March 16, 2016 - 2:55pm
DDT
Hi! I know it's not simple to come up with a super precise formula for calculating DDT, but do you know any which tries to take the amount of preferment into account fx one which incorporates baker's percentage? The amount of starter I use varies a lot, and I would like to hear how you would handle this. I hope the question makes sense!
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The only DDT I am familiar with is an insecticide. So to what are you refering? Also what is fx?
Ford
I'm sorry I didn't explain it so well, but Gary "translated" it perfectly :)
I'm pretty sure the OP means Desired Dough Temperature and fx presumably means 'for example', maybe instead of e.g..
gary
Thank you for explaining my comment, Gary :-)
DDT is desired dough temperature after final mix :) Most bakers aim for between 24 - 27C degrees depending on a few things 25 - 26C is best I think. There are formulas out there, we do;
Ambient temp/room temp
Flour temp
Mix/friction temp (at around 11C for us with a stand mixer, this varies depending of the dryness of the dough etc, and by hand its almost negligible)
Leaven temp
We add these temps together, and say we get 68.4C total, Then we take that away from 100C which equals 31.6.. 31.6 then becomes your water temperature.
Works for us :) Although we have found that water beyond (colder) than 20C is too cold and seem to effectively cancel out the friction heat of the mixer .....and, we have also found that anything above 40C is no good, as it accelerates the yeasts too much.
The idea is that yeasts work best around 25C, and if all components were @ 25C; flour , water, friction, leaven and water) thered be no need to adjust anything. Again, if your only baking at home for yourself it might not matter that much and breads can be made in all kinds of conditions without scales and thermometers.
But, when winter is cold and summer is hot it makes life easier to have a way of regulating the dough temp so that at least it starts out at the same temp and then responds in a similar way for each bake. And so, the only accurately adjustable temp is the water, it becomes the equalizer :)
Your method is the one I've seen and used from time to time (I'm home baker and you're completely right, most of the time it doesn't matter that much). Do change the method if more of your flour is prefermented (when I bake it varies between 10 and 50% ) or ?
It doesn't usually matter.
gary
I dont think amounts matter too much, the best option is to trial it yourself and keep notes and see what makes a difference. We've made small adjustments for our situation for example; if its a really humid warm day we knock a couple of degrees of the water temp just to slow it down a touch - autolyse is out of the fridge, divide and shape is out of the fridge - and so you can compensate a bit and make it more manageable etc.
Its all about averaging out the temps to get near enough to 25C, if you have 50% leaven from the fridge @ 8C and flour @ say 24C then you try to bring the water up to compensate for the cold leaven. If you have a tiny bit of leaven and a lot of other stuff thats closer to the temps you like you might not have to adjust much.
Experience is a very good teacher and only you know your environment and schedule :)
Unfortunately patience isn't my forte, but if there is no magic trick, I'll try what you describe :-)