First loaves of bread

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Hi Dutch!

I sit at the counter right by the fellow who forms the dough balls and last night the owner covered the spot for a while. I asked him about his new mixer and he handed me a ball and it was like nothing I have ever touched. Soft, velvety, extensible beyond compare, barely sticky, yet clearly wet. I had heard all the stories but I was not prepared for the real thing, i.e. the difference! The owner commented that they were in shock too by the difference it made.

I knew about the gentleness. And I have heard the logic that the fork mixer is the best but that seems much more controversial than the advantage of the fork/spiral over elliptical.

The crazy part was I thought I was making really neat dough by hand but... this was a real eye-opener.

As I recall you have an SP5???? I think CanuckJim does too. I may have to order one - its been on my list for about two years. Mainly want it to do big enough batches to easily load my WFO to a good level for great crust w/o the hassle of hand kneading multiple batches.

I am still shaking my head over the dough. It was sublime!
Jay

[MK1]

Re: First loaves of bread

TexasS,
How do you load 15 lbs at one time without losing your steam?

Mark

[Dutchoven]

Re: First loaves of bread

Jay
I wish I had a spiral mixer and the SP% is pretty great. We use a planetary type mixer but primarily to bring the dough together not really for development. I know what you mean about the kneading in small batches. In our home oven about 12-15 1.5# loaves was max...now in the restaurant oven that we are using to get used to the quirks of it it takes 20 just to make it a good load...depending on shape it can hold close to 30 if I hold my tongue right.
Mark
You have to do it as quickly as possible and then steam the oven manually after loading. As Jay mentions quite often the bread steams the oven while it is baking but in order for a great crust there has to be a load of steam...either a full oven load of dough or a little help. The ovens generally recover quite well.
Best to all!
Dutch

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Hi Dutch!

Thanks for the comments re: loading. My only suggestion would be "LOTS of help" in the place of "a little help". I don't see how people get bread out of their ovens that are as pretty as they are (maybe photography is kind) when they only load a couple of loaves!

I did some research yesterday. Doug had referred to his mixer as a spiral but it is technically a fork mixer. The videos I found online seem to show very similar dough texture and quality from both.

Thanks!
Jay

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Hi Mark!

I don't worrty too much about humidity before loading. And it does take some time to load 15 pounds of boules and ciabatta and... so it is a concern, but...there is only so much you can do.

As I think I stated, I clean the oven out - just rake and brush - when it is properly heat soaked. I do not mop it until the temp is ready to bake. The mop is only damp - not soaked, but it does hydrate the hearth somewhat. Then I spray the dome lightly to increase the humidity. Load like mad. Spray about five seconds (not on the bread and particularly in the back. Close the door. And relax. The panic is over. About 20 minutes in I take a look and move a few loaves around to make sure things are going right.

I can't prove it makes a difference, but psychologically I really like to have some really wet ciabatta in the oven to serve as an extra source of humidity (usually around 3-4 pounds out of 15). It works for me and I enjoy the ciabatta! )
Jay

[CanuckJim]

Re: First loaves of bread

Jay,

Can't recommend a spiral enough. I've had my counter-top Esmach SP5 for years. It's a horse. Very little maintenance (grease the chain every year or so). The friction factor is 26, as opposed to around 38 for a KA. The hook and bowl shape combination is simply awesome. The resulting dough is very well combined, silky, barely requiring hand kneading at all. I should get a commission from the San Francisco Baking Institute because of the number of people who have come here for courses, then immediately ordered one. One lady from Minnesota ordered hers by cell, standing in my kitchen. Google Santos, too. They have a counter-top fork mixer of about the same size. One of my course participants from New Zealand ordered one, and she's quite satisfied with it. Makes a lot of bagels for her teenagers.

My mixer will hold 8 lbs of flour at a shot, but I usually restrict it to around 6 lbs to cut down the mess. There are, of course, larger models. Still, that's a lot of pizza balls. It's a heavy (deliberately) piece of gear. Doesn't walk around on the counter at all, even with enough dry bagel dough to make forty of them. We catered a wedding held on a property with a WFO (another student of ours). We made sixty dough balls in a few hours, retarded them overnight in the fridge in round containers and took them to the site in iced coolers. Made a lot of converts to Caputo and a WFO that night.

I know these things are not cheap, but far as I'm concerned the mixer owes me exactly zip.

Jim

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

Hi Jim!

You are a living advertisement!

I am almost certain to get one. My wife will roll her eyes and I will have to figure out where to put it, but...I know I am going to increase my baking once I finish my dissertation! Thanks for the comments! We discussed the SP5 several years ago and I knew you loved it but your stories are getting better!

There is one item I would like to verify. I had interpreted the capacity of the mixer as 8 pounds of dough and you seem to indicate it is 8 pounds of flour. I recognize that filling the mixer to the brim is at least messy, but that would imply a capacity for at least 13 pounds of dough! And your norm of 6 pounds of flour would equate to at least 10 pounds of dough. And...perhaps even more conveniently, it would easily take a full 5 pound bag of flour which is way more than a KA will handle.

