July 18, 2024 - 1:19pm
Is This Normal?
I've always been rubbish at telling when dough is properly developed. I can get "smooth", but usually not "shiny". I can get a decent windowpane, but then I'm afraid of overworking the dough. At any rate, if I drag my thumbs across a smooth ball of dough, it rips. Is this to be expected under the circumstances, or does it mean the dough is underdeveloped and should be kneaded until it does not tear?
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Over shaping. You want taut but you don't wish to tear. And second reason might be it is tearing because the gluten is beginning to breakdown.
I hadn't shaped the dough, just kneaded to a smooth ball. I intentionally dragged my thumbs over the surface to see if it would stretch or tear. Your second explanation of gluten breakdown is interesting.
Sorry about the embedded ad--don't know how it got there and can't remove it. My edit button is missing on that post.
It can be either - but I'd put money on under - as in not enough to withstand the stretch given. Enjoy!
It's hard to tell without more information on your process, but it doesn't look normal at all. The smoothness of the dough ball shows that it was mixed and kneaded/stretched enough - otherwise it would look shaggy. But it has no strength or it wouldn't have torn away like that.
So I think it's degradation of the protein. That could be because it rose too long, but then it would probably just have collapsed. You grind your own flour, don't you? Could be something there, either a different batch of wheat berries or the flour got used too long after grinding but too short a time to oxidize. Some wheat just can't take too long a ferment. Did it feel extensible at some point?
TomP
Thanks Davey for your thoughts--a vote for under.
Thanks Tom. This dough hadn't risen, just mixed and kneaded. No, I don't grind my own flour. I also don't keep detailed notes, so this particular dough ball is a not-too-distant memory. It is either 100% white bread flour, but more likely 50-50 bread & ap. It contains a yudane and ADY. It's enriched with honey, coconut oil & egg yolk. I use the KA on low speed for 10 or 15 min and test for windowpane during that time. This ball got hand-kneaded after the mixer (afraid of overworking) and looked & felt good (my doughs are almost always more elastic than extensible, at least at this point).
Obviously, I'm going to have to be more precise. Next bake, I will time the mixer and the hand-kneading more carefully and see what happens. There's always been a puzzle with Sam's Club bread/pizza flour, in that the label says 10% protein, the website says 13.7-14.3%, and the bag is marked "high gluten".
So, I shall more carefully record and report on my next loaf.
If it was just mixed and kneaded, and hadn't been sitting around for a long time, the problem probably isn't protein degradation after all. You used ADY so the dough couldn't have been so acidic that the acid attacked the gluten.
Sometimes dough can feel stiff after mixing and initial kneading, but not yet either very elastic or extensible. Then they can tear if pulled. But you probably did a windowpane test, since that's your usual process, and it must have been able to stretch enough for that.
I looked more closely at your picture of the dough ball. It's hard to tell for sure, but I think I do see signs of the surface wanting to tear. If it weren't for you saying that the dough felt good during hand-kneading I would be thinking about over-mixing in the mixer. The enrichments would have weakened the gluten, or at least lowered the effective gluten level of the flour.
The times I've had dough seem ready to tear or actually start to tear, it's always seemed dry and not wanting to join to itself. Folding one part over another during kneading would tend to cause tears in the folded parts as I applied pressure. When that happens I just stop and let the dough rest, declare the kneading phase over, and move to a stretch-and-fold session after the rest.
I wonder if the coconut oil contained something that helped to cause this. I suppose you've used it before so probably not.
Well, that all doesn't seem very helpful, sorry to say.
TomP
The pic is helpful but doesn't tell the whole story. The method helps but hydration is a key piece of info at this point. How moist is the dough and is this all AP flour or part WW or rye or other?
It is hard to tell the behavior and feel of this dough in a static picture. It looks like tearing from overtension for that dough. It means the dough is either too dry, not kneaded to windowpane (I doubt this), or the dough gluten is deteriorating due to enzyme action. You could take a small piece of this dough (ping pong ball sized,maybe) and add moisture and work it a few minutes and see if the tearing persists or goes away. Or you can let the dough sit for a while at a proofing temp and see if the dough further deteriorates. If it does, the only thing to do is make pancakes so the dough is not a total waste.
Can you still pull a windowpane on this dough when it tears or does the windowpane rip?
