January 2, 2021 - 10:50am
Brotformen24 question about flouring
Hello!
I love my brotformen! I am wondering something, though. I find that my dough releases easily from the form even when I do not flour it. Is there some other function of flouring the form as it relates to how the dough proofs overnight? The flour is a bit annoying for two reasons -- first, the flour gets a little "cakey" on the top of the loaf (happens with both rice and AP), and second, I have to brush the brotform to remove any excess flour (which I like to do, so it doesn't get rancid), which is time consuming when you are making large batches.
Any thoughts? Do you flour your brotformen?
Thanks!
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I find that after I've used mine for some time and they have some leftover flour in the sticky parts, if the dough is not very high hydration I don't really need to add extra flour - but I do just in case anyway. Better safe than sorry. But if it works for you without extra flour, you don't need to add it - although I would sprinkle a little sometimes to maintain that flour coating, perhaps...
I let my brotformen air dry before storing. Before each use, I clean out the flour residue with a stiff dry brush and sprinkle with a very light covering of bread flour with a sieve. I know some people use rice flour, but I haven't tried that. I only do that to make sure the dough doesn't stick. I don't usually retard my loaves.
Cheers,
Gavin.
I use rice flour because early on when I used wheat flour I had some sticking. After each use, I allow the banneton to dry and then use a brush to remove excess flour. A couple of times when I have put the shaped dough in banneton into the freezer for 20 mins before baking because I was concerned about overproofing, the flour was quite wet and caked into the banneton. I then washed it with water, no soap, and used the brush to remove all the cakey damp/wet flour. I then used the residual heat of the oven and allowed the banneton to fully dry and it was good as new.
If you have a lot of proofing baskets to bang out and brush, there is a special drill attachment, a brush for speedy brushing. I firmly bang out the basket after removing the loaf and again after the basket is completely dry. If the bottom of the basket is causing trouble, evaluate how it is used. Good circulation around the basket (racks) is important while using and drying between use.
Thanks for all the good feedback! At the very least, it seems like I have been doing what most folks are doing. I may just experiment a little and see how it goes without flouring the brotformen. Note - brotformen are made from different material than bannetons.
link. Not in the upper right corner is a flag symbol, allows 4 different languages.
https://brotformen24.de/#
If your forms work fine without flour (the site says the forms are ready to use) then go ahead. I see all their form brushes are for manual brushing.
Thank you!