The Bread Topic (2016–)

[Ann_T]

46 minutes ago, PatrickT said:

 

@Ann_T Just want to verify: After your last set of stretch and folds, you refrigerated your dough for basically 72 hrs, allowed it to rest on the counter for an additional 8 before preshaping, shaping, final proofing and baking. Do I have that right? Would love to try this next time I make your recipe and see what happens. Your results are obviously undeniable! 😃

Yes.  That is what I do.  Anywhere from 24hrs  up to 96 hrs.   Unless I'm baking the same day.   Even then, with just 1 g of yeast it takes 6 to 8 hours to rise.  

 

I put three batches of dough, 500g of flour each in the fridge on Monday night.  One came out of the fridge Wednesday night and was left on the counter until Thursday morning. 

Another came out last night and was left out until after 4:00 AM this morning and I baked four baguettes. 

And the third batch, Matt took out of the fridge this morning to make pizza. Should be ready for him to use after 2:00 PM.

 

I will probably get two or three more batches into the fridge tonight so I have them there for when I want to bake again.   

I'm really happy with doing just 500g batches at a time now, rather than 1000g batches. 

 

 

This was today's bake. 

 

Edited August 26, 2022 by Ann_T (log)

[PatrickT]

42 minutes ago, Ann_T said:

I will probably get two or three more batches into the fridge tonight so I have them there for when I want to bake again.   

I'm really happy with doing just 500g batches at a time now, rather than 1000g batches.

Thank you! Definitely going to give this a try - and take another whack at scoring baguettes. 🤣 Really love the system you’ve landed on here. Sounds wonderfully simple and you always have something to bake when you want it. Genius! 😃

[Ann_T]

5 hours ago, PatrickT said:

Thank you! Definitely going to give this a try - and take another whack at scoring baguettes. 🤣 Really love the system you’ve landed on here. Sounds wonderfully simple and you always have something to bake when you want it. Genius! 😃

@PatrickT, one last loaf out of the last dough from Monday night. 

 

Matt took the last batch out of the fridge at 7:00 AM this morning and it sat on the counter all day until 3:30 PM. 

He divided it in half. Half for his pizza and enough left for a larger Baton.   

I let it rest for a while before the final shaping and it just came out of the oven just before 6:00 PM . 

So this dough had about 82 hours in the fridge. 

 

Handled beautifully for both the bread and Matt's pizza crust.   

[PatrickT]

1 hour ago, Ann_T said:

So this dough had about 82 hours in the fridge.

Amazing! 👍

[PatrickT]

20 hours ago, Ann_T said:

I'm really happy with doing just 500g batches at a time now

@Ann_T And how much salt are you using again - 3%?

[Ann_T]

13 minutes ago, PatrickT said:

@Ann_T And how much salt are you using again - 3%?

@PatrickT, I tend to use more salt that what most recipes suggest.  I like 13 to 15g in 500g of flour and up to 30g when I make a 1000g batch.    Most recipes call for around 21g in 1000g of flour.

 

 I sliced that 82hr fermentation loaf this morning.   Wonderful crumb, holey with lots of shine.

Made the best toast for breakfast. 

[PatrickT]

2 hours ago, Ann_T said:

Made the best toast for breakfast.

Mmmm… I could eat that all day. 🤣

 

And is Matt willing to share his process for making pizzas using your dough? Or perhaps he’s already done so elsewhere on eG? TIA!

[Ann_T]

1 hour ago, PatrickT said:

Mmmm… I could eat that all day. 🤣

 

And is Matt willing to share his process for making pizzas using your dough? Or perhaps he’s already done so elsewhere on eG? TIA!

Same process I use. 

[Shelby]

On 8/23/2022 at 2:46 PM, Ann_T said:

I've been freezing homemade bread for years. Nice to be able to pull a loaf/baguette out of the freezer. This was especially good the last couple of weeks when we were having 90 plus temperatures and didn't  want to turn on the oven.  I never have bread go moldy.

I, too, freeze my homemade bread.  Wrapped in saran and then put into a ziplock.

[Ann_T]

I started three more batches this morning  at 600 g of flour each all at 63% with 1g of yeast and 15g of salt.

After the last stretch and folds they are now in the fridge and will get used over the next four days. 

