Baking with Myhrvold's "Modernist Bread: The Art and Science"

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Also each version was proofed the same:  fold after mixing, 45 minutes, fold, 45 more minutes, then division and shaping.

 

[JoaoBertinatti]

What do you guys think about freezing the third build of panettone recipe in 115g portions and using it again with 12g of instant dry yeast?

[JoaoBertinatti]

Did it. This is 650g in a 500g baking cup. I am sure that I prefere the one leavened just with sourdough, but this came alright . Addictions were chocolate White and Dark , candied Orange peel. Baked in cheap home oven 175° without stone to 95 internal temp 45' Plus 10' ventin.

 Candied Orange was my last hope for candied fruits as I don't have cherry in my country, and i didnt like as well! They proofed very fast at 28° room temp with osmotolerant yeast, i think i am gonna decrease next time to extend fermentation. My goal is to achieve biggg holes in Panettones.

[Chris Hennes]

On 11/8/2018 at 3:04 PM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Also each version was proofed the same:  fold after mixing, 45 minutes, fold, 45 more minutes, then division and shaping.

 

How different were the mixing times between the two?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

7 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:

 

How different were the mixing times between the two?

 

Similar, however I think the lower hydration dough mixes more easily in my KitchenAid.

 

I've also tried 1 kg batches and 1.5 kg batches.  The larger batches mix better but the end result of the bread texture is about the same.  I never did ascertain what KA speeds correspond to "low" and "medium".

 

[Kmanim]

I was wondering if anyone could provide me with some more info regarding vacuum autolysing/kneading/mixing.

I've only been able to read volume 4 through a former local library so I haven't been able to read their text in vol 3 on their vacuum technique beyond what was included in their modernist French lean bread recipe. But, alas, I'm a uni student poor on both time and money so I'm very keen to see if I can improvise a cheap setup for making bread with a faster bulk ferment time than hand mixing can offer. I have already bought a brake bleed pump which can generate nearly -25inMg which I believe holds up (at least in theory) against a FoodSaver. But, several jars and Ikea container lids, and a hole heap of hot glue later, I have been unable to hook my brake bleeder up to any container with a satisfactory seal. My new idea was to buy a FoodSaver accessory (canister or mason jar sealer) and find a way to attach it to my brake bleeder to generate the vacuum with a good seal. But ChezAndré mentioned earlier that he was unable to get particularly conclusive results using a FoodSaver canister. I don't understand why it didn't work for ChezAndre but seeing as it didn't, I don't want to spend more money on something that might not work.

 

Has anyone else tested (or is anyone else able to test) using any FoodSaver accessories to vacuum mix/auto/knead the dough?

[Kmanim]

On 11/11/2018 at 10:07 PM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Similar, however I think the lower hydration dough mixes more easily in my KitchenAid.

 

I've also tried 1 kg batches and 1.5 kg batches.  The larger batches mix better but the end result of the bread texture is about the same.  I never did ascertain what KA speeds correspond to "low" and "medium".

 

 

Have you tried mixing by hand to see if you get very different results? I have made this dough by hand several times with no problems. Just for experiment's sake you could try making the dough by hand to help see whether your stand mixer is playing a role in the problem. 

 

In my experience, I find that if I use the finger-poke test too early during the final proofing, I tend to get false-positives. I am not exactly sure what is at play there but I suspect that there hasn't been enough time for gases to form and expand the dough enough to spring back against the poke. For me, it takes about 30 minutes for hand-mixed commercially yeasted breads to stop giving these false-positives and hand mixed sourdoughs can take over an hour before the poke test starts to help me. Otherwise, a positive poke test that early on in a commercially yeasted bread could be over-extending initial bulk fermentation (the dough being too gaseous after shaping) and the fact that your boules are 'flat' suggests to me that the dough over-proofed.

[Kmanim]

As I have just moved to Denmark, I thought it would be appropriate for me to make the MB rugbrød (and seeing as rye in all its forms is so cheap and readily-available here, vollkornbrot). I made the rugbrød with the optional instant yeast. According to the Danes who tried it, it had little-to-no relationship with the rugbrød they buy and eat (from the supermarket). They seemed more inclined to call it a country/farmer's bread and that it was like how their grandmothers made rugbrød... It seems that even Northern Europe's sacred rye breads are being tainted by supermarkets and industrial processing.

Vollkornbrot on the left, rugbrød on the right.

