The Bread Topic (2016–)

heidih · July 11, 2021

This is a big topic so may have been previously addressed. This article about mothers struck me. I have Nancy Silverton's directions but have not done it. So you guys mother? I am still no knead person but I want to branch out. I am more than cool with kneading but it has fit in my lifestyle. https://www.seriouseats.com/sourdough-starters-bakers-and-mothers

Matthew.Taylor · July 11, 2021

1 hour ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I haven't eaten all day, and they sure look pretty good to me!

If I may make suggestions, slash the loaves lengthwise, with about a third of each slash overlapping but not touching the previous slash. Also try to find a way to introduce steam in the oven at the beginning of the bake. Easy if you have a steam oven. Less so otherwise. However a bit of steam will make a big difference to the crust.

I did steam them. I had a small basin of water on the rack underneath them the whole time. The basin actually warmed up with the oven.

JoNorvelleWalker · July 11, 2021

45 minutes ago, Matthew.Taylor said:

I did steam them. I had a small basin of water on the rack underneath them the whole time. The basin actually warmed up with the oven.

I doubt the basin provided enough steam. Also one only wants steam for the first few minutes till the crust has set. The baguettes should finish in a dry oven.

JoNorvelleWalker · July 13, 2021

When I was in manufacturing there was a precept known as Just In Time Ordering. A component should never arrive before it is needed to be used. Tonight my new USA baguette pan was delivered 12 minutes before the end of bulk fermentation. Cutting it a little close.

But we are in new territory. This is the first time I’ve baked baguettes in the anova. I’ve promised to show everything: the good, the bad, and the wonky. Trying to shape three baguettes on a board marginally too small for one is definitely wonky.

I made a poor assumption. I figured since I was not baking on a baking steel I would not have to preheat the oven. Wrong. When I loaded the loaves the temperature dropped from 240C to 220C, and did not recover until the end of baking. I should go back to using my baking steel for thermal mass.

Nonetheless the bread was excellent. I don’t know why. Not anything I’d done.

paul o' vendange · July 14, 2021

On 7/10/2021 at 6:41 PM, Matthew.Taylor said:

Well, these aren’t the best looking pieces of bread I’ve ever made, but I’ll post them here anyway, in the hope to get some thoughts and advice. Clearly my skill with baguettes is still somewhat lacking.

I agree with JoNorvelle in every way - these look delicious and I'm sure they were. Baguettes are not easy - there are people I know who work entirely on them in the hopes of mastering their particular breads. Shaping can be difficult, scoring can be difficult to get down consistently, the crust and crumb - all things that take practice. Just some questions.

How hot are you baking? How much total time? What's your recipe? Do you have a means to introduce steam?

Edit: I see I've missed several posts - will go back over.

Steam isn't used during an entire bake (another miss. Sorry Jo. As JoNorvelle said). It is used to gelatinize starch granules at the dough surface which does several things. Gelatinization is nothing more than the uptake of moisture by starch granules, and when they swell so much they burst, they essentially increase the "skin" extensibility - this allows your dough to expand, and consequently also allows the alveoli, the holes in your crumb, to expand as well.

Secondly, it exposes those starches to saccharification, and during the "dry" phase of the bake, this leads to maillard reactions - the interaction between sugar and proteins that gives you a wonderful browned, crispy crust.

In order for this to happen, the moisture needs to be evaporated or vented in some way. As a general rule, and it's truly variable - and it depends on if we're talking rye or wheat breads - but for wheat breads, roughly 1/3 of the total bake time is given steam. The remainder is baked dry. For baguettes taking 25-30 minutes, you can steam 8-10 minutes, then the rest, dry.

Steam is the eternal challenge in home ovens, particularly gas ovens that vent for safety purposes. I want to make sure I'm not duplicating others' thoughts so will take a look above before going further.

Edited July 14, 2021 by paul o' vendange (log)

paul o' vendange · July 14, 2021

On 5/17/2021 at 11:58 PM, minas6907 said:

Here some bread from the previous months. When I got back into sourdough, I thought I'd be more into sprouted grains, but I'm having fun with inclusions in the basic tartine loaf.

