October 16, 2020 - 11:19am
Double Lamination and Adding Inclusions
I’ve just uploaded a video demonstrating how I do a double lamination and add inclusions for my purple sweet potato sourdough with black sesame seeds. Please have a look and like, I’d appreciate it.
Benny
Share
That looks like a lot of skill. Do you have a picture of the finished loaf?
Not yet, it is in the banneton and in cold retard overnight. I will post it tomorrow in my blog here once it is baked. It really isn’t that hard at all, I have no special skills to speak of. Once you try it you will find it easier than it might look and it really help build structure in your dough.
Thanks for watching my video.
Benny
Thanks for another terrific video. I've never done a double lamination, and I can't wait to try it. I'm looking forward to seeing what this loaf looks like after it's baked.
Richard
Thanks again for watching my videos Richard. I will post photos after baking it tomorrow morning.
That is neat and beautiful, Benny. I've seen you often use lamination, and some other bakers too (although haven't seen double lamination before, that's smart!), but I haven't tried it myself yet. What does it add exactly, except helping to add inclusions? It is said it gives strength, so it helps develop gluten? So is it an alternative to, say, slap&folds?
I helps build structure for the final dough. Using lamination was the technique that really helped my sourdough baking a year ago finally take a big leap forward. So yes it helps with gluten, but more than that it builds structure.
Interesting, I've never thought about it, I guess, thank you! Structure - as in aligns the gluten strands? And helps for the loaf to hold its shape? Maybe I should try it, just put a couple of loafs with 30% spelt in the fridge to retard, worried about them flattening out during the bake due to spelt's extensibility - is this the sort of thing lamination is helpful for then?
Yes structure is beyond just gluten. It is how the gluten is organized and then futher strengthened by the gases trapped inside the gluten network and how all of that is organized in a 3D manner. This is also why I like coil folds, each time you do coil folds, you are teaching the dough what shape you want it to end up in. You see this as bulk fermentation proceeds, at the end of each coil fold you start to see the shape of a loaf.