My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

I baked some sourdough bread this morning so that I can give to my collegues for Christmas. This is my best result for bread so far. However, it could be a little bit better.

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

I think I found the perfect recipe for my favorite hearth bread. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at YouTube for any ideas or tips on how to bake bread and I ran into Chad Robertson who owes Tartine Bakery along with his wife. His bread hydration is about 73% which is the highest hydration % that I have ever done. I found his kneading technique to be very efficient. Ever 30 minutes, just a few stretch and fold for over 3 hours. Then shaped the dough and place it in a round basket and let it fermented over night in my garage which was about 50 degree. Even though the bread didn't caramelized as much as the bread at Tartine, it was still my best bread ever. The holes were irregular and there is nothing better than the smell of fresh bake bread when I opened the door of my WFO. After letting the bread rest for 30 minutes, I just ripe one loaf apart and stuffed my face with it. I had bake nine loaves of 700 grams boules that morning and I gave some breads to some of my lucky neighbors who are happened to be home at the moment. There just something so therapeutic about baking bread. It really relaxed me and I am just looking forward to my Saturday because that is my day of baking bread from now on. I really love baking bread!

[texassourdough]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Crumb and color look good. A couple of minor suggestions/comments.

Your oven temp was almost certainly a bit low when you loaded if you want the Tartine look. Probably 10 to 15 degrees in the dome. You don't show us the bottoms of the loaves but they look like they might be a hair light. The 10 to 15, maybe 20 degree hotter hearth/dome will help that too if I am right.

You appear to have some blowouts on the sides (light also) which indicates your loaves were too close together. Also, did you move the loaves around/rearrange them during the baking? That can help with blowouts (sometimes) and more uniform baking/color.

The crumb is wonderfully random. Nice job. But it is tight for a really wet dough loaf like Tartine. You are probably a hair underproofed and your handling/forming is probably a bit off - most likely too late in forming. When I do Tartine I have to shorten the bulk fermentation a bit and extend the final proof to get the crumb right. Handling and forming take time so...keep doing it. It will come around...

Tartine makes great bread. Hope these comments help! And there is nothing particularly inferior about what you made. My comments are strictly relative to the true Tartine.

Bake On!
Jay

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Jay,

Thanks for your suggestions/comments as always. I loaded the dough into the WFO when the air temp was reading at 500 F and the floor/dome’s surface readings were reading at 550 F. However, after I loaded 6300 gram (14lbs) of dough into the WFO, the air temp never go past 410 F. I thought my temp were a little too high. I should of take some photo on the bottom of the loaves because it actually has a nice dark caramelized color which I was aiming for. I think my temp was okay because if it was any hotter, I would definitely burn the bottom of the loaves. After they were baked for 15 minutes, I opened the door to let the steam out for about 30 seconds and noticed that there were some blowouts on most of the loaves and as matter of fact, two of the loaves’ blow out were so big that the blowouts were touching on each other. I only did one slash for each loaf which may not be enough and one slash only may have caused the blowouts on the side of the loaves. I will do at least 4 slashes (which resemble # sign) per loaf next time. I didn’t think of moving the loaf around and I will definitely do that this Saturday because I can see how that could help with the color. I do agreed that the final proof could be extended which will certainly help with the holes in the crumb and allowed more time for starch to be converted to sugar which will certainly give the crust more blisters and darker tone. Another reason why my loaves were not dark all around is because the dough was stuck to the cloth liner on the basket during the final proof and I lost a portion layer of good color when I tried to flip the dough onto the peeler. I feared that if I increase the fermented time on the final proof, they would stick even more to the cloth liner basket. I am just using high gluten flour on the cloth liner as a release agent.

[SableSprings]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

- quote from banhxeo76 post 19 above-
"Another reason why my loaves were not dark all around is because the dough was stuck to the cloth liner on the basket during the final proof and I lost a portion layer of good color when I tried to flip the dough onto the peeler. I feared that if I increase the fermented time on the final proof, they would stick even more to the cloth liner basket. I am just using high gluten flour on the cloth liner as a release agent."

Switch to rice flour to help release your bread dough from the bannetons & couche cloth instead of regular bread or AP flour. I put the rice flour in a small shaker, sprinkle it over the cloth and then lightly rub it over the surface to distribute and get it into the linen fibers. I've had some pretty wet doughs and not experienced a "sticking problem" with this technique. The same sprinkle with rice flour in your banneton will allow good release when you flip the proofed loaf to the peel (I also sprinkle a bit of rice flour on the peel so the loaf slides freely--if I'm not using parchment paper on the flipped loaf bottom...)

[texassourdough]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

My interpretation of the bottom and inference of a slightly cool hearth was from the slightly light look near the base of a couple of loaves. In the cut slice the crust looks pretty uniform all over (top, bottom, sides) so I questioned my inference. The slice doesn't look dark so I have to ask if you raked the coals out and got the hearth uniformly hot (and made sure that ash didn't insulate part of the hearth).