Being able to get up in the ten pound range is a big deal to me so, assuming I interpreted this right that makes the SP5 even more perfect!

Look forward to your response.

Thanks!
Jay

[CanuckJim]

Re: First loaves of bread

Jay,

The SP5 manual was translated from Italian, not very well either. One of the instructions is not to clean it when it's running. Nope, we are talking six pounds of flour here, not dough. I find if I go any higher than seven, though I could, it gets a bit messy until the flour is hydrated.

Here's what I used for the pizza catering job:

3035 gr/6.69 lbs flour
1973 gr/4.35 lbs water (65%)
6 gr IDY (7.5 if not being retarded overnight)
24 gr/.86 oz sea salt (or a bit less according to taste)

Result: twenty-four 210 gr dough balls for 10" pizzas

The mixer didn't even blink.

Jim

[texassourdough]

Re: First loaves of bread

You have my attention! That is enough dough to really make sense and pull down the effort on large batches!

I guess I know what I will ask Santa for!
Jay

[CanuckJim]

Re: First loaves of bread

Jay,

Should have specified I used Caputo Tipo 00 Pizzeria flour in the formula.

Jim

[Gromit]

Re: First loaves of bread

OK, I am persistent if nothing else.

Ye who have been commenting on this thread, please let me know what you think of the crumb on this latest effort. I have also re-posted last week's loaf for comparison.

I made the following changes:

1) I made this all in one day--no overnight retard.
2) I tried to handle the dough minimally. (It seemed I was still squeezing every last bit of gas out of the fermented balls as I was shaping the boules.)
3) I divided the dough into four 17 oz. loaves instead of three 23 oz. loaves. This was an accident. Because of this, I let the loaves proof an extra couple of hours to try to get them to fill the basket.

I also put the loaves into an oven closer to 600 deg. than 500, so they burnt a bit on the bottom. I fed pizza to thirteen this evening and had been working on bread in one form or another from the moment I woke up, so I was ready to get these loaves in the oven and call it a day.

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: First loaves of bread

Looks just like what I buy at the bakery they call it swiss bread, It seems they call the same one with larger holes in it Italian loaves, I think it looks great, How did it taste ?

[egalecki]

Re: First loaves of bread

I wouldn't have let it rise more to try to fill the basket. I think that's why you have that void on the one loaf's top. It's also why you didn't get any rips in the top- when you overproof you don't get the extra lift in the oven. I change the size of loaves all the time- I just don't need a giant boule most of the time, and the smaller ones freeze just fine. The trick with rising is to get it doubled or nearly doubled- so if you started with a softball, you should end up with a cauliflower. So to speak. Dutch's finger poke is really the best way to tell.

The crumb does look better. The color is nice, even with the excess carbonization of the bottom. I've been there and done that. Just cut it off before you eat it! Question is, how did YOU like it?

Since you are using proofing baskets, I wonder if you could just portion out the dough, roughly stretch it or round it to fit, and just plop it in. You don't need the same surface tension to hold the dough together since they're not freestanding as they rise. You might get less deflation that way. I don't know if this is good practice, though. I'm sure Jay or someone else will know that. I know my mom used to take time and shape her loaves, and now she just pulls blobs off and plops them into the pans. (she makes an old-fashioned white yeast bread, using milk) Her loaves don't look as smooth on top as they did, but the crumb inside is indistinguishable.

You'll get it eventually. I forget- have you done much baking previously? If not, well, you've sort of jumped in the deep end of the pool without water wings. Never fear- it's just flour and water and wild critters- you'll get the hang of it. Oh, and your experience of "just wanting it done" is why I rarely bake after pizza. I'm usually tired, hot, and my kitchen is a wreck, and I'd rather clean it up and crash!

[Gromit]

Re: First loaves of bread

The bread tastes very good. I was happy with the taste before, but the airier texture made it even better. I bumped the salt up to 2.5% and it gave it just enough to be able to taste the salt through the sourdough; I will have to sample it more over the next couple of days to decide whether I prefer that amount of salt. These loaves had a cooler, moister texture than before. I don't know whether to attribute that to the shorter baking time (~ 20 min) or to the amt. of proofing. Yes, I feel like I'm in the deep-end; I haven't done any baking other than pizzas on a stone before this.

[Dutchoven]

Re: First loaves of bread

I agree with Elizabeth in that they might have been a bit overproofed. 80% proofed is our target most of the time. Color looked great to me even if the bottoms burned a bit. Surface tension is sort of important even if you use baskets, at least IMO. You can really do it by just stretching and folding for rounding and then after a short rest just pull the ends to the middle and pinch it to seal, you can even pinch it together to seal it after you put it in the basket.
There may be a shaping video somewhere with canuckjim's hands doing it somewhere and if I can figure it out maybe I can post one
All the best!
Dutch