1. Salt Cured Olive

2. Fig and Anise

3. Focaccia

4. Caramelized Shallot and Rosemary

5. Jalapeno and Smoked Cheddar

6. Raisin and Walnut

7. Marble Rye

8. Sesame

9. Chocolate (of course)

10 and 11. Baguette

I've definitely learned a few thing along the way. For example, the walnut raisin loaf was very dense, it didn't occur to me later that the raisins would suck up the moisture from the dough they are in, so shaping this one was a bit difficult. I made this one again, this time soaking the raisins overnight, it came out much better. Even so, that first loaf made for some good french toast.

Something else that I've narrowed down is a schedule for producing the loaves that doesn't impede other things I need to take care of. I'll mix the leaven the night before, make the dough in the morning and give it a few stretch and folds before I leave for work. Pull it from the fridge when I get home and give it about 1.5 hr on the counter, shape and put in the basket, wrap and back in the fridge, and bake the next morning.

As for the baguettes, those are the best ones I've made, but I'd like to get them a bit more defined. This was the recipe from Tartine Bread. I have a few adjustments I'll be making next time, the crumb is much tighter then I thought it would be, but I rushed the bread a little, so thats on my end.

Extraordinary baking! Beautiful bread!

minas6907 · July 14, 2021

5 minutes ago, paul o' vendange said:

Extraordinary baking! Beautiful bread!

Thank you very much!

weinoo · July 15, 2021

On 7/13/2021 at 3:32 AM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

When I was in manufacturing there was a precept known as Just In Time Ordering. A component should never arrive before it is needed to be used. Tonight my new USA baguette pan was delivered 12 minutes before the end of bulk fermentation. Cutting it a little close.

Your baguettes are quite lovely.

(When I was in manufacturing finance, this was how one or two of the companies I worked at did it. Kept those inventory levels practically non-existent.)

**ElsieD** · July 15, 2021

4 hours ago, weinoo said:

Your baguettes are quite lovely.

(When I was in manufacturing finance, this was how one or two of the companies I worked at did it. Kept those inventory levels practically non-existent.)

That's how our car dealer (Infinity) operates. We recently were told that a part we needed could take up to two months to arrive. It actually "only" took 3 1/2 weeks. We won't be buying another Infinity.

Duvel · July 15, 2021

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

That's how our car dealer (Infinity) operates. We recently were told that a part we needed could take up to two months to arrive. It actually "only" took 3 1/2 weeks. We won't be buying another Infinity.

Every company optimizes their supply chain, and if the customer is not willing to pay for holding certain items permanently in stock (think bound capital), manufacture (or assemble) to order is the way to go.

**ElsieD** · July 15, 2021

48 minutes ago, Duvel said:

Every company optimizes their supply chain, and if the customer is not willing to pay for holding certain items permanently in stock (think bound capital), manufacture (or assemble) to order is the way to go.

Yes, I know that, and I understand all that (I am a CPA). But inventories are cut too close to the bone when a car part can take up to 2 months to arrive.

AlaMoi · July 15, 2021

supply chains have been severely disrupted.

first problem

just about everything now comes from China.

then a shortage of shipping containers developed (how hard can it be to weld up new containers....ah, all the steel comes from....)

then covid took out factory workers, port/ dock workers, warehouse workers, truck drivers . . .

this has impacted anything coming from the Orient - not only from China.

the lesson that should be learned, but will not be learned, is that China can crash the US economy anytime it wants.

China does not need to fire a shot - just prohibit shipping stuff to USA.

'off shore' / made for the lowest cost / etc . . . . has it's drawbacks.

RandomCrap · July 19, 2021

Back on topic... I am having trouble transitioning from baking with commercial flour (usually KA bread flour) to milling my own flour. The taste is incomparably better, but the loaves themselves are still hit or miss. I am using the whole grain - no sifting to remove bran. I mill it 3 times to get it as fine as the commercial flour, then use it immediately. I've read that the flour makes better loaves after a day or two, but the nutritional content is better when fresh. I have had to increase the water content by approximately 15%. Here are some examples.

1. Baguettes made with sifted flour. Good, but I wish to master using the whole grain.

2. Whole grain Italian loaf. Again, tasted great but did not rise as desired. I did get the moisture right here, which helped.

