Bread Maker Wanna-Be

[Tonyp]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

Is that the one with the black seeds? Does look very yummy! You probably don't need the gluten unless you are doing high % whole grain flours or adding lots of additional cracked grains, nuts, etc

Going to start a sourdough starter today.. even though my wife prefers yeast breads. Going with the pineapple juice method...I want to start working with sourdough too. Did you see the link in the other section of the forum on controlling sourness?

[JohnR]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

Yes, the recipe calls it "Golden Sesame". I think it would taste good without the sesame seeds as well. I did read the link posted SCChris about controlling sourness... very helpful.

[SableSprings]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

Mike,

Do you have a recipe for Pugliese that you would suggest?

John

I've attached two pdf files for a 2 and 10 batch of the Pugliese I do. (p.s. - I like using roasted potato in my breads, but you can substitute potato flakes ). Also put in a picture of some typical Pugliese loaves (with blowouts ). Note that there's a learning curve with working with wet loaves (that you probably are familiar with). I've attached a link below to my neighbor's blog with a video of working with wet artisan dough.

Bertha's Kitchen: November 2010

If you're looking for a substitute for your gluten supplement, try using some All-Trumps flour as a portion of total flour...it has a very high gluten content and not nearly as expensive as the Vital Wheat Gluten product.

[JohnR]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

Good bake day! 62 pounds of dough (mixed by hand). 15 loaves: sourdough, 13 loaves: french bread, 12 loaves: golden sesame, 11 loaves: pugliese.

I did some different things this week and I had better results. The sourdough was the biggest difference: I mixed the levain on Friday morning at 7am. Then mixed the final dough at 4:30pm. Retarded at 50F at 5:30pm (3 stretch and folds at 8:30, 9:30, 10:30 Friday night). Pre-shape loaves at 6am Sat., shaped boules at 7am... in the oven at 12:30. Nice loaves.

I baked in this order: pugliese, sourdough, french, sesame.

The only thing that went wrong is that my oven was cooler earlier than normal. I attribute that to two things: 1) I put the door on Fri. night at 8:30, instead of 9:30 2)I didn't leave a lot of hot coals in the oven when I put the door on 3) possibly the oven wasn't as saturated, but that seems unlikely. Usually I have 650 F vault temps at noon on Saturday after Friday night pizza. Today it was 575 F. Not the end of the world... I would have liked to cook the pugliese at a higher temp...

The pre-shape pic is sourdough, the crumb shot is pugliese, the batard is the french bread, and the boules are sourdough, and the other pic is all the bread from today.

I am going to try to repeat something like this on Wed. and Thurs. of this week to give away as gifts. Wish me luck!

Again, thanks for the help and guidance.

[TropicalCoasting]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

Here's one of my attempts using yoghurt and whey as a major part of the liquid with angelica seeds to give it a middle eastern taste.
Was excellent.

[SableSprings]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

Looks like you're becoming the village baker (and not a small village!) Nice batch of breads. I'm a little surprised that the pugliese didn't puff up more. Doesn't really matter as long as it tastes good and you might get a little better spring and more open crumb next time with a touch more oven heat. (Sixty two pounds of dough by hand...you're certainly not going to need to spend extra money to go to a gym ) I also do all my mixing and dough work by hand...to me it seems like the whole point of making breads for my friends (closer to the heart and from my hands to yours, etc.)

Do try the black seeds (AKA Nigella, or Charnushka, not Angelica) that Tropical Coasting used and noted in the previous post & pic. As a topping on breads with sesame or with focaccia...they're one of my favorite things to sprinkle on-especially for flatbreads and epi. Mixed with a little fennel seed it will give an authentic Turkish flair/experience to your breads.

As a suggestion/alternative to using egg whites to stick the seeds to dough, I bought a can of powdered egg whites and mix it up to brush on before hitting the dough with seeds. The powdered stuff will make a great sticker and you don't have to crack any eggs to get the whites (and later figure out what to do with leftover yolks).

Looking forward to your next bake report.

[JohnR]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

There could have been other reasons for the flat pugliese... I didn't adhere to your recipe because I didn't have some of the ingredients (no potatoes, high gluten wheat instead of durum, but both are high-protein).

For sticking seeds to dough I read in a book that you can get a dish towel damp and simply roll the loaf on the towel and then in seeds and they will stick... it worked like a charm.

[TropicalCoasting]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

My attempts was an amateurs mistake its either a floured finish or its seeds I went for moooooooooar
Spray some water if your doughs not sticky enough just as you are about to put it in
It will make for a good crust too
The black seeds were nigella (I called them angelica)
That loaf killed my first mixer
I killed 1 more after that and Im a bit worried I might be up to 3 on the last pizza dough ,its getting a bit noisy.
I might have to take up hand mixing.

