Proving bread - skin problem

[doronin]

But what are suggesting to do about "underdeveloped"? Get back to bulk fermentation?..

Don't health food stores sell Vitamin C powder or tablets? You only need a pinch, but its OK to omit.

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Of course they do, but I used to read the labels, they all contain tons of additives, from food colorants to artificial flavourings. Do you think it's it all right to add such stuff to the dough?

You are trying to over knead in conventional terms, so long as the dough doesn't get too hot. It will get wetter as it proves. Mine comes off the mixer almost as a cream, and then magically transforms as you shape it.

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Now that's intriguing at least. This is a first time I'm encouraged to overknead... Why and how does it work? I used to think that overkneading leads to degradation of gluten network...

[jackal10]

For big holes and an artisanal texture you must develop the gluten much more then normal, either by a long hydration (for example mix the flour and the water but not the yeast 24 hours beforehand, and keep in the fridge, or intensively mix past the normal point.

Here is my 100% wholemeal sourdough,

I use Doves Farm 100% Organic wholemeal, a fairly rough textured wholemeal, sold here in larger supermarkets. The pack says 12% protein. Their Spelt flour is also good. http://www.dovesfarm-organic.co.uk/organic...king-flour.htm/

500 g Flour

350g water

200g starter (100% hydration, 12 hour ferment)

12g salt

1g Vit C

Whizz together or use a mixer until it goes past the pick-up stage and the gluten is well developed, and starts sticking to the bowl. Shape, prove in a banneton in a plastic bag for 4 hours at 30C

Note how extensible the dough is, and how it tends to form fine sheets.

More in 4 hours or when I bake it.

Edited March 6, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[jackal10]

3.5 hours later:

Note the oven spring, and the grigne.

Not perfect. There is a slight molding fault, and the bread could have been mixed more to give an even finer web between gas cells.

[doronin]

Wow, this is awesome... Curious how did you get that reddish color without adding sugar or such?..

I'm going to try to cut hydration and overmix somewhat this weekend...

For big holes and an artisanal texture you must develop the gluten much more then normal, either by a long hydration (for example mix the flour and the water but not the yeast 24 hours beforehand, and keep in the fridge, or intensively mix past the normal point.

I feel I missed something... Yet recently the favorite method was extremelly short mix, where gluten was clearly underdeveloped... Or this is what food processor manages to achieve in 20-30 sec?

I'm really amazed by how your loaf looks in a banneton after 3.5 hours. It's so smooth...

How did you shape the loaf - just as white bread, i.e. trying to create tension on the outer surface, or simply folded the dough and put it into the banneton?

How did you avoid raw flour pickup during shaping, considering the dough was very sticky and you needed lots of flour?

[jackal10]

No added sugar, just sourdough and a long preferment, and a hot oven.

Maybe its the camera flash, but the colour is about right.

This method mixes in the food processor for 2-3 MINUTES, maybe something like 15-20 minutes in a conventional mixer.

Its a wild sourdough yeast, so will move slower than a commercial yeast. I'd only prove a commercial yeast something like 45 minutes.

The dough isn't that sticky, but quite soft.

I shaped in two stages

1. Stretch and fold, and fold 8 ways to centre to make a ball, (and to coat the outside so the dough handles OK

2. Make a baton shape: flatten to a rectangle, then fold in the corners

then the centre points,

/--\

\--/

then fold in half. Put in banneton seam side up.

One centre slash before it goes in the oven.

[Michael M]

This is my passion, to make a good bread without any use of white flour. Isn't it a worthy challenge? 

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For a great book on the issue, check out The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book which focuses on whole grain loaves. I used to play with it and it helped guide transitioning from all-white recipes to those with part or all whole-grain.

[doronin]

For a great book on the issue, check out The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book which focuses on whole grain loaves.  I used to play with it and it helped guide transitioning from all-white recipes to those with part or all whole-grain.

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Please allow me to disagree. I've got this book something like a year ago, and tried to apply their experience onto my goals numerous times... I've got the impression that their idea for bread leans towards industrial mass market approach, kinda whole grain Wonderbread: even crumb, lots of additives, etc.

[Michael M]

Please allow me to disagree. I've got this book something like a year ago, and tried to apply their experience onto my goals numerous times... I've got the impression that their idea for bread leans towards industrial mass market approach, kinda whole grain Wonderbread: even crumb, lots of additives, etc.

