More of the same

Thanks for the kind words bru (that the way my brothers and I call each other really poking fun at South Africans ... Yes us southerners are odd like hat right !) so absolutely would love to share advice on fact I really want to do a video of I can find the time since it's a tough loaf despite the simple appearance. Usually what happens is the first few loaves come out with a foamy crumb and stretch marks for scores and then next hundred or so exactly the same and begin to wonder what the hey. In reality the small amount of interior in relation to the crust makes oven spring a real challenge as the outer layer hardens very quickly. The one advantage of doing baguette is the fact that there's not a lot of interior to go through and heat up which is some right can produce incredible crumb. I think the main thing to hit are

1. Spot on proofing times and need to also consider ambient temps since is you are working a warm kitchen and follow general timing the loaf will no doubt fail. So let's consider 72-74f as your ambient temperature. At this temperature after you've mixed up a nice delicate dough (avoid super strong bread flours btw). You need about 1.5 hours of initial proofing then immediately to cold retard for about 6-24 hours. Consider this as well - yeast quantity should be on the low end in that first 1.5 hours I go for about 1.5 times rise - all the hoo-ha about 2-3 times rise is a bad thing with baguettes as that will produce a foamy crumb which is uncharacteristic of baguettes. Keep the yeast to less than .8% (this is fresh yeast so for dry that more like .2%) any more and the dough will rise too quickly. Then after the cold retard you should see about double volume which is about the max you want here. By this time the yeast hasn't gone out of control and you should have a nice dough ready to preshape.

2. More timing advice after cold retard. Work quickly at this point try and keep the dough cool and don't let the yeast run away on you. Preshape and relax for 15-20 minutes. Shape and final proof for no more than 40 minutes. On shaping the only thing here is tons of practice or just natural duck-to-water skills. Score and get the loaves into a really hot oven.

3. Getting them into the oven. Of gas use a towel or anything to plug the vents and have some lava rocks ready to be your steam generators. I take my stones and move them to the countertop so that I can peel the loaves directly to the stone and then move the stone to the oven. This way you can score on the countertop - generously mist the loaves. All this time make sure the oven door is open only as needed to retain heat as you can easily lose 100f in 10-20 seconds.

At this point if your dough was kneaded well and you have a nice gluten structure, if the yeast activity has been controlled, of you have shaped such that there's good even tension the scores won't matter too much just so long as they sliced in about 1/8 a1/4 of an inch all of the angle chatter won't matter - the loaf will expand fast enough to burst the scores and fill the co2 cavities without flopping. Over proofing will lead to flat loaves. Too much yeast leads to underwhelming crumb and too little heat leads to surface setting before max spring has occurred. At the end of the day it's sort of a ballet that consist of movements all of which contribute to either a crappy loaf or really amazing loaf. I've baked hundreds of pounds of baguettes but if you can understand the above hopefully that can save you some time. All of the above especially the timing may need to adjusted especially of your kitchen is warmer but hopefully the hints about rise volume can help in understanding what the objectives are - unfortunately for me I didn't have anyone pointing all this out and so it took well over 500 loaves to figure it all out and begin to understand cause and effect - sorry for the long post bit hope that helps !

So much of what I have come to discover or learn in dealing with keeping a moist atmosphere with gas comes from docdough and the configuration that seems to work best in a gas oven is to user a towell to plug the vents - I have a long horizontal vent behind the stovetop burners and I Rollin and old towell and just shove it into that slot. From here I bake at the highest rack and for whatever reason this works better than the middle rack. A few lava rocks with water in a pan at the bottom and don't forget that you can most the loaves before they go in. I must then quite liberally to the point they shine from the moisture on the surface - this seems to help quite a bit - good luck !

I meant to respond to another post of yours where you mentioned that you never really had much interest in white breads (inferring that they can be kind of, well boring I guess). It's that exact reason for the fascination on this end - ie that once you've tasted an artisan baguette '(or any shape of standard white French bread in France you may have a religious experience and come away with entire world rocked by the sudden realization that not all white breads are created equal. For me I can still remember the day in Antibes at 16 years old waking up on day one - open the door to the hotel which had a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean and at my foot was a platter of 4 or five innocent loaves. To the left and right each door also had the same round silver tray with fresh bread just sitting waiting to be brought inside. The first thought was oh crap, no cereal, no milk, no oj. A few minutes later sitting at the table in the room, other team mates (this was a sporting comp and we were all a bit jet lagged) still groggy and waking I bite in to what expecting to be disappointing because after all I want cereal and boom ! Taste buds are confused saying hold on a second, this is bread ... White bread what's going on here ? Before we ate out for the day I already eaten a good portion of the loaves and from there every morning was a treat and a whole new world had opened up. So the point obviously is that when it's good it's really good. In USA bread is just energy like most food but in France it's perfection - there's an expectation that a baguette purchased at the local boulangerie tastes, feels, smells and looks a certain way. And that's the whole point of this adventure in baking - that is trying to get as close as possible to that iconic loaf that is not just a bit better but leaps and bounds better than the run-of-the-mill bread available elsewhere.

The other point I wanted to make is that soon I will post a more detailed recipe and method - the above was a quick response but docdough and a few others asked for the full breakdown. At this point I feel comfortable enough that it should be fairly close to at least for me am acceptable baguette de tradition recipe and method. Stay tuned for more details ...