We have visitor's from London and they wanted to take some bread home so quickly made this
bread...
I pre-mixed the flour with salt the night before and put it into 10C wine cooler until 6AM when I just took it out and added 12 hour leaven via Rubaud. I have found that the pre-mix works on many formulas apart from the Champlain as long as I keep the dough coldish.....
Friends asked me to bake for them so I made a Tartine Style Country from Trevor on the right and for the first time tried a 'Light Rye' from Martin Field's book Sourdough on the left....
Sadly, no crumb as Barney and I delivered the loaves in my new bag which was a bday present from a friend and used it for the first time..ha, ha....
Then I thought, I just up the rye and baked a 200g rye and 300g strong white bread flour loaf today...
It did turn out less dense than I thought and tastes great! Reminds me actually a lot of some German breads!!!
Hi friends,
I baked 80/20 mainly white loaves letting it go to 50% rise in bulk based on the recent thread discussing the difference between a 30% and 50% rise and considering the thoughts from Trevor and Maurizio....I realized that I probably was more a 50%ish baker.....as it happens but also experimented with 30% rise in the past...
If you go 50% rise then this also affects retarding and 2nd proof and Trevor mentions this actually in his book at the very end....reading it yet again afresh....
This was a bit of an experiment....my starter peaked in the evening and we needed bread but I realized that a full bulk would mean a late night and I was tired....
so after the baguette and ciabatta approach to bulk I let it bulk for 1 and 1/2 hour with 30 min coil folds until it was bubbly and showed life and then put the dough in the 5C wine cooler for the night.
At 7AM the following morning, I took it out and put it for 2 hours in 75F proofer to warm up and get a little bit more bubbly and lively...I gave it a gentle fold but left it mostly alone...
I could save the crumb somehow but this was a tricky bake...literally the dough stuck on the couche and I had to peel it off..you can see how the optimist inside me even tried to score.....ha. ha. ha......one baguette I ate out of frustration straight away to destroy evidence while it was warm and Pat was my partner in crime! Barney needs to loose weight and was not allowed a crumb and Jacob was at school!
Two remained...
I was in London yesterday and at Linas Stores they had this very nice Italian 00 pizza flour which I understand is low in protein and gluten but might give me a lovely crunchy crust....(thank you again for the tip Abe, but they did not have the durum anymore.....)
So, I worked with Matteo Festo's low gluten formula as in his book Natural Leavenings and the key difference to my normal process was that he uses much more leaven to speed up the bulk and only a very short rest for the dough after mixing with leaven and then adding the salt.
After baking the Champlain so often I was wondering whether it would be time to give this
formula another try...I remember last time I baked it was in October 2017 and one of the bakes that made me realize no I must walk before I run and reduce hydration!!!!
I followed Trevor's formula as on his blog apart from withholding 10g of water and use it for wetting hands....
I used Rubaud combined with a short bout of slap and folds....
Coil folds are amazing to manage wet dough and that's what I used for the first 4 folds in 30 min intervals.
Details are in the following thread..http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/57222/warm-bulk-cold-bulk-and-then-cold-retarding#comment-416196
I wanted to know whether a warm , cold bulk combined and then a cold retard would possibly get me a more open crumb as I noticed this with recent ciabatta and baguette bakes.
When I was in Germany I decided to do this bread when I am back home and was waiting for Maurizio to post the formula...
https://www.theperfectloaf.com/ciabatta-bread-recipe/
I had to squeeze in another bake before visiting family in Germany and as they normally just see photos I wanted to take a loaf with me. I also came across some white spelt from Doves Farm rather than the usual WW spelt and the dough felt much softer.....
Inspired by Ru's scoring I gave a pattern a go for the first time!
The square scoring turned the other loaf into a spaceship....
