First loaves of bread

[egalecki]

Re: First loaves of bread

So, do you shape your loaf and then press your fingers into the loaf? Do you have a picture? I'm visualizing either a batard or a round, having been coaxed into having a nice tight outside and then finger-poked pretty hard. Like foccacia-poked. I think I'll have to cut my nails!

I don't use a lot of bowls/brotforms these days- I've gotten pretty good at getting a decent rise without one. I only use the one I have to get the pretty design on the loaf! Of course, I do use parchment paper to set my loaves upon.

I'll look for the Yellingbo. I may be able to find it up in Roanoke at the Fresh Market there. My "good" oil of choice I can get locally is the Luccini you had mentioned on a thread here somewhere. I've been using it for several years. I'm going to ask for some of the FB oil for my birthday too! I'd love to be able to have olive trees, but that will not be happening here- it's too cold. I have to baby my rosemary bush outrageously to keep it alive all winter! And tomatoes are finished here with the first frost in mid-October (if we're lucky).

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

I have not photographed it. I will next time I make it.

Long nails won't work! You basically poke all the way down into the boule shortly pretty much when you put it in the oven. Say a poke every inch and a half or so - lots. The pokes will inflate during the baking and the loaf will be pretty much smooth on top. Best picture I have seen is on Carol Fields Italian Baker book. Can be really pretty! I slashed my last batch just to be different! I just realized I was mixing languages - it is Pane Pugliese! It is done as sort of free form boules. Usually pretty big 2-3 pounds. Not carefully rounded like a French boule. Rather rustic and funky!

I figured you were too cold for olives, but I thought rosemary was tough! How high are you?

RE: Oil. The FB oil is superb! Most of the real Italin oils in pint or so cans should be pretty good. I think I said this, but I would suggest NOT buying Yellingbo if it is over a year old. (It would be good, but at one year most oils are declining.) Also good to buy bottles that are in boxes (keep light out). To that end there are some very good foil pak oils (i.e. soft plastic and foil bags).

Here a a couple of premium oils to watch for: Dell' Ugo, Colonna, Tenuta Caparzo, Saragano, Badia a Coltibuono (this last seems more commonly available!). I also like McEvoy Ranch but it feels a bit overpriced. All of these are drizzling oils for finishing food.

Good luck!
Jay

[egalecki]

Re: First loaves of bread

I actually have that Carol Fields book. I'll look it up.

We're at nearly 2000 feet here. It gets down below zero sometimes in the winter, but more regularly it'll get to 10-15 degrees during the coldest part of winter. Rosemary isn't reliably hardy below 15 ish, and I cover it up if it's going to be below 20. I use an old horse blanket- it's the only thing I could find that was big enough that could take being outside all winter without rotting!

Oh, and I was kidding about the nails, I'd hate to try to bake (or deal with my horses) with long nails. Ick on the crud sticking under them....

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Pane Pugliese is on the cover on both the front and rear - the two largish, roundish, boulish loaves.

Sounds like you are high enough to have a relatively pleasant summer. I am at 1000 ft and it is too low!

Let's see, long nails, horse$^%*, and breadmaking...sounds like a delightfully aromatic combination! ) Glad to know you are short nailed!
Jay

[kira09]

Re: First loaves of bread

You put the tip in all the way as far as you can, and aerosol for at atomic 10 seconds, affairs it boring advanced as you go, until the beef is rolling out the aperture and up the chimney. Slap your aperture on and you're good! I let the beef out afterwards about 10 minutes, move any loaves about that charge it, and put the aperture aback on until I anticipate it's time.


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Toaster

[kira09]

Re: First loaves of bread

You put the tip in all the way as far as you can, and aerosol for at atomic 10 seconds, affairs it boring advanced as you go, until the beef is rolling out the aperture and up the chimney. Slap your aperture on and you're good! I let the beef out afterwards about 10 minutes, move any loaves about that charge it, and put the aperture aback on until I anticipate it's time.


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[Dutchoven]

Re: First loaves of bread

Right on with me to with both Elizabeth and Jay. Our rule of thumb is to look for about 80% proofed...the last bit will happen in the oven. My suggestion is to try to handle your dough less as Jay suggests...not so much degassing of the dough and more of just a couple of turns, then a rest and then just tighten up the surface before going in the basket or onto the couche or whereever it will get its final proof. I have gotten to poking the loaves to check the proof...recovers instantly and completely not ready...recovers a bit but still shows signs of the poke is just right...if it doesnt recover at all...well it is too far gone...hope that helps a bit
Best
Dutch

[Gromit]

Re: First loaves of bread

Bakers,

Here is my latest effort at the same loaves. I'm not sure whether I'm getting closer to where I should be with the crumb or not; I don't have a good point of reference.

