven it almost exploded. Perhaps I should have proofed it in warmer place... no idea.

Hello Dan, Do you mind to share the recipe of this amazing bread? Few years ago we had one local bakery that was making bread of a similar structure, but now they lost it - either recipe, or the baker, don't know. Anyways, I could never figure out (or to find in the books) the way to get that crumb... Thanks!! Dmitry.

You can live with the basic kit, but I went with upgraded. Couple more stones and a good ceramic steel worth the difference. The only way to sharpen better then Apex I'm aware of, is a traditional whet stone sharpening - for those who know to do it - I don't.

IMHO, if you're serious about your knives, APEX sharpening system is the (only) way to go. Yes, it's some more expensive, but does this kind of money really matters when you're investing once for many years? You just buy convenience and flexibility - and, less chance to damage your knives. I personally don't like Globals, but all my favorite knives are Japanese, from Hattori, Masahiro, and such.

Re: Adjustment for whole wheat flour Dan, Does it mean prolonged fermentation is impossible with whole wheat flour? I saw many great tasting breads made with 100% whole wheat flour (you know, those little organic bakeries), how could they possibly achieve that taste without long rise?

Dan, How would you modify your recipe if you were willing to make a bread with 70% or more of whole wheat flour? Thanks, Dmitry.

Thanks for the picture, Dan!

Dan, do I understand you correctly, you mean that leaving preferment overnight isn't a good practice as yeast left without food starts to produce alcohol and eventually dies? But overnight fermentation is usually recommended as a very convenient way to prolong fermentation to obtain better flavor?.. So, what's the right way to prolong fermentation?

Hi Dan, First thanks for your advice. I'm a weekend baker, so hope to try it in a few days. As for being presize - I'm trying, by measuring everything by weight. But yeast goes in so tiny amounts, so I'd need a special scale for that, which I just don't have. The "dry yeast" you mentioned - my understanding if I go with instant yeast, and not "active dry" one, I have to take 1/3 of the amount in your recipe, right? And, the last question, you don't add yeast to the dough, given that preferment at moment of mixing is in its most active state. But if I leave preferment overnight, most probably missing the peak moment, should I "refresh" it similar to sourdough, or add some additional yeast to the dough? Thanks a lot Dmitry

Hi Dan, I tried to play with it... As I don't have a scale with that level of precision, I have to measure the yeast in teaspoons. For 800 gr of flour I tried between 3/4 to 2 tsp of instant yeast, in total (meaning total of what was in preferment and the actual dough). Preferment gets pro rata amount of yeast (approximately), i.e. if my preferment made with 30% of flour by weight, it gets ~30% of yeast. The temperature is usually cold, but again, after all the mix warms up it rises well, the first time. Just filtered tap water, flour, yeast, and salt. I do "turns" by time, usually 50 min-1 hour, dough usually rises at least a little by then. I flatten it carefully, and do envelop fold. Then it goes back to rise again. I don't fully "degass" it. Thanks, Dmitry

Yeah, I know about ascorbic acid and diastatic malt. Byond the fact I have no way to get them where I live, I guess they affect the dough, usually positively, but my quest now is to find what damages yeast activity. I remember words of grandma of someone that some her yeast doughs do have trouble to tolerate more then one-two risings, she didn't know why of course. I still hope somebody in eGullet may have an idea what may cause yeast dough to be able to tolerate just one-two risings???

jsolomon, thanks, I'll try and report here. This is kinda strange... All "official" sources say that instant yeast is exactly the same culture, just "packaging" differs, and as a result - activation conditions: active dry has to be dissolved; instant goes directly into flour, but water is recommended to be warmer (the last I don't really follow). Proportions are also different as concentration of instant yeast is about 3 times higher then active dry. As for the rest there should be no difference...

Nothing unusual, I don't remember the exact percentage right now, but I used to take it from the good books, such us Bread Baker's Apprentice, and such. That's a good question. I used filtered tap water, and water where I live is more hard than soft. Hmm... Do you think this could be the reason?.. Another interesting thing is that the dynamics I described depend very little on amount of yeast I used. I use instant yeast, and on 800g flour I tried to add between ~3/4 to ~2 teaspoons of instant yeast, which resulted in very close low loafs. Timing varied, but insignificantly.