Bread Baking in Spain

[Jim Wills]

EG,

Recently, I spent two weeks in Javea, Spain, mostly on holiday, but also giving instruction on bread baking in a wood fired oven. That's what I've done extensively in North America for the last five years with few if any difficulties.

Before I left, I was alerted that real rising problems were being experienced using English Strong Flour imported into Spain, as well as "whole wheat" flour, also from the UK. Apparently, Spanish flours are of the "cake" variety. When I got there, I found that none of my formulas behaved as expected. High hydration ancienne baguette dough, one of my standbys, was simply unmanageable; didn't plan on pita.

The yeast on hand was SAF Gold IDY, which has always performed well. After several disasters, I added 25 percent more yeast for somewhat better results, but only somewhat.

Since then, the students there have been as much as doubling the amount of IDY with even better but not stellar results.

Would anyone have opionions on what was going on? The yeast was active; proofed it. The salt was Fleur de Sel. The water was from a mountain spring. The villa where the oven was located was about 700 feet above the Med. The air was only a bit salty, and the temps were in the seventies. My only conclusion is differences in the flours from here to there, but I'd welcome advice.

Thanks,

Jim Wills,

Mary G's Artisan Breads

[melamed]

EG,

Recently, I spent two weeks in Javea, Spain, mostly on holiday, but also giving instruction on bread baking in a wood fired oven.  That's what I've done extensively in North America for the last five years with few if any difficulties.

Before I left, I was alerted that real rising problems were being experienced using English Strong Flour imported into Spain, as well as "whole wheat" flour, also from the UK.  Apparently, Spanish flours are of the "cake" variety. When I got there, I found that none of my formulas behaved as expected.  High hydration ancienne baguette dough, one of my standbys, was simply unmanageable; didn't plan on pita.

The yeast on hand was SAF Gold IDY, which has always performed well.  After several disasters, I added 25 percent more yeast for somewhat better results, but only somewhat.

Since then, the students there have been as much as doubling the amount of IDY with even better but not stellar results.

Would anyone have opionions on what was going on?  The yeast was active; proofed it.  The salt was Fleur de Sel.  The water was from a mountain spring.  The villa where the oven was located was about 700 feet above the Med.  The air was only a bit salty, and the temps were in the seventies.  My only conclusion is differences in the flours from here to there, but I'd welcome advice.

Thanks,

Jim Wills,

Mary G's Artisan Breads

←

I can't help you but I had similar bad experience trying to use American cake recipes (such as the Cake Bible) in Israel. I assume that the flour is different, even after trying to use the exact ingredients. I had the same experience the other way around, when I made a simple butter cake in the US using an Israeli recipe it did not come out as expected. I am not sure how I can change the recipes to accommodate local flours without having to test it first.

[jackal10]

I doubt it was the flour, although you may have to adjust the hydration.

Was the water directly from the spring, or could it have been chlorinated?

[hansjoakim]

Could you be a bit more specific as to what went wrong? As mentioned already, you might have to adjust the hydration level considerably when you change the flours. Oftentimes, European flours do not absorb the same amount of liquid as the American counterparts.

[Jim Wills]

I doubt it was the flour, although you may have to adjust the hydration.

Was the water directly from the spring, or could it have been chlorinated?

←

Jackal,

The water was directly from the spring and definitely unchlorinated. I had to cut back on the water to get manageable doughs, but the real problem was very slow to no rise at all. Made pain de campagne using pate fermentee, a bread I commonly make here, but the rise was incredibly slow and the baked loaves had about half the volume/oven spring as usual. Still puzzling over it.

Jim

[Jim Wills]

Could you be a bit more specific as to what went wrong? As mentioned already, you might have to adjust the hydration level considerably when you change the flours. Oftentimes, European flours do not absorb the same amount of liquid as the American counterparts.

←

Hans,

It's a curious thing, this flour business. I routinely use Caputo Molino from Naples for pizza, and the dough responds best at a fairly high hydration level: 65 per cent. I did cut back on the water with the English flours, but the ancienne dough had no structure at all, very tough to get good gluten development, just puddled and did not rise. I'm still working through the variables, but I did stick with very lean formulas to reduce the overall number.

Jim

[jackal10]

I wonder if the yeast was not fresh then.

The things that might inhibit yeast include things like pollution with chlorine or the like, low temperature, high salt.