I did add two oz. more of water to get it to a 65% hydration. I also put the loaves in to the oven right of the fridge. The oven was ready to go and I didn't want to re-fire it.

My kids got Reinhart's BBA for me last week. The power went out the other night, so by flashlight in one sitting I read through all of the intro chapters up to the beginning of the recipes. Anybody have any favorite breads from that book that they like?

[Dutchoven]

Re: First loaves of bread

Bakers,

Here is my latest effort at the same loaves. I'm not sure whether I'm getting closer to where I should be with the crumb or not; I don't have a good point of reference.

I did add two oz. more of water to get it to a 65% hydration. I also put the loaves in to the oven right of the fridge. The oven was ready to go and I didn't want to re-fire it.

My kids got Reinhart's BBA for me last week. The power went out the other night, so by flashlight in one sitting I read through all of the intro chapters up to the beginning of the recipes. Anybody have any favorite breads from that book that they like?

Gromit
As far as the cool fermentation goes we have not had great results with a wild yeasted starter and a refridgerated proof. Got similar results to what you show. IMHO you should stick to the formula as you are doing it and improve your dough handling and heat management skills. Bread dough and your oven are things you work with and the more that relationship improves the better your results will be...almost no matter the type of bread or formula that you use. You will gain a greater understanding of what makes a great loaf of bread as you continue to bake and refer to an excellent book like the BBA. They are all great breads but, if I had to pick a great on to start with it would be the Italian bread. It is the one I recommend to all our first time bread eaters because it plays well with everything. From a baker's perspective it is quite consistent and using a biga preferment will help you better understand the wild yeast starter. You can play with some of the variables and you will notice the difference in the results.
Enjoy!
Dutch

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Hi David!

Dutch is right on! Perhaps this will add a bit of extra insight???

Wild yeasts are a bit slower than commercial yeast. When you are proofing you are striving to build up gas (mainly CO2 but alcohols as well) both in the pockets AND in the dough (dissolved). There are two key things happening. The yeast is making CO2 and, at the same time, CO2 is leaking out. When you chill the dough you do a lot of things. One is you slow down the yeast and CO2 generation. You also increase the ability of the dough to hold CO2 in solution (and thus slow transfer to the pockets). The bacteria and enzymes will not slow down much and will continue to add flavor and and the enzymes will increase the sugar level. If you bake it immediately the dough will be relatively stiff and the pockets will be relatively small. The following is speculative but I would expect the outer dough "baking" while the interior is cold to affect oven spring also. Especially at the end when the center is trying to expand and the outer layers have directionally "set".

Looking at your loaf, it looks underproofed (big rip at the slash) which says it had plenty of gas, but the pockets are small - suggesting the gas was not given enough time to accumulate in the pockets. The crust is thick which suggests good humidity in the oven, but the crumb and crust color give me the feeling it was baked at a relatively low temp and that the internal temp only reached 203 or so. This is personal taste, but I like a hotter bake, darker crust and I like to push my breads to the 208-209 range.

I recognize the oven was ready and that determined your time. You would have had much better crumb if you had been able to take it out of the fridge two to three hours before baking to let the dough warm, to let the yeast eat the accumulated sugar from the enzyme action, and to let CO2 move from the dough to the pockets to give a more open crumb.

All that said, I am not as happy with my sourdough when I retard the boules. Never comes out right... (not bad, just not what I want).

Hope that is useful!
Jay

[egalecki]

Re: First loaves of bread

The outside of your loaf looks good. Crust color is highly individual. I'd say increasing your hydration was a good idea. I don't usually push my loaves as far as Jay does- 203-205 is usually good enough for my taste, but going that little bit more does help with the crust if you like it that way. It won't fix the crumb, though. When you do your bulk rise, do you fold your dough? Do you do a lot of hand-kneading? My crumb always tightens up when I muck about with it too much- I let it get fully mixed in the mixer, and then dump it straight into an oiled bowl. Then I do the folding a maximum of twice. I don't do a lot of degassing when I shape it either. Like Dutch suggests, poke your loaves to see if they're ready. Unless they're way overproofed, you won't deflate them.