 

But, my German and Austrian taste-testers said the MB vollkornbrot was exactly what they would have back home! It is a very time-intensive bread to make though - I started soaking the rye berries on a Sunday night and could finally cut io it on Thursday morning... Both built to last - about 5 days without noticeable staling and were perfectly edible for about 8 days. 

[Kmanim]

Crumb shot of vollkornbrot

And the rugbrød

[JoaoBertinatti]

Hi guys, I would like to ask help with something about modernist Hamburger buns, I tried yesterday and baked in 2 batches in my little home oven 180-200 C. the first I waited for crust become golden to check internal temp, it is suggested 90-93, but in 18' it was already 98°. The next batch i took out in 15', still White crust and it was already 93.1°C. I forgot to take Picture before freezing, but here are the batches frozen. For taste matter, the golden Brown crust is much better than the White crust...

What do you think happened? 

I used coconut oil in place of margarine, and  egg washed before proofing and before baking

[Chris Hennes]

@JoaoBertinatti -- as a first guess I'd say your oven temp is too low. You list a range of temps there, 180°C to 200°C. Are those temps you are setting to, or are you measuring them with an oven thermometer? I also don't recall the recipe calling for margarine, and I don't have it handy to double check that.

[JoaoBertinatti]

1 hour ago, Chris Hennes said:

@JoaoBertinatti -- as a first guess I'd say your oven temp is too low. You list a range of temps there, 180°C to 200°C. Are those temps you are setting to, or are you measuring them with an oven thermometer? I also don't recall the recipe calling for margarine, and I don't have it handy to double check that.

Wow, I really thought that vegetable shortening was margarine!  The recipe calls for vegetable shortening!

It is the kind of product that I have never bought, but I am shocked, it was the same for me, until now that I googled.

I have calibrated the oven before, but as it is small  the temperature flutuate a lot without the stone inside.

 they suggest for 190º in home oven 25-27minutes, it stayed a lot less than this, maybe then temperature was to high?

 

[Chris Hennes]

17 hours ago, JoaoBertinatti said:

Wow, I really thought that vegetable shortening was margarine!  The recipe calls for vegetable shortening!

It is the kind of product that I have never bought, but I am shocked, it was the same for me, until now that I googled.

I have calibrated the oven before, but as it is small  the temperature flutuate a lot without the stone inside.

 they suggest for 190º in home oven 25-27minutes, it stayed a lot less than this, maybe then temperature was to high?

 

What weight are you making the buns?

[JoaoBertinatti]

1 hour ago, Chris Hennes said:

What weight are you making the buns?

They were 100g of dough each

[Chris Hennes]

Sourdough with Pressure Caramelized Rye Berries

 

I love pressure-caramelized rye as an inclusion for sourdough. I think this loaf was particularly successful because of a very long cold proof, 48 hours in the refrigerator. Also because I ate it without letting it cool all the way down, which I guess makes me a bad person. It was among the most flavorful loaves I've ever produced.

 

[Al Percival]

Newbie member here looking for some assistance!

 

I've just tried the full Panettone recipe in Modernist Bread - and had a disaster which I've never experienced before and still trying to work out why.

 

I've made the Panettone in Bread Bakers Apprentice loads of times and while it isn't as light and airy as I would like, it's a good flavour - so I thought I'd gave the full MB version a go to see how the texture (and taste) varied with the full multi stage build and levain only recipe.

 

All was going well until I started to mix the final dough - once I started to add the egg yolks then it looked like the gluten network started to break down.   I kept going in the hope that things would 'come right' again - but no - over the course of a couple of minutes the dough went from a medium gluten development to something that felt like a thin paste with no gluten development apparent. It felt more like a thin cake batter than any dough I've ever worked with.   I went on and added the butter and let it mix for a while longer on a low setting but it didn't change the texture or start to develop any structure.

 

 I've been looking to see what could cause this but I'm stumped.   I've made the mistake before with brioche dough of adding the butter before the gluten network was properly developed (and ended up with something that felt more like cake than brioche), but in this case I hadn't even started adding the butter before the dough started breaking down and it browk down very quickly.   It hadn't even been mixing for very long - and it was only only  setting 1 on the KitchenAid so I can't believe it had been overworked.

 

I'd love to know what I can do to avoid this happening again - and to understand what would cause a dough to break down like this.