[SableSprings]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

There could have been other reasons for the flat pugliese... I didn't adhere to your recipe because I didn't have some of the ingredients (no potatoes, high gluten wheat instead of durum, but both are high-protein).

For sticking seeds to dough I read in a book that you can get a dish towel damp and simply roll the loaf on the towel and then in seeds and they will stick... it worked like a charm.

Durum flour is quite different from high gluten wheat...check in your grocery store's bulk food bins. You'll be amazed at how well water is absorbed and how wonderfully silky the durum dough feels. I purchase 50# sacks of both from General Mills (#53722 Harvest King - bulk equivalent of Gold Medal's Better for Bread $25 and #57602 Durum Extra Fancy $29). I contacted the lady in charge of bulk foods at my grocery and order through her...flour is there within a week. With the size of your batches, it may save you quite a bit of money. I tried several flours and found that the Harvest King/Better for Bread worked best for me. It's lower protein than most bread flours, but it's at the protein level used primarily for baking breads in France. I also buy the All-Trumps from the bulk bins to enhance the gluten level in my whole wheat and rye breads.

I love the flavor of potatoes roasted in a cast iron dutch oven (with just EVOO, salt, & pepper). I almost always put some spuds in the oven after my bread bake and find it very convenient to have them on hand if I'm going to make Pugliese or add some to a wheat bread (makes it more moist).

I tried the damp towel and water spray/mist for sticking seed to loaves, but found that unless I had some rye flour in the dough, the seeds came off quite easily after baking. That's why I started using the powdered egg whites...

I'd love to see your setup for creating/working/shaping/proofing/oven loading - it looks like you're quickly becoming a master of bread production from the WFO!

Tropical Coasting: Sorry about your mixers "dying" ... that's one of the reasons I started hand mixing. My old KitchenAid just couldn't handle the amount of dough I wanted to produce

[Tonyp]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

Bread is looking great John! Can see how well you are progressing with each new attempt. Can't imagine making that much but then again there are only a few houses within viewing distance of where I am so no clue what I would do with that much bread!

Tropical Coasting - bummer on the mixers ;< I have a kitchenAid counter top mixer that can only handle a few cups of flour before it starts to strain. For making dough I use my electrolux assistent (it has other names like magic mill etc). Much heavier duty and can handle up to 5lbs of flour without any problem.

Those potatoes sound yummy Mike! Do you keep the lid off so they get crispy on the outside? I will have to pick up some dried egg whites to try. My starter is bubbling merrily now after 6 days so I mixed up a small batch of dough for baguettes. While we were in Paris we had this great baguette from an artisan baker that had sesame seeds on it. I ordered some flour from NYbakers but for now I used a blend of half Italian 00 and half Bobs Redmill unbleached white flour.

[SableSprings]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

Yes, I agree with Tony - John, your breads really look great. Glad you started this thread.

Those potatoes sound yummy Mike! Do you keep the lid off so they get crispy on the outside? I will have to pick up some dried egg whites to try. My starter is bubbling merrily now after 6 days so I mixed up a small batch of dough for baguettes. While we were in Paris we had this great baguette from an artisan baker that had sesame seeds on it. I ordered some flour from NYbakers but for now I used a blend of half Italian 00 and half Bobs Redmill unbleached white flour.

Tony, I keep the lid on the dutch oven for the potatoes. I especially like the Yukon Golds or reds for baking & adding to my breads. Bakers (the potatoes ) taste very good as well done this way. I wash and dry the potatoes, stab each a couple times with a knife and put 'em in the dutch oven. Next I drizzle EVOO over the batch and then sprinkle the pile with Kosher, Himalayan, or my favorite, Murray River salt with a several coarse grinds of black pepper. Dig into the dutch oven and rub the oil/salt/pepper over each potato. Cover & bake. I usually do the spuds at 450-500F after my bread is done and they take between 40 minutes to an hour. Although not crispy, they do get a wonderful "ring of delicious browning" on the bottoms where they contact the iron.

For baguettes, try the Gold Medal Better for Bread flour. I do a poolish and levain the night before and add the remaining flour & salt for the final dough in the morning of a bake. I really love the oven spring and flavor profile I get with this no-knead, long fermentation style loaf. P.S. - I've been folding small cubes of Asiago cheese into the baguettes during the final shaping and that bread's pretty awesome (if I do say so myself). Looking forward to hearing how you like the flour on order vs the 00/Red Mill combo.