3, 4. A few different recipes. The first used a poolish and the final dough ended up too dry. For the second one I made a biga and a soaker, letting each work for 24 hours. This approach shows promise. I did sift a bit of the bran out of the second one. Both of these were baked in a Dutch oven, the rest on a baking steel.

5. A sandwich loaf. I added extra gluten to this; it appears to help but I'd like to avoid that if I can. This loaf also has some oil added.

6. A boule made with 100% biga. Really difficult to get the dough mixed properly, and I find that a wet poolish is easier for me to work with. I made enough for 2 loaves, and refrigerated half of the dough for a few days. I probably should have baked it a bit darker.

7. Yesterday's bake - the other half of the dough from the previous session. Also a little light, IMHO. Both of these loaves had little to no oven spring. That's my main problem. The crumb is always very even and tastes great, but the loaf is quite dense.

I find that my best attempts typically have a poolish for flavor, and I soak the rest of the flour for a day to soften the bran and hydrate things. I like a high-hydration dough, and use stretch-and-fold to develop the gluten. My mixer is a KitchenAide wannabe - a Cuisinart mixer, and it simply does not do well with the dough hook. The hook is much smaller than a KA hook, and does not develop gluten. I have given up on using it. I use a dough whisk to mix things up initially, then hand manipulation, stretch-and-fold or similar techniques.

I'd like to use a leaven, but I gave up on feeding one a year ago or so. I am only baking for two, and a daily feeding for a once-a-week bake wasted a lot of flour. I'd like to get back into it eventually, as I love the flavor and the longer shelf life. Once I figure out how to get a consistent rise, I'll probably attack that problem once again.

Can anyone with familiarity with fresh-ground flour give me some tips? I have not found much on it on this forum, and every blog post or article I find glosses over the real differences and makes it seem like everything is just the same. In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're different.

Ann_T · July 19, 2021

June 15th was the last time I baked bread.

It was just too hot to bake and thankfully I did have some in the freezer.

For the last couple of weeks Moe had to settle for store bought bread. Thankfully one of our grocery stores carries bread from the Terra Bakery in Vancouver which we like.

Yesterday before leaving for work I started a biga.

Last night I made a batch of bread with just 1 additional gram of yeast. Autolyze, stretch and fold method and left it out overnight. Woke up at 2:00 AM and the dough was ready to go so I shaped six loaves and they were all out of the oven cooling by 5:00 AM. I made fatter loaves, rather than baguettes because Moe likes bigger slices for toast. A toast was all that he wanted for breakfast.

JoNorvelleWalker · July 27, 2021

paul o' vendange · July 27, 2021

1 minute ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

JoNorvelle, I'd love to see your bread but I'm not seeing an image on my end. Could just be me

Well, happy accidents. Amateur move with a dough scraper of all things, sliced my finger pretty good and I bled into my rye starter, so started over. Normally I mature the new starter fur for at least 10 days but this one was rocking, cleanly sour and leavening like a champ by morning of Day 5 so on the advice of an Austrian baker I exchange with, let er rip. I wanted a pretty neutral dough to test the rye levain, so did a 1-2-3- SD with 80% KA BF and 20% T110 from Central Milling. Really happy with the results. So happy, in fact, that I'm thinking of defaulting to liquid rye levain, even for many wheat breads. The initial 1-2-3, and just a redo with 25% (Baker's) walnuts. Both really tasty.

MAIN DOUGH Grams %

100% Whole Rye – testing new) starter 217 33.4%

Water 433.00 66.6%

BF 520.00 80.0%

T110 130.00 20.0%

Fine sea salt 15.00 2.3%

TOTAL WEIGHT (GRAMS) 1315 2.9

OVERALL DOUGH FORMULA

%

Water 541.50 71.4%

BF 520.00 67.2%

T110 130.00 16.8%

Whole Rye 108.50 14.0%

Fine sea salt 15.00 1.9%

TOTAL DOUGH 1315 2.9

PRE-FERMENT %

Levain Flour 109

Total Flour 759

PRE-FERMENT % 14.3%

Mixing

Initial Mixing

Autolyse 8:35-9:45

Mixing FF's; rest 25: FF's to “approaching windowpane.”

Dough Temp

Bulk Coil q 0:30 x 2 hrs; Q 1 hr after. Expect 3 hrs total.