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Hmm. While I don't have it or use it anymore, what I do remember are two aspects. One was talk about how 100% whole grain loaves would differ in terms of hydration, kneading time, the bran/germ breaking through gluten, etc. And the second was the recipe for desem (sp?) bread, an all whole wheat sourdough bread with nothing else in it but salt and water.

OTOH, I can't even access it anymore, as I tossed it. Maybe I thought the same as you? I know that the Bread Alone book has a 100% sourdough rye recipe, and I think the Village Baker has a 100% whole wheat sourdough recipe. Both of these books I still have and can more heartily recommend.

[doronin]

Did you cut the water to 75% hydration? (300g instead of 340g?).

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Well, I did this time, but it didn't go well. Perhaps absorption capabilities of local flours are enormous, or it's something seasonal... Shortly, at 75% the dough was rather good to make pasta, so I added little more water. The final dough looked nice, but on touch was kinda… rubbery, or like heavy dense clay. Shortly, not soft and stretchy at all.

So, it almost didn't rise, I guess the expanding force of the gases produced wasn't enough. I left it in the fridge overnight, in hope. At the oven, where gases at first are produced much more intensively, it gave some ovenspring, but overall remained rather compressed.

My conclusion is that with local flours, here and now, 85% - 90% is where to start from…

[intheberkshires]

500 g Flour

350g water

200g starter (100% hydration, 12 hour ferment)

12g salt

1g Vit C

What a lovely bread! I'd like to try it. When you say "12 hour ferment" do you mean you use starter that has been refreshed 12 hours ago? Or do you mean you combine the formula's flour, water and 200g starter and then ferment this for 12 hours before continuing with the salt and Vit C?

Many thanks! (I joined egullet just to read your posts)

Maria

[jackal10]

Hi Maria!

The 200g is of starter that was refereshed 12 hours before and fermented at 30C.

The main dough is fermented for 4 hours.

[intheberkshires]

Thanks Jack! I just mixed it up. Must say already it doesn't look like yours. With your exact measurments the dough was so dry I couldn't get it to stick to the dough hook or mixer bowl. (and yes, starter is 100% hydrated). I decided to try the mass in my Cuisineart; proceeded to make THAT appliance very unhappy. Managed to get it to whirl about but it still wasn't pulling in any way that might suggest the gluten was getting developed. Put the mass back into the KA and added a bit of water. This helped. I'm not sure I worked the gluten as well as you did (still seems a bit dry and thus not sticking/pulling) but I didn't want to muck about too much with your formula so I avoided adding more water.

Shaped the dough and now it's fermenting in the banneton.

Will keep you posted.

Not sure how to attach photos in this forum but if I can figure it out I'll send some up.

Best wishes,

Maria

[intheberkshires]

Wow! The loaf is amazing!

Here are some images:

Here it is in the banneton, fermentation period over. Not a huge amount of rising, but I trusted your instructions and the "finger test" suggested it was time to bake.

I decided to use my clay cloche (sp?). Heated it in the oven first. The dough stuck to the banneton and pulled the top a bit, but I slashed and popped it into the cloche.

Here it is out of the oven. Nice oven bounce, nice browning. The funky flap thing is where the skin pulled when being ejected from the banneton.

I have to go back and look at your crumb to see the difference. Not an open, holey crumb (any suggestions?) but the flavor has the sweetest wheat flavor imaginable and the texture isn't heavy, dense and dry like many 100% whole wheat loaves.

Any critique? The wonderful thing is how easy it is - no bulk fermentation stage. Mix and shape. Revolutionary!

Thank you Jack!

Maria

[Bill44]

Well all I can say is use your hands, they will teach you more about your bread than anything. A machine mixer can't feel a thing. No offence intended, but some of the best bakers in the world, Dan Lepard for example, will tell you the same thing.

[Tepee]

Maria, great bread! I've yet to try high-speed mixing for want of a processor which can handle the job. Would love to try that one day since it seems to do wonders with even all-purpose flour.

No offence intended, but some of the best bakers in the world, Dan Lepard for example, will tell you the same thing.

Er...well...privileged and fresh from Dan's marvellous-marvellous class on Saturday, he did suggest, and, I'd even go as far as to say, that, although all of us are very happy with his relaxed fold-and-turn method he encouraged us to try, this high-speed mixing (at least once), because that's what the bread industry do (chorleywood process).

