January 10, 2024 - 7:12am
Essential's Columbia
A recipe from "Artisan Baking across America" book that I bake from fairly often lately. The dough was hand developed, actually I never tried to do it otherwise. Hand kneading only, I love the feel of the dough texture.
I deviated from the recipe times for fermentation and proofing (I shortened them both) due to my observation and gut feel. Not very scientific I know, but then I also went through some over-proofing experiences too when blindly following the recipe times.
Just got my new pH probe, that should help putting some consistency in the process.
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You've produced some very attractive loaves, Gordy. I like the scoring and the crumb. Well done!
Paul
Excellent work Gordy! Is the volume you are referring to Maggie Glaser's?
Regarding PH. From the limited information I have seen posted regarding the reliability of PH reading in determining fermentation levels. The jury seems to still be out on the usefulness. Have you found a reliable relationship between Dropping PH values and fermentation completion?
Kind regards,
Will F.
Thank you Paul and Will!
Will yes it is Maggie Glaser's baking book.
With regards to pH reading and its use to improve baking results I can't say much at this point since I am just starting with it. I have been baking for about 15 years but I never used anything but visual clues, temperature and time to govern my decisions. Only during the last two months since I decided to get into developing pasta madre for Panettone I realized I might need a pH probe to accomplish this delicate task. Now when I have the probe I will try to use it for bread baking as well. I will try to correlate what I learned from the experience over the years and collected pH readings. Sounds exciting so will see how it goes.
Cheers,
Gordan
The same recipe as last week, but this time having a privilege of using my new Hanna pH meter. After about 80% dough rise during the fermenting phase (26 C) pH was 4.23 following with shaping. When my visual and finger test indicated the baking time the pH was 4.11. The loafs came out great with nice colour, nice crumb and very tasty. I again changed the recipe prescribed times for fermenting and proofing cutting them down by about 40% each.