Yeast life cycle

[McDuff]

I'd make the pictured bread on a snowy New England day, but I don't have a clue what 1 x 5ml of yeast actually is. An online conversion thingy tells me that 1 ml is equal to .20 something tsp. So is 5 ml equal to 1 tsp? I can use my handy oz/gram conversion factor of .03527 to do the flour and water. Maybe I'll try, anything to get me away from the room where my 16 yr old is watching Nickelodeon with those annoying childish cartoons voices. She's been up all night, school is called off, and it's my day off. It ain't fair. I need some alone time after this past two weeks.

[Anna N]

I'd make the pictured bread on a snowy New England day, but I don't have a clue what 1 x 5ml of yeast actually is. An online conversion thingy tells me that 1 ml is equal to .20 something tsp. So is 5 ml equal to 1 tsp? I can use my handy oz/gram conversion factor of .03527 to do the flour and water. Maybe I'll try, anything to get me away from the room where my 16 yr old is watching Nickelodeon with those annoying childish cartoons voices. She's been up all night, school is called off, and it's my day off. It ain't fair. I need some alone time after this past two weeks.

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Yes, 5ML is 1 teaspoon at least according to my measuring spoons. Bread baking is restorative - have a go! Best wishes for the return to school!

[jackal10]

Rough conversion:

for the pre-ferment

2 cups bread flour : 10oz

1 US pint warm water at 30C*

1 tsp dry yeast

leave for 2 hours at 21C - 24C until the mixture bubbles up and just begins to drop back down

for the dough

1 1/2 US pts cold water at 18C - 20C

4 cups (20oz) bread flour

2 tsp salt

Overall Bakers Percentages

Total flour = 100% (Percentages for each step in brackets)

total flour: 800g

total water: 550g

Hydration: 69% (softish dough)

for the pre-ferment

bread flour 31% (100%)

warm water at 30C* 31% (100% wet sponge (poolish))

1 x 5ml tsp dry yeast 0.6% (2%)

leave for 2 hours at 21C - 24C until the mixture bubbles up and just begins to drop back down

for the dough

Pre-ferment 62.5 (90%)

bread flour 69% (100%)

cold water at 18C - 20C 37.5% (55%)

2 tsp salt 1.25% (1.8%)

Edited January 3, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[McDuff]

Thanks for the quick replies. I mixed a double batch of preferment. By Dan's schedule, I should have bread by late afternoon. If I can find the camera and batteries, I'll post pictures.

I used the gram feature on the scale and did 500g each of flour and water. It made a rather thick batter but double checking the online conversion thing says that 250 ml of water is 8.4 oz and my figure tells me that 250 g of flour is 8.8 oz, so I don't think that I'm far off.

[McDuff]

That's even better. Now, that I understand. Thanks. That puts the formula into a form, if it makes a well piled loaf, that could get transcribed right into my notebook.

[Anna N]

Well, here's the result. The best bread I have made to date and the easiest! Thanks a million, Dan.

After the 3rd folding.

Final proofing.

Finished loaves.

The crumb.

[danlepard]

Glad I could help - looks really good, great texture

Dan

[Aphra]

Hello everyone.

I finally got around to joining eGullet, just so I could respond to this thread, but now I don't need to.

But what I was going to say was that it seemed to me you were using a lot of yeast for that amount of flour, when I use instant dry yeast I'd probably use about a 1/4 to half teaspoon for around a kilo of flour depending on how much time I'm willing to give the bread.

That would give me two, or if I'm being lazy, three risings of the dough. I use cold water and raise bread at room temperature in the coolest room I have, or in the fridge. I prefer the taste of bread given long, cool rises.

Elizabeth David's "English Bread and Yeast Cookery" has a really good chapter on amounts of yeast versus amounts of flour and rising time. She does suggest that if you're using the instant dry yeast as opposed to the usual dry yeast, that you more or less halve the amount of yeast you're using.

When I'm making yeasted bread, I try and use the smallest amount of yeast I can, and rely on longer rising times. I treat instant and normal dry yeast in the same way, mixed straight into the flour.

If you're interested, David has a recipe for bread which starts out with a very small amount of yeast, and has flour and water added to it over two or three days. It's a fun experiment and I did it years ago and it produced very nice bread, but the method was a bit fussy for every day use. From memory it's called Scotch rise bread.