The flour might be exceptionally low in amylase, so not generate he sugars for the yeast. Some bread flours, such as the King Arthur SIr Galahd bread flour, have small amounts of diastic malt added to increase the amylase levels.

[Jim Wills]

I wonder if the yeast was not fresh then.

The things that might inhibit yeast include things like pollution with chlorine or the like, low temperature, high salt.

The flour might be exceptionally low in amylase, so not generate he sugars for the yeast. Some bread flours, such as the King Arthur SIr Galahd bread flour, have small amounts of diastic malt added to increase the amylase levels.

←

Jack,

I was a bit suspicious of the yeast's freshness, so I proofed a bit in warm water. It seemed to behave okay, not great, but okay. Commonly, I do use diastatic malt in small quantities in my bagel dough, but did not have any with me there. It's entirely possible the amylase levels were low, but I had no real way of verifying it. What I do know is that the rise was very poor. That takes me back to the yeast again.

Jim

[tino27]

Having not been to Spain myself, would it be too much of a stretch to assume that Spanish grocery stores stock fresher yeast that might be used to verify if it was the SAF that was the problem? You might be able to either rule out the yeast or narrow in on it as the culprit.

[dougal]

Jim, please forgive the obviousness of some of my points below, but Sherlock himself said something about eliminating the impossible so that what remained, however improbable, was a possible solution!

I recognise that you must have far greater expertise with a wood oven than any of us (quite possible exception Jackal10 ) are ever likely to lay claim to.

So, humbly, my thoughts.

Isn't SAF Gold the osmotolerant one?

Why would you choose to use it for non-sweet baking?

I seem to recall that it didn't show up too well in one back to back test with Red.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/9629/grea...-gold-smackdown

Gold isn't available in the UK that I know of.

Is it really available in Spain?

"Proofing" instant yeast really doesn't seem to me to show much. Ever! It really doesn't like it. That just ain't the way its designed to be handled.

However, what was this "English Strong Flour imported into Spain" ??? We don't actually produce much hard wheat anywhere in Europe, and most of the 'strong' flour is a blend incorporating some proportion of North American wheats.

What exactly was it? How was it supplied? And how old was it?

But even 'old' flour made from decent grain should still rise... (even if it doesn't taste so good!)

The Amylase activity (Falling Number) really should be OK in "Bread flour" from any reputable mill, but it can be a significant problem for those who try to begin with grain that they mill themselves.

The water. "Straight from a spring". Anyone ever check the mineralisation?

Javea is on the Costa Blanca. Its a limestone area. (The clue was in the word Blanca.)

http://books.google.com/books?id=rcXKBiIZa...num=5&ct=result

Anyway, water from a spring in a limestone area is likely to be very high indeed in Calcium. Super-'hard' water. I've no idea about other mineralisations.

I just wonder if that might not be a bit much for the osmotolerant yeast?

I simply don't know how any microbiology in the spring water might affect the yeast and the bread.

Naturally, the chill was taken off the cold spring water before it went anywhere near the yeast, wasn't it?

"Straight from the spring" tends to mean pretty chilly.

Instant yeasts do disperse in cold water, but the number of revived (ie live) yeast cells is said to be maximised by using water around blood heat for the dough-making - tested as for baby's bathwater.

Cold water makes for more dead yeast cells, even with instant.

Isn't the osmotolerant Gold slightly more delicate than ordinary Instants, like SAF Red?

And I really think we must be dealing with a lot of dead yeast cells - however they were caused.

Maybe from yeast transport, storage or handling. (Instants want very low humidity storage.) And the Spanish coast, even in Spring, is probably more humid than Toronto.

Maybe from technique (like the water temperature).

Or maybe from an interaction with something in the other ingredients. Heavy chlorination would be the usual suspect, but here, might it be excessive hardness and other mineralisation? And there's been no mention at all as yet of the salt being used.

Or just maybe its a combination of small contributions from more than one of these areas acting cumulatively, to produce a magnified final effect.

Apart from having fewer live cells (and hence slower rising), those dead yeast cells provide exactly the same "dough conditioner" as does 'deactivated yeast' - no surprise there!

But what 'conditioning' does it do? It makes the dough more extensible (easily stretchable) - making it relatively 'unmanageable' (somewhat as though the hydration was excessive) AND it weakens the gluten - so it can't hold a rise properly.

This will be familiar to those that have ever tried to use 'fresh' yeast after it has gone stale ... the dough offers less resistance to kneading and while rising very slowly seems all too ready to go 'over-proofed'. "Pitta bread" anyone?

