August 8, 2019 - 4:34am
Calculating dough to tin ratio?
Hi All,
I've recently bought a pullman loaf tin and i'm struggling to work out how much dough i need for it to fill just perfectly. I'm generally using a white flour recipe which i would expect 100% rise.
I read that you weigh water in the tin and divide the weight by 1.9 and that's your dough weight needed. But its not working for me. Its TOO MUCH dough. I know i could just reduce it next time, but I want to be able to apply it to any other tin I buy in the future.
Is there another method I can use to calculate this or am I doing something wrong? If it is right, can some one explain it in more detail so I know what i'm doing wrong. (also why is it 1.9?)
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Lewis, I haven’t used this method, but it seems to work according to the general consensus on this forum. Dabrownman is very innovative. Here is the link.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/11585/how-much-dough-pullman-pan#comment-428221
Danny
This question comes up fairly often.
Now I must qualify that when I make pan / tin loaves they are of a very low density, up to 800g per 4 Litres of space. This density is equivalent to the typical commercially made (formulated with improvers) loaves sold in the UK market.
The best approach to quantify this subject is by using specific volume (the reciprocal of density). The above example would equate to a specific volume of 5 (mL/g). Which is some very "light" bread indeed.
In making calculations firstly consider that dough is denser than water. A lean unaerated dough at 50% hydration has a specific gravity of about 1.2. As an example 120 grams of this dough would fill 100ml of space i.e. density = 1.2 (g/ml).
If you expect your final loaf to fill the space twice / +100% (200%) of the dough volume then calculate that as 2x1.2 = 2.4 (42% of the expectant volume).
So try dividing your volume in water weight by that figure. Bear in mind that strong white flour is capable of a fair bit more and in my case I scale at 3.3 the divisible of water capacity for a tin loaf i.e. 30% of the volume. Personally I would find a loaf with a specific volume below 3 (mL/g) to be on the dense or "heavy" side.