I baked two different lots of sourdough the other day- one was Reinhart's (where he says to start with barm, use your fed starter, they're the same thing) and the other was Hamelman's Vermont sourdough with whole wheat. I baked the Reinhart recipe all in one day, and the Hamelman I shaped, let it sit for nearly an hour, and put in the fridge for the next day. I let the retarded loaves sit out for about 45 minutes before I baked them, but they were still cold when they went in the oven. The inside oven, but the bread principle remains the same.

The two loaves together are the Reinhart loaves. The long one is the Hamelman. You can't tell from the picture, but that loaf is a little flatter than it ought to be, but not bad at all. The Reinhart loaves are a little taller. I don't have any crumb pictures, but they both had nice, open crumb, not tight at all. The retarded loaves were more on the sour side, pleasantly so. I got nice blistering on each set.

In the Hamelman book, he says it matters not if you put the risen, retarded dough into the oven straight from the fridge- he recommends you do so, since letting them warm up runs the risk of flattening them. I'd agree with this, myself. I preheat my inside oven to 475-500 before I bake, and I bake in the wfo at 500 or so. If it's that hot, the 30 degrees or so difference in temp isn't going to matter much. The trick is to figure out at what point to put your dough in the fridge- I don't think mine rose much in the fridge, and it didn't rise much on the counter during the time the oven was heating. I'm wondering if a bulk rise overnight followed by a regular rise the next day after shaping would work better?

As far as favorite breads from the book, the basic sourdough is good, and the pain l'ancienne is good as is the italian bread. The really invaluable thing, though, is the information! Always make the bread at least once the way the recipe calls for it, so you can see how it differs when you change things.

And always remember that unless you carbonize the whole darn thing you can always make really good croutons with homemade bread, especially the bread that's a little dense! And speaking from experience, panzanella with homemade croutons is just amazing. We had that last night for dinner with a little canned tuna on top and it was soooo good!

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Thanks Elizabeth! Good Comments! I need to reread Hamelman on straight "from the fridge". Hmmm... That doesn't fit right with my experience! (But maybe it is my wild yeast???) Also, your bread looks really good!

Back to crust. I really liked the thickness of David's crust. It looked really good. I just like a little more caramelization, more like Elizabeth's Reinhart loaf on the right which is why I like a higher baking temp.

As I recall you said the bread was BP65. That is a little on the low side IMO. I like to go for 68-70 and wetter doughs tend to give more open crumb. Elizabeth's comments on handling are right on. I like folding for wet doughs to aid in handling but it does seem to cause a tighter crumb so I really resist folding after the first hour of bulk fermentation. I want the pockets to have a chance to grow so I get uneven, open crumb.

The refrigeration/sourdough issue is an interesting one. I have to work on that...

Thanks!
Jay

[Gromit]

Re: First loaves of bread

Thank you all for the very helpful and interesting comments; I am learning a ton. Next time, I will skip the retard since that is about the only variable I have not played with.

Elizabeth, cut those loaves open next time so I can see the inside! They look great, though. I would like to try shaping a batard some time soon. To answer your question, I have been doing all my mixing by hand. I discovered that I really despise my KA. I don't like the way it walks; I don't like the way it whines; I don't like the way that 1 lb. of flour does not seem to be big enough a batch for it yet 4 lbs is too big a batch; and I especially don't like the way it kicks flour all over the counter. It just seems easier and way more relaxing to mix dough by hand.

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Good Morning David & Elizabeth (since we are the main dialoguers!)

An interesting revelation last night that sort of relates to David's comment about his KA. Like David I have pretty given up mixers and go totally by hand and have had no regrets. Two weeks ago they guys my favorite pizzaria got a huge spiral mixer (went from 22 pound batches in a Hobart to "dump two [50 pound] bags of flour in and..." This was my first visit since the new mixer. The dough was amazing. Whole new texture profile I have never experienced. Like soft, wet, yet totally well behaved. I am in shock. I am going to have to go in on a Monday when they are making dough and watch this machine in action!

I suspect I know how to approximate that quality by hand (or at least get closer) but...it was awesome!
Jay

[Dutchoven]

Re: First loaves of bread

Jay
What is great about the spirals, which you probably already know, is that they have a very low friction rate. Takes quite a while to overheat the dough. Only better mixer I suppose is the reciprocating arm type...
Best
Dutch