January 22, 2015 - 9:36am
Geography makes a difference
I just assembled a throw-together yeasred sandwich loaf and a sourdough french loaf. One thing I immediately noticed is that the flour was a lot more humid than back home in Wisconsin winter wonderland (temp and humidity very low). I am currently in Tampa,Florida,USA where the temp is about 77F and humidity about 60%. I don't have all my tools here(such as a scale) sso I am scooping cups. I am also using different water and equipment so we'll see how things turn out. I have to believe the humidity affects weight,also butmaybe not too much. The cup of flour really felt different when I initially scooped. I dumped it back,fluffed the flour and re-scooped.
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can have a different pH as well.
Having a holiday from your scales? FUN! :) touchy, feely, bakin'
I ended up making a potato and butter enriched dough that turned into some monkey bread and soft sandwich buns.I was baking for an elderly neighbor-softer worked better for her. The 100% sourdough French dough got thrown into the refrigerator for a 18 hour retard after mixing.Something came up necessitating I leave for a while. It turned out very delicious and not at all sour. The fermentation flavor was almost a little beer-y and very good. I might have to repeat the long, cold retard again. The crust "sang" quite loudly after it came out of the oven.
Touchy,feely is right but I was able to bring a Bosch Compact mixer so I am not totally tool-less. :) I have only used this mixer for gluten free doughs in the past. It behaves quite differently with gluten-based dough- I'm still getting used to it. It takes a long time but I was trying out the low speed.It had no problem-hardly got warm-after 20 minutes mixing on low- though they were both higher hydration doughs.
Interesting baking in different environments.
Flour moisture content in Florida and other coastal states tends to be higher than the typical 14% because the flour absorbs water from the moister air. And, protein contents of flours in the SE U.S. also tend to be lower than those of flours sold in other regions. It would not surprise me if your doughs required less water to achieve a desired consistency.
Paul
Since this was not done with measurements, I approximated the liquids at about 1 1/2 c liquid to 3 c flour. With the Bosch mixer, it works better to add the liquids first-a peculiarity I need to adjust to. I ended up adding much more flour than I thought I should need to get the desired consistency.I probably ended up with 5-6 cups of flour on the French loaf and it still seemed to act like a high hydration dough.
I did use a brand name flour (Gold Medal unbleached). I thought it took forever to develop the dough. I have used lower protein flours before and was able to make some very good bread-as long as I really developed the dough.
Good observation. I will adapt.
Might want to test my egg white solution to low protein flours. One white to about 500g flour and weigh it like water with the water. Curious to see what you think? Esp. for white hard rolls and baggies. :)