[PatrickT]

1 hour ago, Ann_T said:

After the last stretch and folds they are now in the fridge and will get used over the next four days.

Appreciate the pics! Would love to see a pic of how much they rise in those containers over the time they’re in the fridge.

[Ann_T]

2 hours ago, PatrickT said:

Appreciate the pics! Would love to see a pic of how much they rise in those containers over the time they’re in the fridge.

Will the pics over the next couple of days.

 

[PatrickT]

Over the weekend, we had dinner with my wife's former boss, Charlie, who is from Sicily. He was kind enough to share his family's recipe for Italian Country Bread, which is the simple and delicious yeasted bread he grew up on. I had a chance to bake it today and it turned out beautifully. It's a high hydration dough that required vigorous kneading, as well as 3 sets of stretches and folds over its 3-hour bulk fermentation. I did the final proof in a round cloche in the fridge for an hour and 15 minutes, scored it, then cold baked it covered in a 450 degree oven for 55 minutes. Ingredients appear below for anyone who would like to try it. I also included some pics of the initial dough at the beginning of bulk, a couple of pics after the 3 hour fermentation (!), the final loaf out of the oven, and the crumb. This is a pillowy, delicious, same day bread that I will definitely make again.

 

 

[dans]

On 8/29/2022 at 5:17 PM, PatrickT said:

Over the weekend, we had dinner with my wife's former boss, Charlie, who is from Sicily. He was kind enough to share his family's recipe for Italian Country Bread, which is the simple and delicious yeasted bread he grew up on. I had a chance to bake it today and it turned out beautifully. It's a high hydration dough that required vigorous kneading, as well as 3 sets of stretches and folds over its 3-hour bulk fermentation. I did the final proof in a round cloche in the fridge for an hour and 15 minutes, scored it, then cold baked it covered in a 450 degree oven for 55 minutes. Ingredients appear below for anyone who would like to try it. I also included some pics of the initial dough at the beginning of bulk, a couple of pics after the 3 hour fermentation (!), the final loaf out of the oven, and the crumb. This is a pillowy, delicious, same day bread that I will definitely make again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That looks great!  There was a local bakery that made something that looks like this.  They called it "Peasant White" and I've been trying to recreate it for ages.  I'm going to give this a try.

[PatrickT]

40 minutes ago, dans said:

That looks great!  There was a local bakery that made something that looks like this.  They called it "Peasant White" and I've been trying to recreate it for ages.  I'm going to give this a try.

Awesome! Let me know if you have any questions about it. Having just finished this loaf, I think you could significantly enhance the flavor using a small amount of yeast and a more extended proof, a la @Ann_T’s baguette dough. That said, it’s hard to knock a nice loaf you can turn out in just a few hours. 😃

[Ann_T]

On 8/28/2022 at 10:25 AM, PatrickT said:

Appreciate the pics! Would love to see a pic of how much they rise in those containers over the time they’re in the fridge.

 @PatrickT, Took photos last night and this morning of the first batch out of the fridge and did a blog post.

 

You can find it here -  Pictorial - Cold Fermentation

 

Today's bake.

 

[PatrickT]

8 minutes ago, Ann_T said:

Took photos last night and this morning of the first batch out of the fridge and did a blog post.

SO awesome @Ann_T - thank you! 😃🙏 Love the pre-shape, final shape and scoring pics too. Definitely going to try this next time I make your recipe. I appreciate all the extra effort!

[PatrickT]

Well - it was bound to happen sometime for this novice bread baker: I broke my first dough today by over-kneading it in my Ankarsrum mixer. Up to this point, if anything, I’ve erred on under-developing the gluten on some of my doughs, so this turn of events really took me by surprise. It was definitely educational to see what over-worked dough actually looks and feels like. Quite the sticky, stringy mess!

 

On the one hand, I’m glad it happened. I’ll certainly be much more cautious and aware of what to watch for in the future. On the other hand, I really wish it hadn’t happened. The dough I was kneading included an 8-day starter/sponge… which actually required TWO attempts for me to successfully make it! Ugh. Third time’s the charm?? 🤣

[Ann_T]

PatrickT, If you haven't thrown it out, I would be tempted to give it a cold fermentation for 24 hours and take it from there.