I'd been making household bread for many years when I came across David's book, and I remember reading it like it was a novel I was so fascinated by the way she laid out how bread worked. I have a lot of other bread books now, but I still go back to David for my everyday bread ... in fact I wore out my first copy of her book and had to buy another one.

Just as an aside, while I'm talking about bread (and it's my first post so I hope you'll be patient with me), I've been experimenting with making yeasted bread, but using sourdough methods.

Essentially I use about 1/4 teaspoon of instant dry yeast to about a kilo of flour, including a cup of wheatgerm. I make up a fairly wet dough, and use the fold and turn method instead of kneading.

This makes lovely bread, with something of the texture of sourdough, but with a very sweet, almost innocent taste of wheat. Lately I've preferred this bread to the sourdough I've been making all winter (it being summer now in Australia).

[McDuff]

This took long enough. I had to stash the bowl of dough on the back porch at 2:30 to go close on a car loan. Got back at 5:30 and divided and rounded the dough. Gave it about a half hour and then shaped it. Made four loaves, two filled with garlic cooked in olive oil and rosemary, and two plain. Had some trouble with seams blowing out. The first two loaves felt heavier than the second two. House smells fabulous. I made a bread out of Dan's book that I sort of freelanced and wasn't happy with it. I stuck to the timetable up to the end of the folding and was amazed at what a silky supple dough I got with such minimal kneading. Don't know if the bulging was the result of underproofing a bit, or just lousy sealing.

[BettyK]

Finished loaves.

The crumb.

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Very nice loaf, Anna. Did you use instant yeast?

[doronin]

Dan,

How would you modify your recipe if you were willing to make a bread with 70% or more of whole wheat flour?

Thanks,

Dmitry.

[Anna N]

Very nice loaf, Anna. Did you use instant yeast?

←

Thank you. Yes, I did only because that seemed to be the focus of this thread.

This was truly an amazing way to make bread with almost no kneading. I followed Dan's schedule except that I did let my pre-ferment have an overnight rest in the 'fridge. I am really anxious to repeat it just to see if I can make this consistently but I will soon be inundated with bread as there are only the two of us and besides, I am now out of bread flour!

[jackal10]

You can let the bread rise overnight in the fridge, if that is moe convenient.

[BettyK]

Can I refrigerate the pre-ferment or the dough at any time then continue with the next step later?

[The Little Blue House]

McDuff,

Excellent looking bread. Good color.

It's a little hard to tell from the resolution of the photo, but your crumb seems to be fully developed (note the sheen on the aveole indicating full gluten devlopment). Mr. Lepard may want to disagree with me but blowout seems to be a result of both a (slight) underproofing and shaping, specifically slashing. It looks like you could go with another half-hour proof without any problem.

In regards to shaping, it simply seems that the loaves weren't slashed deep enough. Basic rule is that you can correct an underproofed loaf by slashing deeper and overproofed one by slashing shallower.

Once again, very nice loaf. Excellent volume.

-c

[danlepard]

Yes, LBH, I would agree - the bulges on the garlic bread look rather good though.

Betty, as Jack says, you can refrigerate the dough and I find that produces an even moister texture (though the loaf as is stills seems quite soft 2 days later). Refrigerate the dough after giving it 3 brief 10 sec kneads at 10 minutes intervals - I place it in a covered bowl. In the morning I take it out, shape it immediately and when it's doubled (2 - 3 hours at room temperature), bake it. You can leave the preferment overnight at room temperature. In that case reduce the yeast to 1/8 tsp - 1/4 tsp.

But not "at any time". The reason is that, as soon as you add flour to water, or yeast to flour and water, you start a process that will be affected by time, temperature and the characteristics of the ingredients, and stopping or restarting the process. Do read this rather extraordinary and clear article by Shirley O. Corriher on the baking process:

http://www.taunton.com/finecooking/pages/c00053.asp

I've only just stumbled upon it after reading the thread here:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php....showtopic=58287

Dmitry,

I wouldn't change the recipe too much, but rather be clear that the resulting bread would be quite different in texture to that made with 100% high gluten white wheat flour. Think of wholewheat flour, even wholewheat flour labelled "suitable for breadmaking" as low gluten flour because the ground wheat endosperm, that contains the gliadin and glutenin that give the dough its elasticity, will make up a much small percentage of the total flour because little of the bran, germ or fibre has been sifted out. So, effectively, you get less protein in it. So less gluten to trap air, less sugars to fement, less oven spring. Mix the dough slightly warmer, cut the rising time before shaping down to 45 min - 1 hour, or until you see the first signs of bubbling aeration in the dough, then shape, bake when it has barely doubled in height.

regards

Dan

[BettyK]

Yes, LBH, I would agree  - the bulges on the garlic bread look rather good though.

