Demo: Baguette a l'ancienne

[doronin]

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.

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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?

[jackal10]

Sourdough is different form ordinary yeat. Firstly the yeast ferments much more slowly. Ordinary yeasts are bread to rise in an hour or so. My sourdough takes about 6 hours at room temperature. The recipe above uses very mature spaonge, and the residual heat of the dough as it cools in the fridge. Recently I've been fermenting it for an additional 3-4 hours with even better results.

Secondly it is acid. After a discussion with Dan Lepard, I begin to wonder if the long exposure to acid doesn't cause hydrolysis and conversion of some of the cellulose and starch to sugar over the long fermentation period, giving a continuous supply of ferementable sugars. Certainly the dough gets remarkably more liquid, and I don't think this is due to gluten breakdown.

[Gul_Dekar]

If you refresh the starter a couple of times - throw out 2/3rds and then  feed it with equal weight of water and flour, ferment out for 12 hours and repeat it should be happy, bubbly and voracious.

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I'm just curious since I'm trying to make my own sourdough starter, so what's the purpose of discarding part of the starter? I've noticed a lot of books tell you to do so too when refreshing a starter.

[jsolomon]

I'm just curious since I'm trying to make my own sourdough starter, so what's the purpose of discarding part of the starter? I've noticed a lot of books tell you to do so too when refreshing a starter.

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Usually when you're doing this, you are either starting a new starter, or reviving a lagging starter. With a starter you have colonies of generally two creatures, a yeast and a bacterium. If either of the populations aren't in proportion to the other you will have two problems: it won't grow right, and it won't taste right.

This is when you go through a few generations of the starter and discard part of it. It won't quite taste like the starter did, and it won't quite perform like the starter ought until going through all of those growth cycles gets all of the population hale and hearty.

[jackal10]

At each refreshment you multiply the amount of starter by 3, since this gives optimum conditions for the the bugs to grow, while still being the dominant population.

If you don't throw some away you will pretty soon be drowning in the stuff. Let see. If you start with 100gms, after 10 refreshments you will have 5000 litres, and be adding 2000kg of flour and a swimming bath full of water at the next refreshment.

[joesan]

Jack - I am either a fool or a pedant but could you please give us an exact outline of the refresh process on a step by step basis because I can't quite follow the refresh method.

e.g.

1. Take x of starter add to y and z of flour and water.

2. Ferment for a hours at b temp

3. Pour away c of existing starter and add starter/flour/water mix.

4. Repeat etc.

If you can be bothered a similar outline of what we need to do on a regular basis to maintain a healthy starter would also be good.

[jackal10]

Refreshment:

1. Take 100gm/4oz of starter add to 100gm/4 oz of flour and 100gm/4 oz water.

2. Ferment for 8-12 hours at 30C/85F temp

3. Repeat (100gm is about 1/3rd of the starter mix)

etc.

The starter can be held in the fridge almost indefinately between baking sessions (say up to a couple of months). It will seperate into two layers.

When you want to bake take a tablespoon of the bottom layer and mix with 100gm of water and 100gm of flour, and incubate at 30C/85F for 8-12 hours to form the starter sponge.

When the jar in the fridge is looking a bit empty make a double batch (200gm of flour and 200gm of water) and top the jar up with the surplus starter.

Edited October 3, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[joesan]

Thanks Jack - that's crystal clear. I'm going to be doing this over the next couple of days to revitalise everything.

I appreciate your patience on this one!

[jsolomon]

I don't have a food processor. Would a blender provide a sufficient substitute for the food processor techniques?

[jackal10]

Depends on the blender. A stand mixer on high speed might be better.

You need to get 11 watt/hours of work per Kg of dough.

So for a mixer with a typical 350 watt motor that is about 2-3 minutes on full speed.

A hand blenders are usually lower rated, typically only around 150 watts, unless an industrial version.

