Bread - What are you baking today…..

[Chap]

With temperatures up to 25C it‘s getting a bit tricky to get the correct times for fermentation and proofing…
That Forkish Overnight Country Blond was a bit underproofed

[steelworker]

I really wish you s.o.b.'s would stop posting photos of stuff I'm too lazy to bake myself.

[Chad]

First biga. Starting to smell the alcohol when I remove the lid. A couple hours to go!

[neph93]

Looking forward to seeing the results @Chad
Getting my Biga on soon. Picked up an 8 quart baking bowl with a lid today. Should be big enough, no? Forkish recommends 6 quarts….

[Chad]

@neph93 I'd say that's more than enough. I couldn't tell you what size this is. I just use this bowl to mix my pre-ferments before adding to the final dough.

[neph93]

I have a five/six quart baking bowl I use for bulk fermenting my sourdoughs, but the Biga’s can grow I think. Better to be on the safe side.

[Giles]

I typically only get 3x overnight and 2.5/3x at the end of the bulk ferment….

[Chad]

Yeah for sure. I believe Forkish says to expect this to triple in volume.

[Stuart.T]

A bit more success on Sunday, spelt, rye, and white. It was delicious. I didn't expect as much oven spring. @neph93 the slashes were made using my Spyderco UKPK, not a lame… Just to show how razor sharp they are

[Giles]

That looks great…..

[neph93]

Well done @Stuart.T  that is coming along nicely. Exciting application of your pocket knife too [emoji1]

I’m increasingly aware of the role the composition of levains play in oven spring and timing. Knowing your starter and the resulting levain seems important for predicting results.

Breads made with my rye starter almost always do well, but my spelt starter acts in a very different way and the timings need to be different. Also the levain I make from my spelt starter gives different results depending on whether I use wholemeal spelt to feed it or finely milled spelt. The former takes more time to ripen and allows for longer fermenting and proofing, while the latter seems much more volatile and peaks earlier.

[jordanscollected]

I had my starter in the fridge for a week and almost forgot about it. However i fed it last night and this morning it was very lively.

I've dabbled with full boules, dinner rolls, bagels, pizza crust, etc. all in the sourdough camp.

this is a 950 gm batch that i added caraway seed and granulated garlic and salt, divided into 4 mini loaves and dusted the bottoms with toasted corn germ for texture.

Bread

[neph93]

They look lovely @jordanscollected. Did my last spelt sourdough before the coming Biga-geddon this weekend.

This is the levain based on finely ground spelt just before it went in. 350g flour and 350g water. This is a 3 liter bowl:

Mental.

The bread came out well but I decided to do two doughs with different hydration to see what differenes occured.

75%:

85% (to the right):

There was a lot more spread from the banneton to the oven plate with the higher hydration. The texture of the 85% bread was much more moist and light, despite the spread, and the crumb was still good:

[jordanscollected]

that bread was very happy, with a desirable variation in holes for some texture differentiation.

[neph93]

Is autolyse not considered necessary with the Forkish Biga? I notice he doesn’t mention it in his recipe.

[Giles]

No need

[neph93]

@Giles:

No need

Thank you sir. On another note I find myself having to wrestle with a first world problem deluxe. Both your zoom meeting times are in conflict with my carefully planned first ever Biga schedule.

[Giles]

Shit happens

[neph93]

It does. The Bigageddon will be delayed by 24hrs.

[Stuart.T]

@Giles those last 2 loves look great. 3rd time lucky for me today. I adjusted a bog standard Jamie Oliver recipe that required neading, so my 1st non non-nead (I hate a double negative). I used a stoneground wholewheat starter, rye and spelt, and white. It didn't last long when sliced over breakfast.