Help please! Loaf shapeing issues

Are you using too much when you do the shaping? (or any at all?) That might cause it to de-laminate during baking. also when you fold during shaping, do push it down with the heel of your hand, or fingers/knuckles, depending on the technique you use. You have to make that nicely stretched gluten surface adhere to the one you're stretching it over.

-Gordon

Not sure what you meant by "folding twice" but anyways, here's how to make a log:

1. Stretch dough out to a rectangle, long side toward you
2. Letter fold left to right (i.e. fold left side 1/3rd across and right side on top of that). Pat down a little
3. Letter fold top to bottom, pat down
4. Rotate 90 degrees
5. Roll from top toward you with fingertips
6. Complete seam by placing hands "karate chop" style on the table surface behind the dough and dragging them forward keeping them in contact with the table at all times. This will stretch the surface of the dough and seal the bottom.

Hello Hodgey

I would recommend flouring your hands and using only the bare minimum of dusting flour on your table surface.

Here is a loony table time vid, at about minute 3 there is some shaping going on, this could be of some help.

http://youtu.be/9--Gjz5f9D8

You have to also ask yourself how much degassing are you prepared to put up with for a well shaped loaf, there are tradeoffs. In any case good luck.

cheers daniel

When you fold your dough it's not adhering to itself properly. This is generally caused by one of two things:

1) A dry surface from either too much flour coating the dough, or from a dough (typically lower hydration) that's developed a bit of a skin as it dries out from air exposure.

2) A coating of oil on the surface of the dough, usually the result of heavy oiling of the container the dough proofed in.

The remedy is to make sure the dough sticks to itself completely when you make your folds. Pressing down forcefully is one way to make your dough stick to itself, but it's not the best way -- you'll degas the dough way too much, making for a tight crumb.

The better solutions are to:

1) Limit table and dough flouring to the absolute bare minimum necessary to prevent the dough from sticking. 

2) Go easy on the oil used to lubricate the fermenting container. After turning out your dough, if you see any puddles of oil, or even just some overly shiny slick areas, be sure to dab off the excess with a cloth or paper towel. 

3) Make sure your resting pre-rounds are not developing any sort of skin. This happens with stiffer doughs or during cold dry weather. You can cover them with plastic or a damp cloth or an inverted bowl -- anything to limit their exposure to the air.

4) Increase dough hydration. Simply put, wetter doughs are stickier by nature, and so they will happily stick to themselves when you make your folds. Of course, this requires the ability to handle wetter doughs. If wet doughs force you to use gobs of flour to prevent them from sticking to everything then that defeats the purpose and this isn't going to work.

Cheers!

Trevor

just before folding or rolling up the dough...  get your hands wet and lightly pat the dough wet so it sticks to itself.  :)