Even if you don't have ingredients weights, how much liquid to flour do you use? If you are going by "feel", describe with more detail how you tell how much liquid to use. Do you add the oils after the dough is wet with liquid or after? Or do you add liquid and oil at the same time so some flour is fat-surrounded before the liquid is mixed in and releases the starch? Fat coats the flour particles and you end up with some of the flour acting like pastry (no gluten development in that chunk).
Bread is simple chemistry but simple actions can have great effects. Good luck and follow up so we all learn from your progress and also get the great satisfaction of having been a help to someone.
Thanks, Clazar (and Tom, again). This dough was probably 50/50 white bread & ap flour. I sometimes wait to add the oil, but believe, in this case, everything got mixed at the beginning. Apparently, yudane--as well as enrichments--affect kneading time, although there are some milk bread recipes that call for extensive kneading (20 min in mixer). Tom, yes I do use coconut oil all the time. Oh, I forgot to mention, clazar, the hydration was low to mid 60s. I aim for 65%, but the wetness of the dough varies when adding ap flour or using all bread. I just bought some new flour from a mill. It's not in this loaf, but it's advertised as hard red, 11-12% protein, called all purpose, but supposed to be good for bread (for some strange reason, this mill does not make a white "bread" flour). I couldn't believe how wet the dough turned out, with the same quantity of liquid. More experimentation called for with that stuff.
I will soon make another dough using all bread flour and the same recipe, and report.
That's probably the best thing to do at this point. As you work with the dough, see if it seems too dry or weak. By "too dry" I mean it doesn't want to meld with itself when folded over. If it does seem to want to tear, I suggest giving it a half-hour rest and then working in some more water. Repeat if needed. This might be all it takes. Otherwise you could be encountering some change in the flour compared with previously.
TomP
I believe hydration may be the issue-either the amount or the resting time. I would proceed in 1 or 2 ways:
1. Keep the hydration at 65% but rest the dough for an hour OR
2. Increase the hydration until the dough is definitely sticky AND add a longer (poss refrigerated) autolyse until it is tacky-not-sticky.
I favor #2.
With my WW doughs, I do an overnight autolyse but not being WW, this dough probably requires less time to soak up the moisture.
I don't have any concern about the machine mixing time at this point- unless the dough goes very slack.
Have fun and looking forward to a followup.
Hi, Moe C.
I couldn't help noticing in both photos, it looks like there are a few large spots of flour, though I may be mistaken.
In the past, I have learned to use a small fine-mesh sieve, shaking it after filling it with flour over the flour container to produce a superfine, and very light dusting of flour on my work surface, but I only use flour on the work surface with much higher hydration breads in the 80% range. Before that, I experienced something similar to what you're describing, which was attributed to the flour on my working surface drying the outside of my breads and removing the extensibility.
My best advice with any bread lower than 75% hydration is to use water on your hands, work surface and dough scraper to work your dough. The water won't add a lot to the hydration of your dough if you use just enough that it lets go of your fingers and scraper, so you'll still get a fine, sandwich crumb, but in my experience this also creates a softer, thinner crust after baking, and better oven spring and easier scoring were added benefits.
Hope this helps!
Randem.
It's been much the opposite experience for me. With sticky and high-hydration doughs, lately I've been misting my hands with a spray bottle and it has make everything much easier - kneading and stretch-and-folds, etc.
I'm not so sure that misting the hands doesn't change the hydration, though. A few days ago I put a paper towel on my scale and misted it, and it tended to pick up 1 - 1.5 grams of water. I might mist my hand 4 or 5 times during a kneading or S&F session depending on how the sticking goes. That could end up adding 4 - 6 grams of water each time. For my small loaves with 300g of flour, 3 S&F sessions could add 12 - 18g of water, or 4 - 6% hydration.
Now I hold back a little water, expecting to pick some up from my misted hands, and it all works out fine.
I've also been learning to use much less bench flour during shaping. Using your bench scraper with quick motions helps a lot with this. The other thing that has helped me here is to dust my hands with the bare minimum amount of flour. I will get a little bit on one hand and rub my two hands together to remove all but a tiny bit of flour. Sometimes I also shove my bench scraper under a little pile of flour to get a bit on it too. Repeat as needed.
These methods have greatly reduced the amount of flour I add to a loaf during shaping.
TomP
Randem, thanks for your input. I try to use no flour on the work surface, just the scraper. This particular loaf wasn't really dry, but it didn't stick to the counter either.
Clazar, I found since making the pictured dough what a huge difference resting makes to the hydration. I thought it was mainly for extensibility purposes, but it's more than that, particularly as an autolyse.