Betty, as Jack says, you can refrigerate the dough and I find that produces an even moister texture (though the loaf as is stills seems quite soft 2 days later). Refrigerate the dough after giving it 3 brief 10 sec kneads at 10 minutes intervals - I place it in a covered bowl. In the morning I take it out, shape it immediately and when it's doubled (2 - 3 hours at room temperature), bake it. You can leave the preferment overnight at room temperature. In that case reduce the yeast to 1/8 tsp - 1/4 tsp.

But not "at any time". The reason is that, as soon as you add flour to water, or yeast to flour and water, you start a process that will be affected by time, temperature and the characteristics of the ingredients, and stopping or restarting the process. Do read this rather extraordinary and clear article by Shirley O. Corriher on the baking process:

http://www.taunton.com/finecooking/pages/c00053.asp

I've only just stumbled upon it after reading the thread here:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php....showtopic=58287

regards

Dan

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Does this mean if I refrigerate the dough after the 3 brief 10 second kneads I don't have to do the stretch and fold at 45 mins interval?

By the way, I tried your recipe last night and finished it this morning. Came out wonderful (a bit to my surprise). Unfortunately I don't have a camera to post pics. You'll just have to trust me.

One more question, when I was mixing the pre-ferment with the rest of the ingredients, it started very dry then as I did the second and third 10 sec kneading it became more sticky. Should I add some flour or just leave it? There was also lots of little lumps of dough as I tried scraping the dough from my hands. I admit I kneaded the dough in the bowl. Should I knead on the counter? Well that was more than one question.

[McDuff]

What I did today at work....Reinhart's French bread with pate fermentee.

[doronin]

Re: Adjustment for whole wheat flour

Mix the dough slightly warmer, cut the rising time before shaping down to 45 min - 1 hour, or until you see the first signs of bubbling aeration in the dough, then shape, bake when it has barely doubled in height.

←

Dan,

Does it mean prolonged fermentation is impossible with whole wheat flour? I saw many great tasting breads made with 100% whole wheat flour (you know, those little organic bakeries), how could they possibly achieve that taste without long rise?

[danlepard]

Hello Betty,

Yes, just refrigerate the dough after the first 3 blasts of kneading. As the dough will be getting fragile after its night in the fridge it can't really hold up to much more manipulation. So you wont quite get the extreme aeration but you'll gain in flavour, and that surely must be at the top of a baker's wish list.

With the kneading, one bit that I omitted was that I prefer to knead the dough on a lightly oiled surface with a little oil rubbed on my hands and the upper surface of the dough as well. This makes kneading a sticky dough free from anxiety, and inhibits you from feeling tempted to add more flour. You can simply use a scraper and bash on through the stickiness, but I find using oiled hands and worksurface a hassle-free approach.

Dmitry,

Breads carefully made with 100% whole-wheat flour do taste great as they will have a much more complex flavour that bread made with white flour, and well as being much more complex for the stomach to digest. But essentially it has to be a shorter process because there is so much less gluten in to hold gas. You can prolong the fermentation but not as long as you could with white flour, and don't expect as light a texture. But there are ways around the texture problem. Jackal10 has a very curious recipe for an open-textured spelt loaf in the thread here:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=80782

and the result here:

http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11366111...0_135_21132.jpg

(you may need to be logged in to see the picture)

I can't think of a reason why you couldn't replace the white flour in the preferment with spelt to make it 100% wholemeal,

Great looking loaves McDuff. Do you work as a chef/pastry chef?

regards

Dan

Edited January 8, 2006 by danlepard (log)

[jackal10]

I've added some pictures of today's loaf to the demo thread

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=80782

I'm sure you cold use wholemeal or spelt in the preferement. I used white becasue I wanted to refresh my white starter, but there is no reson why the whole system could not be wholemeal (or spelt).

I've heard it said the Poilanes loaves derive some of their flavour from a small proportion of spelt flour.

Edited January 8, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[McDuff]

Hello Betty,

Great looking loaves McDuff. Do you work as a chef/pastry chef?

regards

Dan

←

Yes, actually I do. I work for Whole Foods Market. We don't do much bread production in my store, but we have been given the go-ahead to start. I have all the equipment I need, 80qt Hobart, rotary rack ovens, steam injected deck ovens, three rack proofer. All I need is another pair of hands to help make the lemon bars and cupcakes and I can work up some daily breads.