 

I looked up what an overworked dough feels like and the description is different than your "sticky stringy mess".

"Signs of Over Kneading

The first thing you will notice when you over knead a dough is that it will feel very dense and stiff. It will be hard to press the dough down and flatten it on the counter. It will also be hard to knead by hand and resist being re shaped. The dough will likely rip easily rather than stretch when pulled.

These are all indicators that the dough has developed too much gluten, causing the dough to be overly firm. When the gluten has been over developed due to too much kneading, it will be tight and have almost no give."

[lemniscate]

25 minutes ago, PatrickT said:

Quite the sticky, stringy mess!

The description sounds more like underworked.  Bob's Red Mill explanations.

 

A few signs of under-kneaded dough is a dough that is:

• Floppy and loose
• Tears easily
• Has a "shaggy" look

 

 

For a simple way to tell if your dough has been over-kneaded, check for these signs of over-kneaded dough.

• Dense and stiff
• Hard to flatten out
• Hard to knead by hand
• Resist being reshaped
• Tears easily when stretched

[PatrickT]

Great resources @Ann_T and @lemniscate - thank you for that. I must have had this exactly backwards in my mind. The reason I thought I had overworked it was that it seemed to pass a state of “pretty well formed” before it seemed to come undone and lose its structure. I’ll keep a better eye on this process going forward and will stop more frequently to test the elasticity and extensibility when using my mixer for kneading. 
 

Thanks again for your responses!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

6 hours ago, PatrickT said:

Well - it was bound to happen sometime for this novice bread baker: I broke my first dough today by over-kneading it in my Ankarsrum mixer. Up to this point, if anything, I’ve erred on under-developing the gluten on some of my doughs, so this turn of events really took me by surprise. It was definitely educational to see what over-worked dough actually looks and feels like. Quite the sticky, stringy mess!

 

On the one hand, I’m glad it happened. I’ll certainly be much more cautious and aware of what to watch for in the future. On the other hand, I really wish it hadn’t happened. The dough I was kneading included an 8-day starter/sponge… which actually required TWO attempts for me to successfully make it! Ugh. Third time’s the charm?? 🤣

 

@PatrickT I agree with your description of over kneaded dough.  Matches the photographs of weeping, stringy, over mixed dough in Modernist Bread.  Over mixed is not to be confused with over proofed.

 

But if I may ask, how did you achieve this in the Ankarsrum?

 

[PatrickT]

18 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I agree with your description of over kneaded dough.

@JoNorvelleWalker Thanks - I was certain I remembered something similar in one of the sources I read quite a while back, too. I’ll try to track that down. 
 

The situation occurred using the dough roller on the Ank and kneading the dough fairly vigorously (about the 5:00 position on the right dial) for maybe 15-20 minutes in all. Ironically, I stumbled across a YouTube video this afternoon that shows what my dough looked like at the point I thought I had ruined it. Take a look at the consistency of the dough at the 6:50 minute mark in the video below. That’s exactly the way mine was (after an earlier point in the kneading process of being MUCH firmer and ball shaped, but failing the windowpane test - hence my thought that I had simply gone too far).

 

 

 

This is actually a really fascinating video that seems to debunk the “over-kneading” concept - at least for a high hydration dough. Either way, I should have hung in there a while longer to see what would develop after allowing the dough to rest or giving it an overnight fermentation, as @Ann_T suggested. Good learning opportunity for me! 

 

Thanks again, everyone, for your comments and discussion. Much appreciated. 🙏

[Ann_T]

@PatrickT, Took the second batch of Sunday's dough out of the fridge last night at 8:00 PM.  96 hour fermentation.

 

Preshaped in to 5 small boules just before 4:30 AM.   Finished shaping just before 5:00 AM.  Ready to go into the oven just after 6:00 AM.

Sliced this morning for Moe's breakfast. 

 

Matt just took the third batch of out fridge and it will be ready around 4:00 PM for him to make a pizza.

He will use half and when I get home from work, I will bake either a baguette or another boule. 

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Ann_T (log)

[PatrickT]

16 minutes ago, Ann_T said:

Sliced this morning for Moe's breakfast.

Those are little art works. 😍 Beautiful!