So I'm tending towards blaming Glutathione from dead yeast cells. Even though I don't know how they got that way, it seems to me as though lots of them were dead in the dough.

Thats my 2 €uro cents worth!

Did you get any clues from talking to any of the local bakers?

Or pick up any interesting local ideas? Or products made with their very soft local flour?

[Jim Wills]

Jim, please forgive the obviousness of some of my points below, but Sherlock himself said something about eliminating the impossible so that what remained, however improbable, was a possible solution!

I recognise that you must have far greater expertise with a wood oven than any of us (quite possible exception Jackal10  ) are ever likely to lay claim to.

So, humbly, my thoughts.

Isn't SAF Gold the osmotolerant one?

Why would you choose to use it for non-sweet baking?

I seem to recall that it didn't show up too well in one back to back test with Red.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/9629/grea...-gold-smackdown

Gold isn't available in the UK that I know of.

Is it really available in Spain?

"Proofing" instant yeast really doesn't seem to me to show much. Ever! It really doesn't like it. That just ain't the way its designed to be handled.

However, what was this "English Strong Flour imported into Spain" ??? We don't actually produce much hard wheat anywhere in Europe, and most of the 'strong' flour is a blend incorporating some proportion of North American wheats.

What exactly was it? How was it supplied? And how old was it?

But even 'old' flour made from decent grain should still rise... (even if it doesn't taste so good!)

The Amylase activity (Falling Number) really should be OK in "Bread flour" from any reputable mill, but it can be a significant problem for those who try to begin with grain that they mill themselves. 

The water. "Straight from a spring". Anyone ever check the mineralisation?

Javea is on the Costa Blanca. Its a limestone area. (The clue was in the word Blanca.)

http://books.google.com/books?id=rcXKBiIZa...num=5&ct=result

Anyway, water from a spring in a limestone area is likely to be very high indeed in Calcium. Super-'hard' water. I've no idea about other mineralisations.

I just wonder if that might not be a bit much for the osmotolerant yeast?

I simply don't know how any microbiology in the spring water might affect the yeast and the bread.

Naturally, the chill was taken off the cold spring water before it went anywhere near the yeast, wasn't it?

"Straight from the spring" tends to mean pretty chilly.

Instant yeasts do disperse in cold water, but the number of revived (ie live) yeast cells is said to be maximised by using water around blood heat for the dough-making - tested as for baby's bathwater.

Cold water makes for more dead yeast cells, even with instant.

Isn't the osmotolerant Gold slightly more delicate than ordinary Instants, like SAF Red?

And I really think we must be dealing with a lot of dead yeast cells - however they were caused.

Maybe from yeast transport, storage or handling. (Instants want very low humidity storage.) And the Spanish coast, even in Spring, is probably more humid than Toronto.

Maybe from technique (like the water temperature).

Or maybe from an interaction with something in the other ingredients. Heavy chlorination would be the usual suspect, but here, might it be excessive hardness and other mineralisation? And there's been no mention at all as yet of the salt being used.

Or just maybe its a combination of small contributions from more than one of these areas acting cumulatively, to produce a magnified final effect.

Apart from having fewer live cells (and hence slower rising), those dead yeast cells provide exactly the same "dough conditioner" as does 'deactivated yeast' - no surprise there!

But what 'conditioning' does it do? It makes the dough more extensible (easily stretchable) - making it relatively 'unmanageable' (somewhat as though the hydration was excessive) AND it weakens the gluten - so it can't hold a rise properly.

This will be familiar to those that have ever tried to use 'fresh' yeast after it has gone stale ... the dough offers less resistance to kneading and while rising very slowly seems all too ready to go 'over-proofed'. "Pitta bread" anyone?

So I'm tending towards blaming Glutathione from dead yeast cells. Even though I don't know how they got that way, it seems to me as though lots of them were dead in the dough.

Thats my 2 €uro cents worth!

Did you get any clues from talking to any of the local bakers?

Or pick up any interesting local ideas? Or products made with their very soft local flour?

←

Dougal,

Thanks for taking all the time with this. Far as I know, the SAF Gold was bought from King Arthur and transported to Spain. I'm with you; I think there were a lot of dead cells in that yeast, and Glutathione was the culprit; the results were exactly as you describe. It would have been preferable to use fresh cake yeast from the local supermarket to continue with the variables, but I ran out of time, not wine. I did not see the actual vacuum pack, so no knowledge of the best before date.