 

 

 

 

[Chris Hennes]

@Al Percival, maybe @JoaoBertinatti can comment since he just posted about making it a month or so ago. I can't speak to the Panettone directly, but quite a few types of additions cause a dough with good gluten formation to temporarily break down -- with the French lean bread and the sourdough the answer for me has been either a) more mixing (sometimes a lot more) or b) more time (sometimes a lot more!).

[teonzo]

12 hours ago, Al Percival said:

I'd love to know what I can do to avoid this happening again - and to understand what would cause a dough to break down like this.

 

The most probable cause is you used the wrong flour. To be successful with panettone (the real stuff) you need a strong flour with peculiar gluten content, it must be able to stand the long mixing times required for panettone otherwise the gluten structure collapse during the second mixing stage.

Can you write the W and p/l values of the flour you used?

 

(The recipe in the Reinhart book is not for the real panettone, it's something completely different)

 

 

 

Teo

 

[JoaoBertinatti]

13 hours ago, Al Percival said:

I'd love to know what I can do to avoid this happening again - and to understand what would cause a dough to break down like this.

4 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:

@Al Percival, maybe @JoaoBertinatti can comment since he just posted about making it a month or so ago. I can't speak to the Panettone directly, but quite a few types of additions cause a dough with good gluten formation to temporarily break down -- with the French lean bread and the sourdough the answer for me has been either a) more mixing (sometimes a lot more) or b) more time (sometimes a lot more!). 

 

 

I made that mistake 3 times. My brazilian flour is terrible, the manufacture didn't even give its info when I emailed, so I started adding +5% gluten. But that kept happening. And after reading and reading it was exactly what Chris said, more mixing  in the first step of the final dough (with just the additional flour and vanilin if I well remember), it was like 10-15 minutes in 2 in small KA...

[Al Percival]

4 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:

@Al Percival, maybe @JoaoBertinatti can comment since he just posted about making it a month or so ago. I can't speak to the Panettone directly, but quite a few types of additions cause a dough with good gluten formation to temporarily break down -- with the French lean bread and the sourdough the answer for me has been either a) more mixing (sometimes a lot more) or b) more time (sometimes a lot more!).

Thanks Chris

 

I kept mixing for about 10 - 15 minutes after the gluten dissolved and there was no change to the structure - if anything it got even weaker.   I even refrigerated the dough for about 6 hours to see if it would reform - but no.  The consistency was closer to mashed potatoes than dough.  Out of curiosity I then took some of the 'batter' (as it was then) and added some baking powder and baked it in a loaf tin to see if it would create a worthwhile cake.  The consistency of the cake was like it had been made from a gluten free recipe - there was no crumb or structure and it just crumbled despite the high hydration.

 

Here in Australia we don't have a much choice over flours - the main one we can get is 11.5% protein which works well enough for most of the breads I do.

 

I've ditched the dough now.   It might be a while before I try again unless I can be sure I understand what caused this.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by Al Percival
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[Al Percival]

13 minutes ago, JoaoBertinatti said:

 

I made that mistake 3 times. My brazilian flour is terrible, the manufacture didn't even give its info when I emailed, so I started adding +5% gluten. But that kept happening. And after reading and reading it was exactly what Chris said, more mixing  in the first step of the final dough (with just the additional flour and vanilin if I well remember), it was like 10-15 minutes in 2 in small KA...

 

Good info Joao.   Did your failures also collapse to the point where if you dragged a finger through the dough there was no pull and no evidence of gluten (ie like a cake batter?)  

 

The MB recipe says to mix to medium gluten development after the addition of the vanilla and flour.   I think I mixed for about 5-6 minutes as the dough was already well formed after the long initial fermentation (and it had tripled in size) and felt like most of my doughs do at that stage.  With the ones that worked, did you continue to add the extra gluten or did you find it wasn't needed.   After it was clear that my gluten had dissolved I did a few experiments in batches - which included adding some more flour and vital wheat gluten but at that stage I don't think anything was going to fix it.

 

 

[Al Percival]

1 hour ago, teonzo said:

 

The most probable cause is you used the wrong flour. To be successful with panettone (the real stuff) you need a strong flour with peculiar gluten content, it must be able to stand the long mixing times required for panettone otherwise the gluten structure collapse during the second mixing stage.

Can you write the W and p/l values of the flour you used?

