September 19, 2019 - 11:48am
80% hydration bread but not sticky?
Hello!
I’m a beginner bread baker.
So, i just stumbled on my grandma old dutch bread recipe and i’ve been trying to make it work but it fails me every time.
Here’s the recipe:
1 kg flour (i’ve tried AP and bread flour, both ends in very dense textured bread)
800 ml milk/water
50 g sugar
75 gr yeast (since i don’t have access to fresh yeast, i use 25 gr of dry active yeast)
800 gr raisin
Pretty straight forward recipe, the problem is for an 80% hydration bread, the dough is not sticky at all.
i can knead it with no problem. i always try to reach window-pane test, which i can but the dough is not super smooth. it’s jagged but i can make out the window pane.
Please help advise if there’s anything else i can do.
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Hi Broadbread,
I don't know if this is related and I only really make sourdough, but the amount of dried yeast seemed off to me (too much). I quickly went and looked at a cookbook I have and for a similar loaf with 1000g flour, they only recommend 8 grams of yeast.
Another thing that seems a bit surprising - you don't mention salt at all. Salt should generally be around 2% of the weight of the flour, so in this case you would want 20g salt approximately.
A third thing, it is surprising to me that with 1000g flour that you'd use 800g raisins. A mix-in like raisins or nuts would more generally be about 20% of the weight of the flour, but you have almost as much raisin as flour.
What do you think?
1 kg flour (i’ve tried AP and bread flour, both ends in very dense textured bread)
800 ml milk/water
50 g sugar
20g salt
8 gr dried yeast
200 gr raisin
Will do, thank you for the input.
Is it normal though for the dough to be not too wet and sticky?
It depends on how "thirsty" your flour is. Whole wheat flour tends to absorb more water so an 80% dough with a lot of whole grain might not be sticky, but with white flour it usually would be.
One guess here- you are adding a ton of raisins and if not pre-soaked, your raisins are probably drinking a lot of your water! This could be why your dough isn't sticky.
wow i didn’t think about that.
thank you very much!
You have a good recipe there.
Just remember, if you do that recipe with water, you will get a totally different bread.
If you use the same recipe with milk, you will get another type of bread.
Milk contains lot of sugars and lactose, that does have an effect on your gluten development, and your bread made from that will have the crumb similar like brioche without butter.
Whereas you use water, you crumb will be more open, and sugar is hyperscopic, it means it also absorbs moist which your yeast relies on.
To add 80% raisin is a bit to much, try 20%.