I gave your formula another go today and it came out extraordinary. No popping, no blown seams, feels nice and light.

The couronnes pictured above had an overnight preferment, then I guess what's called the improved method...4 min mix, 20 min autolyse, 6 min. mix with the preferment going in at 4 min. Three turns, bulk fermentation till double..finish as usual. We sold all these breads in about 2 hours after making giant cold cut sandwiches out of two of them and giving away samples.

Since instant yeast is the nominal subject of this thread, the 21 loaves I made used only 4 teaspoons of instant yeast, about .44 oz.

But I wonder if the turns are as necessary with a dough that is as developed as this one? I can feel it make a difference in the formula under discussion here, and frankly the technique amazes me. In a standard 100-60-2-2 French dough that is fully developed in the mixer, is there any benefit to turning at intervals?

[Beanie]

Rough conversion:

for the pre-ferment

2 cups bread flour : 10oz

1 US pint warm water at 30C*

1  tsp dry yeast

leave for 2 hours at 21C - 24C until the mixture bubbles up and just begins to drop back down

for the dough

1 1/2 US pts cold water at 18C - 20C

4 cups (20oz)  bread flour

2  tsp salt

Overall Bakers Percentages

Total flour  = 100% (Percentages for each step in brackets)

total flour: 800g

total water: 550g

Hydration:  69%  (softish dough)

for the pre-ferment

bread flour  31% (100%)

warm water at 30C* 31% (100%  wet sponge (poolish))

1 x 5ml tsp dry yeast 0.6%  (2%)

leave for 2 hours at 21C - 24C until the mixture bubbles up and just begins to drop back down

for the dough

Pre-ferment 62.5  (90%)

bread flour  69%  (100%)

cold water at 18C - 20C  37.5% (55%)

2  tsp salt 1.25%  (1.8%)

←

Jackal10,

I believe the water conversions should say US cup, not pint:

Pre-ferment: 250 ml = approx. 8.5 US fluid ounces

Dough: 300 ml = approx. 10 US fluid ounces

(Source: measuring cup in my kitchen)

[danlepard]

Hello McDuff,

Turning the dough at intervals during the fermentation period, after doughmaking but prior to shaping, acts to (a) keep the fermentation progressing evenly by gently redistributing both yeast and unfermented matter, and (b) compress and stretch gasses from fermentation to give the dough more resilience. Both are particularly important if you are trying to work with flour that has low glutenin resilience made into soft dough with a high water content - think soft local flour made into a sloppy dough that ferments quicker (the more water, the faster the fermentation). It's worth remembering that before commercial yeast was commonly available bakers had to be very sharp on every knack that would help them keep fermentation moving swiftly along through an 7 - 8 hour process. This was also before refrigeration became cheaply available.

One baker writing in 1909 described his best method this way:

"Make into a nice smooth dough, and do not be afraid to stretch it and fold it well. At the end of 1 1/2 hours knock it up by stretching and folding, as distinct from punching - do not punch it. In another hour repeat the folding, and in still one more hour scale off. This is a total of five hours to scaling time, but it will take at least one more hour to clear it thoroughly after scaling and handing up. We are great believers in giving the dough a rest after scaling and handing before finally shaping".

If we compare this picture taken in the late 1920s:

with this one (a 400g loaf, almost a lb.) I baked last year using the stretch and fold method:

there are similarities in the crumb texture, which are in part due to following the same method. The stretching and folding wont act as a substitute for dough mixing but as an addition to it. No extra step is necessary if you're already happy with any loaf - I imagine you would say, as I would say, "just leave it alone, it's perfect as it is". But if your ingredients are acting a bit sluggishly, if the flour doesn't seem mix into dough with much natural resilience and spring, and if the dough texture appear closed and dense then a slight increase in the water content and folding in the few hours prior the shaping will help. I find it allows me to regularly use soft flour from local grain and get a very good result.

regards

Dan

[doronin]

...this one (a 400g loaf, almost a lb.) I baked last year using the stretch and fold method:

←

Hello Dan,

Do you mind to share the recipe of this amazing bread?

Few years ago we had one local bakery that was making bread of a similar structure, but now they lost it - either recipe, or the baker, don't know. Anyways, I could never figure out (or to find in the books) the way to get that crumb...

Thanks!!

Dmitry.