Tom, my first post on TFL (which you were kind enough to answer) was how come nobody tells you that repeatedly wetting your hands can reduce the dough to a puddle? I'd cut the pan de cristal recipe to a quarter, so no wonder that baby drowned during all the stretching (hmm, not a pleasant image). I've quoted Bill Wraith's post a couple times where he estimated how many grams of water wet hands can add to a regular loaf (I forget, natch), so I was glad to see your views on this. It's not something one hears much about.
I have a question about this tearing. When I'm recreating that dough, would intentionally tearing it do it harm? For example, if after 20min of kneading I test it to see if it rips, then at 25, 30, etc. Will that damage gluten strands? That dough in the picture got ripped once, put back together and turned out fine, but I'm not sure about multiple rippings. It might not be necessary, depending on the state of the dough, but I'm just asking.
Use oil instead of water - a little goes a long way. A little - emphasis on little - tearing won't make a difference. Enjoy!
Yes, just a touch is needed. Some people use oil but I don't like the cleanup nor the feel on my hands so I don't.
I don't think so and here's why. Many years ago when Peter Reinhart was jazzed up about his 2-part method, he would have you cut up the levain and the rest of the dough into small pieces so they could be combined more easily. I have done that and it works (it's a nuisance to do, though). So I think that you can cut the dough and still end up with good gluten structure. And if you can cut it, why can't you tear it? You would want to work the dough back together to start healing the tears.
Another example would be more common and that's scaling dough portions. One cuts hunks of dough off and adds them to another piece to get the weight right. The cutoff part ends up merging with the main piece and the final baked bread is perfectly fine.
Of course, if you have problem flour somehow, you won't end up with a good result...
Yes, that's so. One thing I always notice is how the mixed dough can go from stiff and shaggy to smoother and more malleable. I don't see why I should work hard to knead the dough when it will get there on its own in half an hour.
Bread will result from almost any method from no-knead to intense kneading. It can even be 'good' bread (everyone's definition is different here). That is why there is seemingly endless advice and methods to breadmaking.
I have often said that it is important to develop the starchy gel inherent in any form of flour, as well as the gluten network. What we all talk about when making our ideal bread-whether it is a sandwich loaf or an airy pan de cristal- is the texture/crumb. The texture/crumb is developed in different ways and is always a balance of the gluten netting and the starchy gel that forms the walls of the bubbles. The chemistry of the bubbles and gluten network is what bakers change by adding pH affecting ingredients, water, salts, gas forming ingredients and lubricants. All the different ingredient classes have an effect on how the molecules of starch, protein, fats and inert branny bits interact both physically and chemically.
A great case-in-point is how people talk about how whole grain or branny additives can 'cut' gluten and make a dense, crumbly bread. Nonsense! If the baker understands the composition and chemistry of bread. In WW bread, it is easy to obtain a nice soft crumb with proper hydration AND TIME for the branny bits to absorb and soften so they don't absorb the moisture during/after baking and make a crumbly, dense loaf. In breads with WW or 'sharp' additives, it is very important to hydrate thoroughly (with both liquid and time) AND develop the starchy gel with mixing, kneads, S&F, etc. A soft, flexible crumb can be formed around nuts, branny bits, and other additives.
I have been talking about mastering whole grain bread, for the most part. Mastering holey bread such as pan de cristal uses a whole different chemistry and physical handling technique. How to make the starchy gel extensible yet strong enough to hold is what ,chemically, needs to be mastered. The difficulty can come in when each batch of flour can have different capabilities.
Bread is definitely a topic that can consume you as well as being consumed! And so I say- have delicious fun!
It is a never-ending learning experience. What is also frustrating, it seems nothing turns out the same way twice. Most of it is edible, though.
My experimental dough is rising, I've got pictures & reports to follow.
The less you put into it - the easier it gets. Enjoy!
...are you a Zen master? 😊
You'll see. Enjoy!
The first leg of the experiment is done. Still a mystery. The recipe is 350g bread flour, 20% yudane, milk, honey, oil, egg yolk, salt. Hydration is precise at 63% (calculated water in milk, yolk & honey). Mixed all ingredients in KA, rested 20 min, and kneaded for 5 min on low. Most of that kneading was incorporating more water. The hook just slide across the surface of the dough, so no danger of overkneading in the machine.
