doronin
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Posts posted by doronin
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The Ultimate one... For me it's Hattory HD, just about any of them - I use HD-5 Santoku as my everyday knife and very happy with it.
As for the others
For "larger" work - 10" Masahiro MVB chef's...
For poultry and fish with bones and such: Fujiwara FKM Deba
And for nice fish slicing - Masahiro 270mm yanagiba
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How many degassing cycles a plain bread dough can normally tolerate in room temperature? (instant or active dry yeasts)
My understanding is that yeast grows stops when it consumes all the available sugars. After how much time may it be expected, considering the dough is being degassed and folded/turned from time to time?
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The milk powder sold by King Arthur is heat treated to deactivate the enzymes that can negatively affect yeast growth. Not sure how important is it...
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Actually, I did the final rise in a banneton in a fridge, and turned it onto the peel for a minute just to slash. But the dough was very wet, and after fridge there was some accoomulated humidity, so I perhaps should have put a very generous layer of semolina to make it slip. In fact, next time I just did it with parchment paper with no problems.
I use Silpat as non-stick surface for working with the dough (it sticks badly anyways), but don't bake on it as it acts as thermoinsulator, which is not very good for the bottom crust. There is another product similar to Silpat, but with tiny holes in it to pass the heat; this would be great, but I never seen them available.
Having a moist environment during baking also allows full ovenspring, which is also something that I find can be deadened a little by cooking bread straight from the fridge.I think you can either avoid retarding at all, or bake from the fridge, otherwise by the time the dough tempereture will come to a room temperature, dough will be overproved badly, so there will be no ovenspring at all.
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I tend to find that I get larger bubbles when the gluten structure is a little weaker than a normal dough and the air bubbles can merge (so don't overwork the dough)
That makes sense... I used relatively stiff "biga", and after autolysis of the remained flour had to mix them together well enough, which took considerable time, so I might overwork the dough a little.
It's interesting how to do a short mix after autolysis:
- add a yeast and mix a little
- add salt and mix a little
- during these stages I have to add biga in chunks
All this has to be mixed thoroughly, even without kneading in mind it'll be too long, and it seems that the dough will be overworked anyways...
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The problem is that where I work it's not customary to bring a lunch from home - we all eat in our lunch canteen, or in restaurants, and for some reason they have abslutely no idea about healthy eating.
Thinking about that, I was always wondering how Chinese generally manage to keep a good health having so much starch and sugar in every sauce, I don't mention that white rice... (I mean a real Chinese food, not a food court stuff). I tried to make Chinese stir fries with no starch and sugars - it doesn't come even close as good...
As for baking, I find a sort of relaxation in baking whole grain breads whenever I have time. I also don's see a big deal to make a cake from whole wheat with fructose - perhaps it won't be as fancy as the real thing, but it doesn't breaks the Method either. One just have to limit his fructose intake, as besides it's low GI, which is a good thing, it has also an ugly side in form of harming a cardiovascular system (just try to google for 'fructose').
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I'm a huge fan of the Method, and during my forst 6 month I lost almost 15 kg. It's so easy, I don't even call this a "diet". That period I lived in a walking distance from the office, so I could eat at home.
But then I moved, and lunch became a real problem. It's almost impossible to find the suitable food. The very concept of business lunch is problematic with its sandwiches, salads with inevitably "bad" seasonings, etc. Of course, restaurants offer more choice, but their timing is usually unreasonable - normally I can't allow to myself to speng 1.5 hours for lunch.
Has anyone found a solution for this problem?
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Hydration was about 75%, and the times were about 2 hours total of bulk fermentation (with two "turns" during that time); proofing was few hours in the fridge where time doesn't that matter; baked directly from the fridge.
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My first attempts to make a white bread (I used to use only whole grain flours) ended up as this:
Yes, its taste was good, a little sweet, wheaty flavour.
The shape is far from intended, as dough managed to stick to the peel while loading it to the oven, so I was have to lift it up by hands, inevitably damaging the shape (and yes, the peel was dusted with semolina).
The dough was very wet, about 75%, it was very difficult to handle.
My concern is about the crumb - while it's not bad at all, I'd be looking for bigger holes. My next attempt (no picture) with no shaping issues was higher, but with about the same density of crumb.
I remembered Dan Lepard's advise to start shaping just after a small bubbles become visible on a cut, i.e. not waiting while the volume will double, so I did. But it seems that this way I don't let the dough to develop those big holes... Or they're expected to develop during proofing?
Am I right that big holes mean lo-ong rise or lo-ong proof time?
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I happened to start my learning of making bread with this book as well, as far as I remember it didn't work well for me. I remember her foccacia recipe, there indeed was 20 minute mixing time, which sounds excessive, but theoretically might work, as (first) her dough was almost liquid, which increases mixing time significantly, and (second) she might use kind of flour that stands long mixing better then average.
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Is it possible to make it without cream at all? Let's say 70% chocolate, and some spirit?
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What is the right way to put an additions to the chocolate? I tried to put some Grand Marnier into the tempered chocolate, something strange happened to it, it kinda curdled immediatly, became hard and tasted strange. Re-tempering didn't help. Should I have added liqueur before tempering?
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I've got a set of good stainless bowls of 4 or 5 sizes - for general use, and a couple of glass bowls for special cases - some foods don't like steel. I favor steel more 'cause of storage and handling convenience - they're light, dishwasher safe, take no room in the storage by stacking inside of each other, and impossible to break.