Sticking and losing part of the skin can definitely affect crust color and contribute to a blotchy look (like you have on a couple of loaves). Rice flour is a powerful release agent. I tend not to use it because (at least some brands) give a sandy texture to the crust I don't like. Still, rice flour is better than screwed up loaves.

WRT sticking...I am a bit torn on diagnosing your crumb and the inferences I am making on your sticking.... Are you using bread flour for your loaves (which tightens crumb a lot). I make my 73 to 75 % hydration loaves (including Tartine) using KA AP (at 12.5%). I think your sticking may result from inadequate development. How are you mixing your final dough? You probably aren't getting the skin of the loaves tight enough either. As I indicated earlier that should come with experience!

WRT side blowouts. While any given loaf can do most anything, side blowouts almost always (in my experience) mean the loaves were too close together. If the oven is not dry and the loaf is slashed the loaf should always expand at the slash.

Hang in there! You are really close.

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Well, I went at it again today with Tartine Country Bread. Last week, I went to the library and checked out Chad Robertson's book called Tartine Bread. After I read the book a couple of time, I realized that I made some significant mistakes on my last attempt of Tartine Country Bread.
- I didn't slash the dough enough which caused some blowout on the side of my bread.
- I used excel to calculate amount of ingredients that I needed for 9 loaves. However there was an error on my formula which resulted in 70 hydration rather than 75% hydration per Chad's instruction. I think this contributed to the smaller holes in the crumb
- Instead of using bread flour as a release agent, I should be using rice/wheat flour mixture as a release agent like some of your guys have already recommended.
Last night, I mixed the dough with 80% hydration and I noticed that it was a lot easier to mix the dough in the beginning. However, it was very hard to shape the dough because it was very wet. I did a few type of slash on the dough to see what will work best. I like the three vertical slashes because it was easy to do and the rise on this slashes was consistent. I had to put in the dough a little early than I would like because my 9 months pregnant wife was getting hungry. The air temperature was reading 515 F and the surface temp. was about 565 F. I had to spray extra water into the WFO before I loaded the dough into the WFO since it was still hot. Let me tell you something, rice and wheat flour mixture as a release agent worked beautifully and I will not bake bread without it. After I loaded 9 dough of 630 grams, I sprayed a little bit more of moisture over the dough so that it gave dough some time to rise up in the first 15 minutes of baking and closed the door. Opened the door at 12 minutes because the wife was complaining and it appeared the dough rise up pretty nicely and thank god for no side blow out. Closed the door again to let the bread bake more. 15 minutes later, the bread was pretty much done and the smell was awesome. I noticed that I got some nice blisters all over the loaves. As I unloaded the loaves from the WFO, I noticed the loaves were singing to my ears. Nice cracklin' sound from the loaves. I brushed excess flour off the loaves with a medium brush while they were still hot. I ripped one loaf up and the aroma was great. Nice holes in the crumb and crust was outstanding. Oh yeah, the pregnant wife stopped complaining when she saw the bread.
I placed my insulated door back on and noticed that the air temp. maintain at 500 for the next 3.5 hours. I could of baked 3 more loads if I wanted to and I may attempt that in the near future so that I can give to bread away. Thanks Chad Robertson for sharing your recipe and technique.

[TropicalCoasting]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Well done,,,, thats some very sexy looking bread.
Im drooling here

[SCChris]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Very Very nice!

Chris

[WJW]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Looks great!

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Hi Tu,
That is beautiful looking bread, I bet it tastes as good as it looks.
Tu, my plan this year is to work on my hearth bread if I can get it something like yours I will be stoked, happy baking.

Doug,

It did taste as good as it looks. With you cooking/masonry ability, you can certainly get there. You need to get Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread book. The book doesn’t have ton of recipes but the descriptions and the photos are very helpful and I certainly learned a lot from that book.

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Tu,
Sorry for the delay in my kudos. Very nice lookin breads. You feeding the neighborhood?

[banhxeo76]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

I sure did gave some to the neighbors. I kept some in the freezer and took it out last night and bake it in my gas oven for 20 minutes at 350 F. I was very surpised how good it tasted after being in the freezer for more than 5 days. I guess, I can do a monthly bake and keep the extra in the freezer. The crumb was still moist and soft. It was great with soft cheese and olive oil.

[Laurentius]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Hi Who Dat,

I tried Dat, but it kept me from using my oven and I just hate Dat, so I stopped doing Dat.
A fresh loaf and a hot fire, I'm loving it.

[texassourdough]

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Sorry to be slow responding but I was incommunicado in Argentina.

Looks like you just about nailed it! Very good. Nice crumb. Good bake. Good technique from all appearances.

My only comment (and it is not criticism) is that IF you are aspiring to Tartine loaves, your loaves are still light. Chad's loaves are very dark. If you want that look you probably need to load at a marginally higher temp. How dark to bake is a personal preference and while I tend to prefer slightly darker, there is nothing wrong with that bake that I can see.

Well done!
Jay