Moved to the countertop. The dough was sticking to my hands and surface. Handkneaded with scraper, no flour, for 10 min. Rested 10 min. Dough completely non-sticky and smooth now. Windowpane pretty good. Kneaded 5 min. Windowpane strong. At this point, I would have considered it done. Tried the hands on either side of dough ball, dragged thumbs across top and got the usual tear, just like first post. Kneaded a few more minutes. Did the lift & stretch picture. Kneaded a few more minutes and thumb tear again.
I wondered if the enrichments had much effect on development. So, I mixed up 100g of the same flour with 63g water. Mixed, rested, kneaded 10 min, rested, kneaded 10 min. That miniature ball got about 25 min total kneading. It ripped like the mama ball. However, you can see in one picture it did not rip too much when pulled/stretched after a rest (as opposed to having thumbs dragged over it).
What are your thoughts now? My next test will be to use 100% different flour, but my husband is not upholding his end of the bread-eating around here, so it will have to wait.
First try.............................................................more kneading, second try
Hang & stretch
Small flour/water dough ball after kneading, resting, stretching then using thumb drag
If the flour is at fault, it makes good bread. The loaf turned out nicely.
The crumb looks all right, doesn't it? I have to admit I have never actually dragged my thumbs across the surface of a dough ball, enriched or not, so maybe I shouldn't have spoken up without trying it.
I would have said to go ahead, reform it, and bake it to see what happens, and here you've already done that. Since one can scrape an undeveloped glob of dough into a pan and get darn good bread, I felt sure that would work.
That was a good way to test, no doubt about it. I will try this tomorrow. My first reaction is that the dough is way over-kneaded. The hydration is not very high, the rest intervals were very short, and the kneading periods were long from my point of view.
My usual approach (doing it by hand) would be to mix roughly for a few minutes until all the flour was wet and the ball of dough was somewhat cohesive. Then I would let it rest for half an hour, 45 minutes, or even longer if that was more convenient. Next I would knead and stretch the dough - I kind of combine the two - for a few more minutes until the dough felt like it had come together and I verified there were no dry lumps left. I might adjust the water a little at this stage, too. At this point the dough would probably feel somewhat lifeless but cohesive and smoother than after the rough mix. This would probably take no more than 5 minutes if that.
Then I would wait another half an hour give-or-take and stretch the dough using one or another method depending on the feel and size of the dough. Again, no more than 5 minutes and probably less. Now I'm feeling how elastic or not the dough is getting. What to do next would depend on whether I was going for a long fermentation or a short straight-yeasted one, how elastic vs extensible I wanted the dough to be, and so on. During the S&Fs I don't force the dough into stretches or folds if it doesn't want to go.
Anyway I'll give it a go with your 100g of flour and come back here with what I've found.
TomP
Oh, thanks Tom. That should be interesting. My small dough ball is in the freezer awaiting another incarnation. I'll call it pate fermentee.
I've got results already because I started last night. I'll copy my notes below. The upshot is that I got no sign of tearing no matter how I dragged my thumbs across the dough ball. The surface just deformed a little.
I didn't add salt because you didn't mention salt, only flour and water.
At this point I'm thinking that you have either a flour problem or you are overworking the dough (or maybe a combination).
==== Tom's Notes ===============
This is an experiment to see if I get surface tearing like Moe C keeps getting. Symptoms: The dough all looks smooth and seems to handle oK, but when Moe drags her thumbs across the upper surface of the dough ball the surface tears.
Originally she reported this with an enriched dough ("The recipe is 350g bread flour, 20% yudane, milk, honey, oil, egg yolk, salt"). For this experiment she just used flour and water at 63% hydration.
100g Gold Medal AP, 65g water. Target was 63g. No salt, no leavening to match Moe's experiment.
Process
========
- 9:45 PM - mix ~ 3-4 min. Spatula, then by hand in bowl. A bit sticky, rough and shaggy as usual for a rough mix.
- 10:15 - knead/stretch ~ 3 min. Smooth, less sticky, slightly elastic, barely extensible.
- 10:50 - S&F in hands (because the dough ball is so small). Then rounded into a ball on countertop. Total time ~1 min. Dough is slightly more elastic and extensible. Stickiness is less. Dragging thumbs over the ball did not tear, not even close.
- 11:30 - dough is softer, a little more sticky (only a little). Thumb drag on surface made little indentations but no tearing. 6 S&F between hands. At this point the dough was a little elastic but seemed too stiff to me. I tried a window pane out of curiosity. It pulled out fairly thin but not as much as I wanted, and tore before it got thin enough. So good but not quite there.