Bench Folding

Scale & Pre-shape

Bench

Shape

Proof

Score

Bake

Notes

JoNorvelleWalker · July 27, 2021

11 minutes ago, paul o' vendange said:

JoNorvelle, I'd love to see your bread but I'm not seeing an image on my end. Could just be me

Well, happy accidents. Amateur move with a dough scraper of all things, sliced my finger pretty good and I bled into my rye starter, so started over. Normally I mature the new starter fur for at least 10 days but this one was rocking, cleanly sour and leavening like a champ by morning of Day 5 so on the advice of an Austrian baker I exchange with, let er rip. I wanted a pretty neutral dough to test the rye levain, so did a 1-2-3- SD with 80% KA BF and 20% T110 from Central Milling. Really happy with the results. So happy, in fact, that I'm thinking of defaulting to liquid rye levain, even for many wheat breads. The initial 1-2-3, and just a redo with 25% (Baker's) walnuts. Both really tasty.

MAIN DOUGH Grams %

100% Whole Rye – testing new) starter 217 33.4%

Water 433.00 66.6%

BF 520.00 80.0%

T110 130.00 20.0%

Fine sea salt 15.00 2.3%

TOTAL WEIGHT (GRAMS) 1315 2.9

OVERALL DOUGH FORMULA

%

Water 541.50 71.4%

BF 520.00 67.2%

T110 130.00 16.8%

Whole Rye 108.50 14.0%

Fine sea salt 15.00 1.9%

TOTAL DOUGH 1315 2.9

PRE-FERMENT %

Levain Flour 109

Total Flour 759

PRE-FERMENT % 14.3%

Mixing

Initial Mixing

Autolyse 8:35-9:45

Mixing FF's; rest 25: FF's to “approaching windowpane.”

Dough Temp

Bulk Coil q 0:30 x 2 hrs; Q 1 hr after. Expect 3 hrs total.

Bench Folding

Scale & Pre-shape

Bench

Shape

Proof

Score

Bake

Notes

Paul, this may help:

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/162930-welcome-to-46-post-technical-problems-here/?do=findComment&comment=2307635

If not, here is the baguette URL

http://tribade.org/Food/Bread07262021.jpg

I had a hemoglobin incident today:

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/146534-i-will-never-again-part-4/?do=findComment&comment=2307767

heidih · July 27, 2021

Hey the blood may have added a unique element Truly sorry for the pain. I was sucking blood off a finger earlier from a crummy grater incident Nice tzaziki though. Once I get my kitchen back I will enjoy playing with different flours.

Toliver · July 27, 2021

12 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Paul, this may help:

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/162930-welcome-to-46-post-technical-problems-here/?do=findComment&comment=2307635

If not, here is the baguette URL

http://tribade.org/Food/Bread07262021.jpg

I had a hemoglobin incident today:

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/146534-i-will-never-again-part-4/?do=findComment&comment=2307767

I'm with Paul...I also don't see the image unless I open the link.

The loaves look beautiful!

JoNorvelleWalker · July 27, 2021

7 minutes ago, Toliver said:

I'm with Paul...I also don't see the image unless I open the link.

The loaves look beautiful!

Which browser? If Edge, didn't my instructions work?

MokaPot · July 27, 2021

15 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I can see the images (3 loaves) without further clicking. Using Firefox.

blue_dolphin · July 27, 2021

24 minutes ago, MokaPot said:

I can see the images (3 loaves) without further clicking. Using Firefox.

Ditto that but with Safari.

heidih · July 27, 2021

23 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Ditto that but with Safari.

It shows in Chrome but only once. Oh well I saw her nice bags

paul o' vendange · July 27, 2021

16 hours ago, heidih said:

Hey the blood may have added a unique element Truly sorry for the pain. I was sucking blood off a finger earlier from a crummy grater incident Nice tzaziki though. Once I get my kitchen back I will enjoy playing with different flours.

An Austrian online baker friend - I think she was serious - said keep my rye starter. Nothing to worry about as the pH is too low for the survival of any blood cells and besides....great starter food! 😁

Toliver · July 27, 2021

4 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Which browser? If Edge, didn't my instructions work?

Chrome.

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