Ciabatta/Biga/autolyse and Ankarsrum
First, I hope I posted this in the appropriate forum. I received my brand new Ankarsrum model 6230. I made a 2 loaf basic white bread to get a bit of a feel for it. The bread turned out fairly well. I didn't get the oven spring I usually get from using my old mixer. Anyway, I know from reading many post and watching videos, there will be that learning curve ahead of me.
Now I want to try making a ciabatta bread that uses a biga an autolyse dough. Considering the basic rule of adding all liquids first and then the flour, I'm not sure how to proceed.
Basically, you make the biga the day before. The day of the bake you autolyse flour and water for 30 minutes, then add yeast, water, salt, biga and knead this all together for a period of time.
This is the recipe/video I'm following.
https://youtu.be/jA95tUK2RZU?list=LL
Being new to the Ankarsrum I'm wonder if I should mix this all up by hand and then dump it all into the Ankarsrum?
Thanks for any help I can get.
Rich
When you reference the "basic rule of adding all liquids first . . ." - is this a rule for using a biga, using the Ankarsrum or some general rule?
I can't say I've ever heard of that as a 'rule', though I believe that, in large, commercial mixers, it's best to add the water first and then the flour so that it mixes well, but this is far from an absolute and I have seen plenty of footage of bakers - especially those using a 'fork' style mixer/kneader - put the dry ingredients in first and then add the water on top.
I can't comment much on whether it's a rule/requirement for the Ankarsrum as I don't have one but I understand the action and can't see why it would be necessary.
And, so far as I can tell, if it's a 'rule' for using biga then, again, I've seen plenty of Italian chefs and bakers demonstrate their techniques who haven't don't this.
One thing to note about a biga is that it can be, traditionally, quite a large percentage of the total flour so there really isn't much to autolyse once your biga is ready.
Personally, when I have used bigas that are a large percentage of the final flour, at mix time I have just added the water, flour and yeast and mixed these together - to whatever consistency that ends up and then broken up the biga and popped it in, bit-by-bit or altogether, depending on how things are going.
If your biga is a small percentage of your total flour - say, under 50% - then just mix the remaining flour and water in a bowl and autolyse before adding first it and then the remaining yeast (if any) to the mixer. Mix it in and, while the machine is running, drop in broken up pieces of the biga and, eventually, add in the salt.
With a biga, you are only using 50% hydration for the preferment so, with a 65% dough - which is very low for a ciabatta - if you make a biga with 30% of the total flour, the remaining dough for the autolyse will be at 70% hydration, which is easy to mix up by hand.
The higher the target hydration of the final dough and the higher the percentage of flour used in the biga, the higher the hydration of the autolyse portion so it's going to be trivial to just mix that up with a spoon.
d.
Rich, some do report that they add the liquid first when using the Ank, I have used mine for years, and have sometimes started with liquids, sometimes with flour, and haven't noticed much of an issue. For what you are doing, it should be no problem.
The one issue, which I did last weekend , if that if you try the double hydration method ( where you hold back some of the water while kneading for a few minutes, then add the held back water ) that won't work that well. There is no need to use the double hydration method for the Ank , since it can handle hydration better than most mixers, but last weekend, I made a mistake in calculation and did not add enough liquid to start. Once the dough had been kneading for a few minutes, I tried to add a fair amount of water, and most of the kneading action in the Ank is done by friction- the dough clinging to the side of the bowl as it is squeezed by the roller. Once you add a lot of water, there is no friction, the bowl spins but the dough never gets squeezed past the roller, I had to play with the roller arm quite a few times and even turned it off and used by hands to incorporate most of the water. In your case, the biga will not be as stiff as a underhydrated dough, and so when you add the rest of the flour and water, and then turn on the machine , it should work fine.
I guess I'll follow the instructions and see what happens.
Thanks for responding.
Maybe it's not a rule, but in most every video I have watched, they always put the water in first. In some of the articles I have read some say and I quote "When you make dough in the Ankarsrum assistant original you should always add the liquid first. Regardless of the recipe. Then add the dry ingredients".
Link to that article https://www.ankarsrum.com/us/quick-guide-kneading-dough/
That's interesting!
I am sure others with actual experience with this machine will provide better information but I note that those instructions also direct the user to add flour a little at a time - seemingly with the idea that you may not need all the flour as:
and:
So there are two seemingly independent reasons provided that might account for the admonition to always add the water first. One seems to be telling you that the Ankarsrum may be working the dough better than other machines so builds a strong, smooth dough at higher hydrations and therefore that is more a helpful tip so that you can get the most out of the dough. The other appears to be more of an instruction to avoid damage - i.e. that the machine, while apparently great at softer and wetter doughs, doesn't handle drier, firmer doughs as well and this might cause damage to the machine.
Perhaps.
In the end, however, both 'explanations' amount to the same thing: err on the side of wetter dough.
That being the case - or at least my interpretation of it! - I would suggest that with something like ciabatta, you are going to be fine as that should be fairly wet.
My recommendation - without any experience with this machine would be:
For step 2 - you can do this in the mixer and just leave it in the bowl to autolyse to save using up another bowl but the instructions do indicate that it's better to dissolve the yeast in the water before adding so you'll already be using another container or that, if following their suggestions. Besides, I like to cover my autolysing dough and that looks like it might be a bit of a pain with that mixer.
d
I have this mixer and I assure you it handles stiff doughs just fine without any concern with causing damage. It’s taken me a little practice to get used to adding the water first but it ends up working just fine.
Thanks for your comment. I agree, I'm not too worried about it.
Dan, I'll post my results after I do this. Probably the next few days.
I followed the recipe exactly as far specified ingredients goes. I weighed everything out on a scale. I followed the instruction exactly in the order the video showed, except of course I used the Ankarsrum in place of the KA. I was presently surprised that everything combined well. After mixing and kneading for about 8 minute I continued to follow the recipe up to the bake. I didn't use steam, and once the tops get to a color I like, I cover them with foil. Long story short I'm happy with the performance of the Ankarsrum.
It's far from pro grade ciabatta, but I'pretty happy with this bake.
Thanks for looking, thanks for the help and all comments welcome good or bad.
Rich
Rich, nice looking loaves.
One thing I forgot to mention. Using a visual reference on the video, my dough seemed to be a bit wetter the that in the video. I never could get the dough to ball up in the bowl as shown in the video after the first strength building fold @ the 3:40 mark.
Rich