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Jack, that is one amazing bread! I just feel an urge to take courage to start with sourdough...
Dense, poor rise, and a few large holes are symptoms of the bread being under-proved.How would you recommend to handle it if it happens - just leaving the dough for a few more hours doesn't always work as yeasts become exhausted after they consume all the available sugars?
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It's not like a Danish bread (well, of those I've seen in Canada), as it's not dense (I might be confused, but all "northern" breads I tried, including German, Danish, and others, were very moist but dense, even hard inside).
As for methods typical for "commercial" breads, it makes sense, though I'm doubt a little organic bakery would use the same methods as those making Wonder bread, and again, unlike most commercial bread this one was really tasty.
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In continuation of this topic... Recently, while visiting Montreal, I tasted some interesting bread from a little natural food store. It's fully organic 100% whole wheat and rye surdough, made in "brick" form, not high at all. What was interesting about it is its texture - crispy outside, very moist, even a little sticky, inside; crumb is soft, but not sponge like - if you slice it and poke the crumb it will almost fall apart in big (I mean big) crumbles. It's kinda friable inside. And, it's delicious!
In the list of ingredients there was just grain, salt, water - no milk, sugar, or shortenings and such, usually used to softer the crumb.
There must be some magic there - otherwise I cannot explain how could they do it. Do they have to describe all additions in Canada?
Any idea how to make such a bread using just... flour, salt and water?
My understanding it should come dense and not friable from those ingredients! -
piazzola, my initial kneading time (Kitchenaid 1-2 speeds) was 12 minutes, it was worse, so I started to get it down...
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Is it possible that the loaves are underbaked? 265C is perhaps a little hot. That would give a slightly moist, tough crumb. I would expect a loaf that size to take 40 mins or so to bake.
I lower the temp to 215-220 after 5 minutes. Also, 800g flour make 2 loaves, but I baked them about 50 min - may be they're just overbaked?
Otherwise I'm puzzled. You could try omitting the yeast, and lengthening the fermentation and proof times instead (4 hours and 2 hours is what I use at 30C). The slightly sourer environemnt will also soften the gluten.Omitting the yeast is a fresh idea
considering this is yeast-only bread - I still can't start with natural leavenings... -
Ok... 200g whole wheat flour goes to stiff preferment and sits on counter overnight and some more in the fridge.
600g the same flour, 500g water, some salt and a pinch of yeast are mixed, leaved for 15-20 min, then kneaded with preferment for about 6 minutes.
2-2.5 hours of bulk fermentation with turn/fold every hour, until I can see a network of little bubbles on a cut.
Divided in two, shaped, proofed ~75 min, slashed, and goes into the oven with a stone, pregeated to about 265 Celcius. Steam introduced by hot pan with a cup of boiling water.
Problem:
Baked bread is not very dense, though not very airy, but crumb in a slice is too tough on touch, too rubbery. As I tried to play with increasing/decreasing kneading time, I guess the dough might be not extensible enough .
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hmm... if you are using 100% wholegraon extraction you have other issues. The bran particles puncture the gas cells, so you will neverget as open as texture as with white flour. Also the apparent protein content will be higher - and the ash content will also be higher as much of the mineral content is inthe husk. How finely ground will also afect the character.
However I think you main problem is that wholemeal flours adsorb a lot more water. You might want to increase the water content to about 70% hydration, but you can tell by when the dough feels right to you.
Well, I'm just trying to do the best that can be done from 100% whole wheat.
As for water content, last time I ended up in 80% - it was very sticky, but not even close to "butter" feeling.
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Guys, it is difficult to me to apply 900 degrees Celcius to the flour in the store to figure out its ash content - and it's not printed on the package. Jack, I agree with you that it's generally irrelevant, assuming you have an access to the standard quality white flour - it's, at list, acceptable enough to produce a good bread. However, I'm using 100% whole grain wheat or rye, which is a problem by itself - it's much more difficult to make a good tasting and looking bread with such flours, thus I'm looking for additional tips and tricks that are just not usually necessary for white bread.
This is why I'm looking to know how to determine flour qualities, not using spectrum analysis of course. There are many kinds of flour, and some have consistently better extensibility then others. Why extensibility? Because amoung the available to me flours I chose an organic one with high (13.7%) protein. When mixing I see easely that gluten is forming quickly - even wet dough sits on the hook just after about 3 minutes. The problem is that bread comes very stiff (I mean stiff, not dence, i.e. it's hard even when airy). Then I read that high protein flours are actually lower in protein quality then low protein ones... So what I want to try is flour known as well extensible, the question is how to get one...
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Are there any general recommendations of how to determine the flour quality?
Let's say I'm looking for a flour that can make well extensible dough - what should I look on: brands, winter/spring/red/white kinds of wheat, color, smell, whatever else?
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Dan, thanks for so detailed answer.
I guess I have to see it - otherwise it's like trying to understand a dance explained in words...
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Just watch this videos here http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/ck_dm_baki...D_18996,00.html
Interesting, before rounding, she's kneading the dough so thoroughly that if there was some gas, it would be completelly expelled...
Yeast life cycle
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
First, thanks!
What are possible reasons that can stop/slow down yeast activity within 2-3 hours?
I question myself how can I know that it actually stopped - I don't, but the dough refuse to rise after the second degassing.
The room temperature I referred to is about 23-25C.