I use SAF Gold here because it has a higher percentage of live cells per gram than any other I've used. Never had a problem using it with hearth breads (I've also used Red and Fleischman's), but the water here comes from a very deep artesian well in the nearby glacial morraine: high in trace minerals, fairly low in calcium. For the ancienne baguette, I chilled the water to 40F, a la Gosselin and Reinhart, before the overnight retardation. For the Campagnie, the water was at about room temp (70F), because the mixer on site was pretty good at generating a tad too much friction.

In the very large and quite glorious Art Deco market in Valencia, there were two types of baguette on offer: one was just called "baguette," okay but not stellar; the second was "Arteseano," for a bit more money, and it was really quite good, great crust. Language barriers prevented me from finding out more about ingredients and methods.

The strong flour was "Allinson Strong White Bread Flour," and I'll try to get the actual name of the whole wheat. It was so bran heavy that we sifted a lot of it out before use. The students have told me that they've been doubling the amount of yeast with better results. This tells me that the yeast is off. I never proof IDY, but I was suspicious and gave it a try. The salt was Fleur de Sel from Brittany.

My expertise is definitely in the area of wood fired baking--converting all sorts of recipes for use in that rather specialized environment--and much less in the chemistry part of the equation. The entire experience puzzled me greatly, because I've never experienced these results in North America, whether here in Ontario on the Jersey shore or Santa Barbara; hence the questions.

Thanks for your help, Sherlock, very instructive, valuable.

Jim

Edited April 1, 2009 by Jim Wills (log)

[dougal]

Jim - I'd think that "students" would be learning more with 'instant' yeast from the supermarket. But I doubt you'd easily find cake/compressed/fresh on retail sale. In the UK, I have been able to get it in home quanties (sometimes free) by asking for it specifically at some supermarket bakery counters. Its NEVER on display.

But I'd expect you could find a good 'instant' pretty easily.

To avoid a bread machine product (with lots of 'improvers') check the ingredients listing for the Europe-wide additive ID numbers.

Vitamin C and the ascorbates are E300 to 305 inclusive, and unobjectionable.

Sorbitan monostearate, the usual rehydrating agent for 'instants' is E491.

A battery of other stuff means its a bread machine product - so find a different one!

In the UK, the Instant that I can confidently point to is Dove's Farm.

http://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Doves...-Yeast/17257011

125g pack is just about £1 (about €1.10).

I've tasted (but not baked with) tap water in the Balearics which was supposedly at least partly artesian. And it tasted foul.

While at the supermarket, it might be worth picking up a couple of cheap 5 litre bottles of a 'plain' table mineral water (like a supermarket own-brand) to eliminate that variable for at least one test batch. "Natural" isn't always best!

Breton Fleur du Sel is excellent table salt, but maybe better reserved for topping some breads with. Its expensive, and I doubt anyone would detect it by taste within the bread!

However, the thing about 'grainy' salts is that they tend to dissolve slowly.

Hence, I think (and its only my opinion, no authorities to cite) that such salts are best pre-dissolved in the water before adding it to the dough. If you are wanting to delay salt addition, the way then is to grind it finely before adding it (so it dissolves faster).

My thinking here is that, as the relatively large crystals slowly dissolve in the dough, while they dissolve, each will be surrounded by a small but very strongly saline yeast-killing zone. It may not kill much yeast, but it'll probably zap some.

Dissolving the salt first means that there are no 'hot spots' where any yeast could encounter a high enough salt concentration to kill it.

Ordinary kitchen salt dissolves so readily that I don't think the effect is nearly so marked.

This is a small detail, but when you are struggling to preserve the yeast, pre-dissolving might make a worthwhile improvement - and it certainly cannot do any harm!

Added: about the flour. Allinson's is a respectable brand, up-market but mass market. You should have no quality control problems there.

Its not as though you were dealing with a "single estate" product which might vary from year to year.

Regarding the whole wheat, that's just what it is. Very very low extraction. Our retail whole wheat flours do tend to have quite large bran flakes. I've been sifting such stuff at home for a while, and I think that the tasty but lighter product after sifting is more like a French T80.

The only thing about such true whole wheat flours is their relatively short self-life before rancidity. Impressive distribution if it can be sold 'in date' in Spain!

Edited April 1, 2009 by dougal (log)