Hello,
After a couple of years of hand kneading, I finally went out and got myself a KitchenAid with a dough hook. I've followed a pretty good recipe for my sourdough, but when I hand knead I pretty much add flour until it has a good consistency. I try to get it to where it is just barely sticky. It turns out in the neighborhood of 60% hydration.
So my question is this. When I go to do this in the KitchenAid I won't be able to add flour by feel. So how do you do this? Do you just go by the look? Does it stick less to the bowl or something? I always write down the amount of starter, water, and flour I use so I plan on just sticking to those measurements. Just wondering if anyone else on here uses a KitchenAid and might have some tips. I got a good deal on the Pro 500, any idea what speed to use? Thanks!
Since you know your hydration is around 60%, you might start by machine-kneading a dough that you know to be 60%; i.e. where you've weighed the ingredients. If the feel tells you that it needs a bit more flour or water, add it bit by bit, making sure to weigh the amounts. When the dough feels the way you wan't, you'll be able to calculate the hydration for future loaves.
Are you confident that you make 60% hydrated dough? It would seem to me that you'd be wrestling the dough just to get it folded at that hydration. I consider 65% fairly stiff dough, so 60% might be what I'd use for pretzels or the like.
In a mixer, you might consider going a little more hydrated (65-70%) for a couple reasons. 1) Since you won't be manually kneading the dough then you can let it go until you've reached the level of gluten development that you want, and 2) to make the mixing/kneading easier on the motor which should put less stress and increase the longevity of the mixer. While these things are made for their intended purpose (kneading included), I've found stiff doughs to be too hard on my KA mixer.
Thanks for the great tips folks! This site is awesome. And PugBread thanks for the reminder. You are correct, I do wrestle with the dough because I find it too difficult to deal with when it's too sticky so I just man handle that thing for about 15-20 minutes until it passes the window pane test. Quite the workout :). I remember wanting to try a higher hydration once I got a mixer so think I'll shoot for 65% and maybe go from there.
I saw on the Pro500 reviews someone said to use setting "2" for dough, so I'll give that a shot. Can't wait to try this! Thanks again all.