[JohnR]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

I'd love to see your setup for creating/working/shaping/proofing/oven loading - it looks like you're quickly becoming a master of bread production from the WFO! :

You probably don't want to... I am working in a 10x10 kitchen with 5 kids running around... and having too much fun.

I began the process this morning for a big (way too big) bake tomorrow. I added it up and the finished dough weight of tomorrows bake is over 51kg/112lbs. I'm hoping to wind up with somewhere between 90 and 100 loaves.

At 6:30am this morning I mixed the levain for three large sourdough batches... each batch in its own tub. The finished dough weight for each tub is 9.6kg. After letting the levain do its thing until 4pm when I got home I mixed/kneaded the remainder of the dough ingredients (with a 30 minute autolyse after adding flour and water to levain and prior to salt and kneading). Then these three tubs went in a cellar like space that is consistently around 50 F. At 6pm I mixed the poolish for three other batches: 1 French (Pain Rustique) and 2 Golden Sesame (everyone likes this one). Each batch gets its own tub: six tubs of dough total. The finished dough weight for the French will be 8kg, and the finished dough weight for each batch of the golden sesame will be 7kg. At 8pm, 9pm, and 10pm I took the sourdough from the "cellar" and gave each batch a stretch and fold (one last s&f at 11pm).

I started a fire in the oven around 5pm and put the door on at 9:30pm. It was 955F on the roof and 750+ on the hearth.

I'm going to rise at 5am and pre-shape 45 loaves of sourdough. Hopefully by 6:30am they will all be shaped into boules and put in baskets to rise for 6+ hours. (I've bought 45 baskets from thrift stores over the last month at $1 a piece). I can fit 15 boules in the oven at one time... so three loads of sourdough with some time for equalizing in between loads.

The poolish will reach the 15 hour mark at 9am. At that time I'll begin mixing the final dough for the French. An hour or so later I'll begin mixing the final dough for the golden sesame. (The semolina flour is less forgiving when it comes to proofing time because of its high protein, so I've read.) 2 hours of bulk proof. By then my baskets should be freed up from the sourdough. French and then sesame into the baskets to final proof. During this time if the oven has lost too much heat because of the 3 loads of sourdough I'll start a fire and bring it back up to temp. When the oven and the bread is ready I'll begin loading the french and sesame.

100 loaves by 4pm! HA! Sounds so easy, but I'm sure it won't go that smooth... It will be me and my 4 year old daughter, I mean baking assistant, home tomorrow. I will try to remember to take pictures along the way and I will report back tomorrow night with what went well and what went wrong.

The tubs with the white sticky notes are the poolish. The three tubs on concrete are the sourdough. The dough pic is sourdough before a stretch and fold. Then a pic of the fire before the door was put on and a temp shot of the "cellar".

[SCChris]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

John,
I am looking forward to seeing the results of your work!

Chris

[SableSprings]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

(The semolina flour is less forgiving when it comes to proofing time because of its high protein, so I've read.)

Wow! I am awed by your system and the volume produced. I suspect your upper body strength has increased a bunch...definitely allows you to eat more of the breads you're producing. I also have about a 10'x10' prep room, but I really don't have the dedication and drive you have...this is amazing!

John, be very careful when using the terms Semolina and Durum flour as they are distinctly different products with different intended uses. Although both are made from Durum wheat, Semolina (rarely called Semolina flour) is a coarser grind than Durum Extra Fancy flour and consequently doesn't have the same baking/cooking properties. Durum Extra Fancy feels much like "normal" flour and is slightly yellow. Extra Fancy will easily absorb more water (than Semolina) while remaining extremely workable as a bread dough. I really can't say I've experienced any problems with proofing times when I incorporate Durum Extra Fancy into bread dough. Semolina doesn't absorb water very quickly and is used for primarily for pasta where you want a bit more texture-also why it's often used on pizza peels...so the pie slides off nicely.

Although you certainly can make tasty breads with Semolina, once you use Durum Extra Fancy you'll never go back...

[Tonyp]

Re: Bread Maker Wanna-Be

Quite the undertaking there John! Sounds like you have a well thought out game plan though. I agree you will most likely need to refire the oven in there somewhere with all those batches of bread.

My tiny batch of baguette dough, equivalent to about 1/80th of what you are producing, is sitting in my fridge for a couple days now..Too many interruptions here at the house for me to get a nice stretch of time to get the dough proofed and the oven heated properly.. My fridge is cold though so the dough it not doing anything while it waits so should be good for tomorrow when I have the day to myself! My reinforced 00 and type 65 flours arrived today so looking forward to experimenting with them in the near future. Also picked up some diastatic malt powder since neither flour is enriched at all.

Looking forward to seeing how your latest batches turn out!