[jackal10]

Great looking bread Maria, and welcome to eG!

Different flours take up different amounts of water; try adding 50ml at a time until just holds together; it will get wetter as it proves. If your flour was freshly milled it won't have adsorbed moisure from the air. You may also meed additional Vitamin C as an oxidiser.

Single rise whole meal ("Graham") loaves have a long tradition.

For example from Bartolomeo Sacchi, called Platina, published 1480 in Rome

Platina's De Honesta Voluptate:

"I recommend to anyone who is a baker that he use flour from wheat meal,

well ground, and then passed through a fine sieve to sift it; then put

it in a bread pan with warm water, to which has been added salt, after

the manner of the people of Ferrari in Italy. After adding the right

amount of leaven, keep it in a damp place if you can and let it rise.

That is the way bread can be made without much difficulty. let the

baker beware not to use more or less leaven than he should; in the

former instance, the bread will take on a sour taste, and in the latter,

it becomes heavy and unhealthful and is not readily digested, The bread

should be well baked in an oven, and not on the same day; bread from

fresh flour is most nourishing of all, and should be baked slowly."

You may remember of the famous "Grant Loaf" publicized by Doris Grant around the end of the last war http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/quick-a...af,1351,RC.html

Most modern supermarket bread is made by a single rise "no-time" or "Chorleywood" process. Both use intensive mixing. The Chorleywood process additionally mixes under pressure then vacuum to establish the crumb texture.

Edited March 21, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[doronin]

That new (for me) "no time" approach for whole meal breads is by far fastest I ever used to make any bread:

- 5 min mix starter, and leave it for a while

- mix dough, knead for 10 minutes, shape

- proof for 1.25 hour

- bake

This is convenient, and it works. But I'm a little concerned with the next stage: won't it be just a bread machine? It's even more convenient, though the joy will most likely go...

So, my question - is anything more sophisticated can be made out of whole meal flour? I don't mean adding tons of eggs and milk, but rather extracting more flavor from the flour by playing with timing and may be subtle additions.

Any ideas?

[jackal10]

You can try mixing the flour and the water component of the dough and leave overnight before mixing with the starter. For some flours this gives more grain taste.

I think the really answer is its time to start your sourdough adventure...

[intheberkshires]

This might be a loaf that will interest you. It's much slower, with long fermentation. Lots of old-fashioned hand work, although I don't knead it; rather I fold and rest/fold and rest. The addition of white flour makes it lighter and airier. It is an adaptation of Bernard Clayton's sourdough whole wheat bread:

Starting in the evening:

14 oz refreshed starter (100% hydration)

28 oz water

15 oz wheat flour

5 oz white flour

mix by hand until combined (it is very wet; like thick soup) & ferment on counter 5 hours.

(sometimes I have left it overnight. My kitchen is a cool place, maybe 67 degrees F)

It will bubble beautifully and have a wonderful wheaty, yeasty, sour smell!

Then add:

1.1 oz salt

22 oz white flour

Mix by hand (too big for my machine) to a loose, gloopy, sticky dough. Mix as much as you can, until it is fully mixed and all ingredients are well incorporated, then:

rest 45 minutes (I still use my cool kitchen), then dump out, flatten and fold a la Dan Lepard. Return to covered bowl.

repeat this 45 min rest, then fold two more times, then

Divide and shape (3 large boules) put into bannetons.

Proof for one hour or until dough, using fingertip test, tells you it is ready to bake. (this dough is extremely active due to all the pre-ferment)

Bake at 550 F, w/ water in bottom of oven, spritz 3 times, then turn oven down to 450. Continue baking until nicely brown and done.

Good luck!

[doronin]

I think the really answer is its time to start your sourdough adventure...

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Oh, I need a little more courage to start making my own starter...

You can try mixing the flour and the water component of the dough and leave overnight before mixing with the starter. For some flours this gives more grain taste.

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I tried, and frankly, I can't say I noticed any change in taste, I guess because whole wheat has it's own natural taste strong enough to suppress that subtle difference.

intheberkshires, thanks, but this recipe seem to have 27oz white flour with just 15oz of wholemeal... Well, nothing wrong with that, but there are thousands interesting recipes of bread made with such a proportion.

I'm curious about doing editable things from 100% whole wheat flour.

Edited March 22, 2006 by doronin (log)