- 7:00 AM - Dough is fairly extensible, and a little more sticky. Window pane was thinner but still tore more easily than I would like. I stretched and folded the dough in my hands six times until it got stiff and somewhat elastic. I could now pull a slightly thinner window pane but it still tore a bit.
================================
Note that I didn't actually drag my thumbs over the surface this morning. There was no need. The dough was so extensible and cohesive when I handled it that it could not have torn.
Is this helpful, do you think? I think I will repeat the experiment with salt in the dough. That should toughen it. If this process seems too far away from what you did, maybe you'd like to try it more like mine and see if you still get tearing.
TomP
Well, isn't that interesting! No, I didn't use salt either. I'm going to try this small quantity again, with the same flour and with different flour. I'll do more resting and S&F and less kneading. I should probably try higher hydration, too, although yours worked at 63%. That was good of you to go to the trouble.
Edit: I see it was 65% hydration.
Time for the freezer!
I appreciate all your efforts, and the mystery isn't solved. Perhaps someone will try to stress the surface of a dough ball to see what happens.
Unfortunately you've created your own problems. That's a tough one to fix except to just add things and wait for the for the gluten. So - just add things - and wait. Enjoy!
@Moe C: Reading through this thread, I'm seeing that the recipe is similar to many of the sandwich breads I'm learning about. I, too, have problems with this kind of tearing. On the other hand, I've never been able to get a windowpane test to pass, although recently -- with below changes -- it's getting there.
Oddly enough, depending on the query in a search engine, as well as which engine is being used, answers to questions can show up that never appeared at all in previous searches. I've looked all over for an answer to this, but it was only when I started looking for "windowpane test for low hydration bread," and "how egg affects gluten development" that I ran into numerous articles.
"Dough improvers" like an egg, make a major difference in how the bread is mixed, and how it's kneaded. I've also been nervous about this "over-kneading" people discuss, but that, too, is a mystery. "Over-" this, that, and the other thing sound like using high explosives in bread dough!
Turns out that breads like brioche, which uses a huge amount of butter, and other breads that use eggs and not so much water, will require a whole different system. I think it was King Arthur that casually mentioned that "kneading for 15-20 minutes or longer" on a recipe somewhere. Oh really? And I'm just now hearing about this?
I'm working on some dough that's around 60% hydration (still experimenting) but uses 1/2 cup milk, 1 TBsp water, 1 egg, 4 TBsp of sugar, and 4 TBsp of butter. It's 300 g of flour -- including some potato flakes (instead of yudane), and semolina flour. It bakes fine, but I'm looking for something different and have been making and re-making it. The egg adds to the hydration, and the butter does its own thing.
The dough would gather in a soft, tacky ball, but not shiny. It wasn't wet, but it wouldn't stretch much when pulled. If I gave it a few counter-top stretches, it just tore completely. Making a ball for bulk fermenting was easy, but the surface was rough. Decent rolls, but not all that "light and fluffy."
I finally decided I'd had enough, and purposefully set out to "over-knead the dough." What I learned from other articles, is that: 1) autolyzing (resting) for about 30 minutes, without the butter, helps capture whatever water/milk/egg moisture. 2) Following the rest, low-speed "mixing" to incorporate the fat is also the first stage of kneading.
Numerous articles and discussions about this situation explained that "kneading" means different things, depending on the bread. My Bosch has four speeds: "1" is for mixing, "2" for kneading, "3" for blending, and "4" for whisking. I've always used "2" for the projected "7-10" minutes so often written. And I've rarely had a windowpane test work, but I often also have eggs and butter.
"Mixing" to incorporate ingredients, is also a "slow, soft kneading" process. It comes closer to traditional hand-kneading, where the baker gets tactile feedback from the dough." Stand-mixer faster "Kneading" is also "strong, active" kneading. I think this might be akin to the "slap and fold" use of kinetic energy to stretch the gluten farther. Maybe.
This time, I incorporated the butter (after the autolysis), then ran on "1" for 15 minutes! Slowly but surely, the dough began to gather into a ball around the dough hook. Then (because I didn't care), I ran it on "2" for another 10 minutes.
At this point, it "should have" been over-kneaded, according to just about everything I'd previously read. However; one of the symptoms of over-kneading seems to be the dough begins to "sweat" as water begins to fall out of the broken gluten matrix. That wasn't happening at all.
Although this version of the dough still had some tearing when I stretched and folded a couple of times on the counter, it was WAY better! (By the way, a lot of bakers are talking about an "oil smear" on the counter to replace the "dusting of flour.")
