Yeast life cycle

[danlepard]

Hello Dimitry,

Unfortunately I can't give the specific recipe or method as its part of work I did for a small bakery. But in basic simple terms increase the water in your recipe** here:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1091247

by 25ml (in the final dough) each time you make the loaf, use a little oil on your hands and the worksurface to discourage the dough from sticking during the initial brief kneading and folding, and instead of using just white bakers flour cut it with 30% mix of wholemeal and rye flour. Each time you make the dough, with a little more water, it will be much stickier to handle and will require a little patience:

I plonk the sticky dough on the oiled surface, oil my hands and briefly fold the dough in upon itself as a sort of simple knead then, after 10 - 12 seconds of this, replace it in the bowl and leave it a further 10 minutes. I repeat this twice more, re-oiling the worksurface and my hands each time just to make the task less of a bother. Then after 45 minutes I upturn the dough onto a re-oiled surface and fold it in by thirds, using a scraper if it sticks. But as soon as the yeast start fermenting and producing gas bubbles the dough will start to feel more resilient and springy as it puffs up.

**I'll call it your recipe because I was just trying to match the information you gave in your post here:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1091237

though it's simply a old "sponge and dough" method of bread baking.

Gradually each attempt, made with a slight increase in the amount of water you mix the dough with, will produce a loaf with a slightly more irregular and open crumb structure. And someway before the increase in water turns the dough into a batter you will achieve the texture seen above.

One thing to remember is that the more water you use in you dough, the softer and more flowing the resulting dough will be. This means that during the final rise it will need to have the sides supported to ensure it keeps some height. I use linen-lined baskets rubbed heavily with rye flour to stop the dough from sticking.

regards

Dan

[doronin]

Thanks Dan, I think I got the idea. I also would like to thank you for actually resolving the problem I opened this thread for - that was indeed the yeast exhausted, after I stopped adding the yeast into the dough in addition to a preferment, those undesirable effects have gone.

I tried to work with very wet dough, and have to admit oiling the surface helps much better then flouring (flour is getting abserbed very quickly). I had troubles with shaping of such a dough into a boule: with little flour it sticks, with oil it moves too freely...

Last time I increased the salt content from 2 to 3 tsp and water by 10%, which, I'd think, caused the dough to behave weird: during proof it didn't want to raise at all, even after 1.5 hours, but in oven it almost exploded. Perhaps I should have proofed it in warmer place... no idea.

Edited January 15, 2006 by doronin (log)

[doronin]

Well, I started to get some consistent results of my experiments with bread made of 100% coarse ground whole wheat flour using the flow suggested by Dan (with 90% hydration), now I'm posting the pictures.

I baked it in a pan because something tells me that for this crust, color, and crumb texture "brick" shape suits better then the classic boule.

On my next attempt I've got slighly more open texture (no pics), but really slightly.

It's visibly overproofed, as it collapsed a little in the oven, but when I tried to bake it earlier, I had ovenspring, but bad crust, and dense and tasteless crumb. This one tastes exceptionally good for this kind of flour. Any ideas how to save the taste and crumb but get it higher?

Edited January 24, 2006 by doronin (log)

[jackal10]

Wholemeal can be treated like a soft flour.

I'm getting good results with high intensity mixing (mix on high speed until the dough goes from pickup to sticky); then shape green and a long proof.

[Beanie]

I've tried Dan's formula several times and I'm really pleased with the results. Due to my schedule, it took a couple of days to make, with the dough spending more time in the refrigerator than at room temperature. Also, my kitchen is quite cold, so the dough never really warmed up before I baked it (and I'm really impatient), but I am so amazed at the effectiveness of the long, cold fermentation. I still have to work on forming the loaves and slashing, but I'm very happy with the results, especially the holes. And it tasted fantastic, which is the most important thing. I'll be baking more this weekend.