Making Dough.

[texman]

I am finishing up the WFO and ready to learn the dough lingo. When i read the posts, i am already lost in the terminology since i know absolutely nothing about bread and/or pizza dough preparations. I know there is a ton of info here. Can somebody point me to a beginners thread for the basic recipe and methodology for bread and dough and maybe give me their favorite recipe for the same? Or is that like asking the chef "what is your secret ingredient?"
Tracy

[JAG]

Re: Making Dough.

texman,

Now your real fun starts, all the experimenting with recipes. On the pizza side of things my go to is very basic. The best flavor for me comes after a 48hr cold ferment. It is very low in salt but this seems to work for me, many recipes call for 3-5% salt. Fortunately there is no wrong or right just what you like. Be sure to post pics of your trials and...............more trials

100% Flour
67% cold water
.7% kosher salt
.5% IDY

Sorry I can't break it down to cups and t spoons, but using a scale it looks like this for two ~9oz. dough balls.

11 oz. flour
7.15 oz H2O
.077 oz kosher salt
.055 oz IDY

John

[texman]

Re: Making Dough.

IDY- instant dry yeast right?
Newbie baker

[SCChris]

Re: Making Dough.

I'd suggest picking up a copy of "Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day". You'll find your basic and advanced recipes and methodology. Making the jump from a residential oven to a WFO will take you a bit, but this is mostly about volume and getting comfortable with dough and shaping in volume takes time in the saddle. Even if you decide to stay with smaller batches and bake in your WFO, this book is a great reference. Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson, is the second recommendation is less about set formulas and more about the feel of dough. This is an advanced book and has a variety of interesting breads.

For bread you'll appreciate a few tools;

1 an accurate digital scale that can measure 10g to 1000g.
2 a plastic dough scraper.
3 a large mixing bowl or some such.
4 a thermometer for checking your bread and dough temps
5 hands and a wooden spoon

I found that using a mixer was more trouble than it was worth and I can mix 20# of dough by hand without much trouble. An advantage of mixing by hand is feeling the texture of the dough as you build the gluten. I haven't used a mixer in years for bread..

A website worth your attention is “The Fresh Loaf” thefreshloaf.com.
The place is chocked full of great recipes and people ready to help and teach. Visit the "Baker Blogs" section.

My most basic bread recipe.

1. 1000g of all-purpose flour.
2. 1 pack, 7g of instant yeast, not just dry yeast.
3. 700g of spring water, I put 800g, but don’t recommend it for a beginner.
4. 20g of sea salt.

Add all of the dry ingredients and mix to combine, add the water and mix until no dry flour is seen. Let this mass rest, covered, for 30 minutes. Do 3 sets of stretch and fold at 30 minute increments cover between sets. The first set of S&F will be the most intense the last the most gentle. Divide the dough into roughly equal loaves, 2, 3, 4 or whatever sizes suit you and roughly shape your loaves. Rest these 10 to 20 minutes and do a final shaping. At this point you might want to put your loaves on parchment paper to proof for 2 hours or so. Bake at 450F until the loaves are about 208F internal and have the crust color you want. If you can add steam to the oven for the first 15 to 20 minutes, it will help your bread crust and oven spring.

This is a very rough instruction on very basic bread.

Chris

[texman]

Re: Making Dough.

Thanks JAG and Chris for the recipes.
That is exactly what I was looking for. I hope to give it a try this weekend.
Thanks again.
Tracy

[deejayoh]

Re: Making Dough.

I have been using splatgir''s sourdough recipe. Love it. Just search for splatgirl dough recipe.

I definitely recommend getting some sourdough culture vs. instant dry yeast. It's much more flavorful.

[mrchipster]

Re: Making Dough.

IDY- instant dry yeast right?
Newbie baker

Yes, and

ADY = Active Dry Yeast
EVOO = Extra Virgin Olive Oil
OO = Olive Oil

I like the long 48-72 hr cold ferment in the fridge and 6 - 8 or so stretch and folds over that time frame to the bulk dough it gives a very nice tasty dough for bread and pizza. Also I use a stainless bowl filled with lava rock that has been in the oven for 1 hr or more to provide surface area for water to add steam to the oven. 6 oz water thrown on the rocks after bread goes in.

Peter Reinhart has also done a video training on artisan bread making that is very good because you get to see how the dough looks and also some good techniques and recipes. It is done under the Craftsy,com training organization.

Peter says do not keep the dough in a SS bowl for a long time as it adds a metalic taste. I follow this advise but have not tried to use stainless for cold ferments so I am not sure if this is true.

Chip

[SCChris]

Re: Making Dough.

[QUOTE=I definitely recommend getting some sourdough culture vs. instant dry yeast. It's much more flavorful.[/QUOTE]

I agree, sourdough and cold retard both have flavor benefits. I'll also add the AP flour of the recipe, that I provided above, can be replaced with a 80% AP and upto 20% whole wheat, or spelt flour. Rye flour can also be added but because of the nature of Rye I'd limit it to 5% of the total flour. All of these other flours add personality to the basic AP bread.

Chris

[Faith In Virginia]

Re: Making Dough.

First I have bulk fermented in SS and I have never picked up any bad taste.

Tracy, Be sure to check out PizzaQuest . com Peter has some great dough,sauce recipes and other pieces of great information.

Have fun!!! Faith

[Faith In Virginia]

Re: Making Dough.

One more thing. I have a personal sourdough pizza dough that I have been tweaking for years, developed myself, and am in love with it.

A few weeks ago I was in a rush for dough so I used Peter's recipe from Pizza Quest. Now my mother has had my sourdough pizza many times and always told me how much she loved it. Then she had the regular yeast dough from Pizza Quest. She raved so hard that now I feel bad if I choose to make my favorite sourdough if I know she will be there. What's a daughter to do...gotta love your mom.

[deejayoh]

Re: Making Dough.

One more thing. I have a personal sourdough pizza dough that I have been tweaking for years, developed myself, and am in love with it.

not fair unless you share!

[lt4827]

Re: Making Dough.

We just finished our oven. My first pizza was a very simple affair. Went to the store and got a 3 pack of "Pizza Yeast" by Fleishmans. They have a recipe on the back. Worked fine. I have advanced books for baking, and at some point may get into fine tuning a recipe to call my own, but for now, it works, its quick and it tasts good!

[MarrieAnn]

Re: Making Dough.

My most basic bread recipe.

1. 1000g of all-purpose flour.
2. 1 pack, 7g of instant yeast, not just dry yeast.
3. 700g of spring water, I put 800g, but don?t recommend it for a beginner.
4. 20g of sea salt.

Add all of the dry ingredients and mix to combine, add the water and mix until no dry flour is seen. Let this mass rest, covered, for 30 minutes. Do 3 sets of stretch and fold at 30 minute increments cover between sets. The first set of S&F will be the most intense the last the most gentle. Divide the dough into roughly equal loaves, 2, 3, 4 or whatever sizes suit you and roughly shape your loaves. Rest these 10 to 20 minutes and do a final shaping. At this point you might want to put your loaves on parchment paper to proof for 2 hours or so. Bake at 450F until the loaves are about 208F internal and have the crust color you want. If you can add steam to the oven for the first 15 to 20 minutes, it will help your bread crust and oven spring.

This is a very rough instruction on very basic bread.

Chris

I recomended to do it in different way - in luke warm water put the dry yeast and sprinkle with flour, pinch of sugar and leave it about ten minutes to give time the yeast to get alive, then add a tablespoon olive oil, salt and the rest of the flour, mix it well and rest for 30 minutes, put the dough in a baking form and another rest for one hour, then its ready for baking.