Bread - What are you baking today…..
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famous vienna restaurant Steirereck https://www.steirereck.at/en/restaurant/
has a bread sommelier… if you ever come back to vienna, you got an INVITATION (not only for the bread ;)) -
Arrrrggghhhh.
As noted yesterday I am trying to perfect my spelt loaf, and struggling to get the kind of oven spring I have had earlier with spelt, and regularly with wheat loaves.
Initially I thought it was too much hydration causing the issue. I lowered this bake to 75%.
After yesterday’s discussion I suspected the issue was the length of the bulk ferment. This dough had a three hour bulk ferment (down from four and a half), and a 10 hour fridge retardation (down from 14 hours).
There is plenty of life in the dough. The over night fridge proofing saw a 40-50% increase in volume. Straight from the fridge:
They came out of the banneton’s just fine, but deflated meaningfully after scoring:
There is oven spring. The volume of the dough increases during the first 20min. Here they after 20min. They have been covered and the oven has steam. The problem is that the volume increase is much more lateral rather than vertical.
Finished:
The crumb is not the greatest I’ve had, but isn’t bad at all:
So these loaves turned out more or less exactly the same as my last batch, which had a longer bulk ferment and fridge proof, and higher hydration. What the actual yeasty-fuck is next?!
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You guys are killing it on the Bread Frontier.
I would pay good money to have a sandwich with that bread. -
You guys are killing it on the Bread Frontier.
In all honesty, mine tastes great. My mother-in-law who has been baking all her life now weeps in envy when she tastes mine. Buy it doesn’t fekkin look like it should and it is a righteous pain in the ring.
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I'm with you. I think my bread tastes wonderful and loads of my friends are now using recipes that I have given them. But I still can't get the oven spring that I would like….A work in progress.
I've watched some tart on YouTube taking about 15 minutes to score the most amazing and intricate patterns into her proofed loaves. If I a) took that long and b) scored it so much, my dough would be about the thickness of a Rizla paper....
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But I still can't get the oven spring that I would like….A work in progress.
The bastard thing is that if I put the dough into a tin it would be forced to rise upwards and look awesome. But I’ve now become a slightly obsessed, macho «free-baker» and the idea of using tins makes my teeth itch and arse clench.
And the real kicker is that I’ve had good oven spring before, I’ve just lost it somewhere in the tweaking.
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This thread has inspired me to order some flour, fire the starter up and dust off the bannetons. Haven't baked for about two years so probably in for a couple of months of pancakes before figuring it out again, but looking forward to it!
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@LewisStonehouse get in there lad. Looking forward to seeing how that goes…
@dinobarnesberlin "Breaking Bread"… I like that a lot. Quite accurate. I do feel like a wannabe chemist who doesn't know his ass from his elbow at times. I'm Jessie from season 2 in other words...
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@LewisStonehouse get in there lad. Looking forward to seeing how that goes…
@dinobarnesberlin "Breaking Bread"… I like that a lot. Quite accurate. I do feel like a wannabe chemist who doesn't know his ass from his elbow at times. I'm Jessie from season 2 in other words...
but in the end, Jessie wound up to be a pretty decent cook @neph93 .
yours already look very tasty –-and that goes for all you guys baking in your kitchens.! -
But I still can't get the oven spring that I would like….A work in progress.
The bastard thing is that if I put the dough into a tin it would be forced to rise upwards and look awesome. But I’ve now become a slightly obsessed, macho «free-baker» and the idea of using tins makes my teeth itch and arse clench.
And the real kicker is that I’ve had good oven spring before, I’ve just lost it somewhere in the tweaking.
Whoa big fella, easy now…
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Today I followed a Sarah Owens (author of 'Sourdough - recipes for rustic fermented bread' '). She has a great 30 min video on YouTube.
Recipe:
60g starter
300g water
310g white bread fl
80g wholewheat stoneground fl
8g salt30 mins autolyse
3 hr bulk ferment, folding every 30 minsAll I was left with is the same sticky, wet, unshapeable mess that I had with a different recipe last week.
My starter doubles in size after feeding, passes the float test, and smells great…this is the result. I can only put the issue now down to ambient temperature or type of flour.
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That baking with your own Levain is of course a cool hipster thing and sometimes I really had nice results mostly with wholemeal bread…. but I am with Giles and I don’t have the time and patience to cultivate the Levain permanently... I switched to prefermented doughs... more predictable results
Another 80% Biga + Giles 8 Grain
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So a bit of success at last. Today's bake had a four hour bulk ferment and a seven hour fridge proof. A possibly meaningful factor was that my starter was made 11 hours before it went into the flour and was fermented in my warm cupboard. The routine for the last few bakes has been to make it late the night before and use it 18 hours later. It sat on the kitchen bench though where it is cooler. I suspect it was more burnt out than it should have been.
The results in terms of crumb and taste were the same, the volume increase during the fridge proof were limited, but the oven spring and firmness of the dough between the fridge and the oven were much, much better. The final loaves were higher and ended in a better shape.
At this point it's about aesthetics, but I'm pleased to have learnt a little more about the practical dynamics involved.
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Looks great @neph93 ^^