[Matthew Grant]

Jack, I used your method with some success. If I wanted to use this mixture to make a single round loaf what would sort of baking time would you recommend?

[jackal10]

I may be finally getting some understanding and beginning to be able to reliably turn out a decent baguette.

At Dan Lepard's suggestion I scaled back the water a bit, to around 67% hydration, and now have a much more managable dough.

For 1Kg dough

Starter

100g soft flour

100g water

30g clef (mother starter)

Ferment for 12 hours at 30C

The sponge is very well developed with lots of acidity and flavour

Dough

Al the starter sponge above

500g soft flour (9% protein)

300g water cold

12 g salt

5g Vitamin C

Whizz in a strong food processor for 2 mins.

Put into a lightly oiled basin, covered, in the fridge for 24-48 hours.

I believe there is lots of enzyme activity and slow fermentation

Shape, and put into a couche - about 4 hours at room temperature

Can retard after 2 hours.

Bake with lots of bottom heat. Steam for the first 30 seconds.

My moulding still leaves something to be desired. However note the super-thin cell walls. You can only get this degree of development by using high intensity mixing.

[bethesdabakers]

Dear Jack,

I've been meaning to ask for a long time now why you insist on the importance of 30C for starter fermentation.

The accepted wisdom in sourdough baking is that fermentation takes longer at lower temperatures but still happens.

Is that too simple a position?

Best wishes,

Mick

[jackal10]

The science is here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=27634

Sourdough is a complex system. The yeast, the lactobacillus and the underlying enzyme activity splitting the starch into sugars all have different rate changes with temperature. By changing temperature you are rather crudely selecting the composition of the culture.

(after Ganzle)

30C/86F gives optimum growth for the yeast, and near optimum for the lactobacillus. Its actually quite a narrow region for optimal peformance. A bit cooler and the growth of the lactobacillus slows and you get less flavoursome bread. Warmer and the yeast growth slows, and the bread doesn't rise as well or if fermented longer gets much sourer. The starter composition changes as well.

If you are culturing a new starter, keeping it at the optimum temperature for sourdough growth helps select the bugs you want.

Obviously you can culture and prove at different temperatures, but the bread will be... different.

Edited November 12, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[bethesdabakers]

Dear Jack,

I'm sure this is a naive question - but if you don't ask you don't learn.

If 30C is the optimum temperature for yeast and lactobacilus activity (which I suppose means lift and flavour) why do we prove loaves at a lower temperature - sometimes even in the fridge?

Mick

[jackal10]

Good question.

I'm not sure the science is well known, since very few commercial bakeries ferment cold. Artisan bakers just find that it works. As I said dough is a complex system.

My belief (and its only a belief, I would be interested in any research) is that what happens during cold fermentation is somewhat different, besides selecting for cold tolerant organisms. What I think is happening is that the enzyme activity is less affected by the cold, and so more fermentable sugars are being produced That means that when the dough warms up, either in a subsequent warm proof phase of during the first part of the bake the yeast can be much more active.

There is also another effect, mostly seen during retardation after the final proof. Here, besides the interior of the loaf continuing to ferment for a couple of hours while it cools down, I think the most important effect is the slight drying of the outside, leading to a different crust formation. The presence of fine bubbles on the crust after baking usually indicates retardation.

Edited November 13, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[Tepee]

Followed Jack's latest formula, except I didn't have vitamin C, so I used (horror of horrors!) 5g bread improver. Not much spring, but good flavour.

I would like a thinner crust, though. How can I achieve that? Don't mist?

p/s My shaping and slashing is atrocious...so no loaf shots.

Edited November 14, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[Desiderio]

Umm I hope the thread its still open, cause I wanted to ask a question if possible.

Flour question for the baguettes, do I use regular AP flour or a mix of AP and cake flour to obtain the 9% Jackal mentioned?

Thank you )

[jackal10]

Use regular AP

[Desiderio]

Thank you so much )