I also allowed the dough to rise quite a bit longer. Worried about "over-fermenting," and "over-proofing" this time, I gave serious attention to the Poke Test. It passed after a considerably longer time than previously. Probably the AC in the kitchen, though. I'll rise it in the oven with the light on next time.
Finally, after I shaped the dough (into rolls), I also allowed it to rise longer. The visual this time was "fat and puffy, and "jiggles when you shake the pan or container." It worked.
The next iteration, I intend to just continue the "1" mix for about 15-20 minutes, and extend the "2" kneading to more like 15 minutes. The only thing that might go wrong is the dough "over-heating." But with only 300g of flour, it's not a big worry. And if it does (and butter starts melting out again into the bowl), I'll put it in the fridge for 15 minutes.
I've about had it with this "mystery" about common problems. It ought to be pretty basic, and I'm writing some of the stuff here to try and get rid of this confusion and ambiguity.
Hi AC. Baker Jack kneaded bread dough for 1-1/2 hrs to see if he could oveerwork it and had no luck destroying it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owaU_9F0BJo Of ocurse, no enrichments or machines were involved (and no aminals were harmed).
I have found that the longer the machine kneads (KA on #2), the more the dough will stick to the bottom of the bowl. That is, it will start out as a cohesive, fairly smooth ball and proceed to get stickier. This makes no sense to me, but it happens time & again. At that point (6-8 mins), I usually remove it from the mixer and knead, scrape, fold, rest, repeat, whereupon it becomes less sticky and sometimes just lovely to handle. The surface will still tear, though.
And you'll have noticed above that Tom barely kneads at all, but relies more on time & stretches.
That's so. Of course there are always exceptions. My usual process is to mix by hand only until all the flour is mixed and there aren't any lumps. Then I let it rest for half an hour or so. It I'm busy and don't get to it for an hour or more that's fine.
Then I do kneading, but that shades into stretching so I usually call it "knead/stretch". Actually I usually do as little as possible to get the dough smooth and a little elastic. That might take no more than three minutes. Then another rest, then S&F. I don't care much about exactly how long between S&Fs for the most part, and I have found that even if you do a last S&F after the dough has started to rise and get airy, that's all right too.
Even the S&F method I use varies depending on how the dough feels and what I want to get out of it, and may change from one S&F session to the next. As long as the dough gets stretched enough (not torn we hope) I don't think it matters much how it's done.
The thing is that once the dough is smooth and happy and the basic gluten is developed, no matter how elastic you get it in a S&F, the dough will relax by the time it's ready to scale and shape - even more so for long fermentations. So I don't worry about the details much.
TomP
@Moe -- That's actually pretty weird, there. :-) My dough works the opposite. When I first put in a shaggy, sticky mess (even after autolyzing), the hook goes round and round like the wheels on the bus. I sometimes have to use a spatula to push the dough down the sides to get caught on the hook. Slowly and surely, it begins to come together. Seems like it takes at least 3-5 minutes if it's this type of dough.
I'm also working with a high-hydration recipe, and I'm learning to trust the visuals rather than times; along with actual touch. The dough seems to have a cycle where it begins combing together (at some point), then begins to slowly climb the hook. It'll get up a ways, then break and fall back down. Then it'll come together and start climbing again, like Sisyphus.
When it can climb the hook and stay tangled without breaking, then I'll increase the speed to a quick knead (#2 speed). At that point, the dough gets bashed around and torn, then comes back together. Once again, it starts riding up the hook. But this time, I've come to learn than when it reaches the stage where it now moves back down to the bottom of the hook and stays there, it's done. It's a solid, soft, silky (not shiny) ball.
I suspect it's simply a combination of gravity and the internal dough being organized. The sort of centrifugal force moves the dough down.
I also agree with Tom's none or very little kneading process. That's where I've been learning a lot about poolish and biga, and the awesome flavor development. If there's time, then I'd likely go that route most of the time.
The only time I've had dough that sticks to the bottom of the bowl and won't come up, is when there's nowhere near enough water, or there's just too much oil. The combination of not enough hydration and too much melted fat (like butter) not only doesn't come together, but it produces most of the above characteristics you've described.
I should mention that much of the dough I'm making uses only 300 grams of flour, so it's not a huge amount. It doesn't even come close to "filling" the mixing bowl. :-) Ergo; it's not lack of quantity that a problem.
Most of my loaves use that much flour since I don't have enough mouths to eat larger loaves while they are still in good shape. Yes, freezing them works well enough but usually I don't.
C above. Enjoy!