 

(The recipe in the Reinhart book is not for the real panettone, it's something completely different)

 

Teo

 

 

Thanks Teo

 

Here in Australia they don't publish much info about the flour except the obligatory nutritional info.   The flour has 11.5% protein content - that's all I know at the moment (I've sent an email to the manufacturer).     I can add vital wheat gluten to increase the gluten content as an option however?

 

 

[teonzo]

1 hour ago, Al Percival said:

The flour has 11.5% protein content

 

That's a a medium/low value, it's a cake flour, not suitable for panettone. You have no chances to make panettone with that flour, the gluten structure will always collapse during the second mixing stage. You need a flour with at least 13.5% protein content for panettone. But most importantly you need to watch the W and p/l values: W should be around 350, p/l should be around 0.60. The p/l is pretty important because you need "firm" gluten, not extensible gluten. Flour for pizza (for example) has a similar protein content but different ratio between glutenin and gliadin, this gives a different p/l value. For panettone you need "firm" gluten structure, gluten matrix must be able to stand long mixing times; for pizza you need an elastic gluten structure, there's not much need for it to be able to stand long mixing times. If you go below 13% protein content then there isn't enough gluten to give proper firmness to the dough.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Al Percival said:

I can add vital wheat gluten to increase the gluten content as an option however?

 

I have zero experience with vital wheat gluten, I've read about its existence but it's not available here in Italy, never seen it for sale. So I can't give you a solid answer, sorry. It's possible it could be a solution if it has the proper ratio of glutenin and gliadin, but I don't have the answer for this.

 

I would suggest you to look for a flour with 13.5%-14% protein content, which is not labeled as suitable for pizza (for baba/savarin almost ok, for bread so-so, for pizza no). I don't think you will find something ideal for panettone, you need the peculiar values I wrote above, which are ideal only for panettone and similars (pandoro, focaccia veneziana...) but not ideal for other uses (pizza, bread, whatever). Producers make and sell that particular flour if they have enough request. Here in Italy those enriched breads are a strong tradition, outside Italy there's not much request.

Try to avoid stuff like pizza flour, otherwise you will end up with something similar to melted cheese during the second mixing stage.

If you can't find a flour with such high protein content, then try adding vital wheat gluten to reach around 14-14.5%. Don't know how to do the math since I don't know the protein content of vital wheat gluten (don't know if it's 100% protein or less).

 

If there is some Italian bakery near you that makes panettone, then try to ask them what flour they uses.

 

If you have other questions / doubts about panettone then feel free to ask, there's a lot of misinformation on most foreign books. The recipe in the Reinhart book has nothing to do with panettone, same with almost all recipes I've read in books in English language.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[Al Percival]

50 minutes ago, teonzo said:

 

If you have other questions / doubts about panettone then feel free to ask, there's a lot of misinformation on most foreign books. 

 

Teo

 

 

Thanks Teo.  I'll wait to hear back from @JoaoBertinatti about his experience with adding vital wheat gluten and then I might try again with the artificially enriched flour.    Here is Australia there is very little choice in flours, despite Australia being quite a big wheat producer.   It shows in the quality of the baked goods and breads available which are mostly pretty dreadful.     

[JoaoBertinatti]

13 hours ago, Al Percival said:

 

Thanks Teo.  I'll wait to hear back from @JoaoBertinatti about his experience with adding vital wheat gluten and then I might try again with the artificially enriched flour.    Here is Australia there is very little choice in flours, despite Australia being quite a big wheat producer.   It shows in the quality of the baked goods and breads available which are mostly pretty dreadful.     

I had 5% gluten added at every step there was flour, even in making the 3 builds.  Brazil is a big wheat producer as well, but people want always the cheapest stuff here...  you see, I think if you mix more than 10' in the first step it should work without gluten IF you lower the hydration... maybe if you don't add the water at the last step with 11.5% it could work. And yes, everytime I mixed for  only 5 minutes or less it looked like cake batter when I started adding water.... and at first I thought it was overmixed but no. Btw my best flour here is 9.8%. I have read somewhere in the book that the best approach when bread flour or high gluten flour is required, would be adding gluten and the second best approach, adding more flour... I know that here in Brazil, they do panettones without added gluten and with lower hydratation, so it should work, you will probably end with smaller alveoli .... at last, I think that if you kept mixing for 45 minutes at highest speed that cake batter ((with a few rests in freezer) it could work something out, because if you take look at gateau battu, why not....

Edited December 20, 2018 by JoaoBertinatti
confusing post (log)