greetings
please help. I adore FWSY Ken Forkish method and am a beginner with his technique tho not with others. My first time with his Saturday loaf was a great success. I used regular bread flour and no DO, just free form in oven but I do have a Miele oven specially chosen for a steam injection feature. But I do have a Lodge DO on order.
my Second attempt however, I tried the overnight white..... But in the beginning of the book he recommends using Plain flour, not strong bread flour. So I brought some good quality organic plain white flour.
Although I understand this recipe is a slightly higher hydration level.... My instinc told me it was too wet for the Autolyse, but I persevered knowing Kens need for precision in his methods. (Of course I followed measurements precisely).
the following day whilst attempting to shape to then prove, it was just too wet and No way could I attempt anything other than put it in the bin. What a waste.
I am sure it is because I used Plain flour. Can anyone confirm or recommend a solution for this. Should I just use bread flour from now on with his recipes ?
I was also about to buy French T55 flour in a 25 kg sack as I love it and anything French is superior to me (Food wise), but if it is going to have too much of a low Protein or Gluten quantity then I don't want to waste my money.
Please help guys..... I am very grateful for all/Any advise you can offer.........
Robbie.
your hands on some Canadian (Manitoba) flour, use that. His recipes worked wonderfully well for me in Canada using either bread flour or all purpose flour as here for some reason, have almost the same protein content.
The other thing to be wary of is that your UK flour is not as absorbant as USA or Canadian flour. So this means that a high hydration dough for you using UK string flour might be around 65% rather than the 75/78% we use on this side of the pond. Start using less water and see how that works for you. If you need to adjust an ingredient, water is the one to do it with.
Hope this helps!
When I started baking with SD and high hydration dough I had exactly the same problems with only one exception that my dough always ended in the oven.
Danni gave you the best possible advice to lower the hydration at least in the beginning, later on you can start increasing it when you will become more familiar with wet dough.
My advice would be to reduce the amount of hydration from 5 to 10% at least. In Europe we have different kind of wheat than in US or Canada. Our wheat doesn't support high hydration. Typically here in Slovenia my hydration levels would be from 70% for mostly white flour to 80% for whole grain wheat flour which needs more water.
Whenever I get a new type of flour (from different producer) I always start with lower hydration - like 65% to 68% and then I might add more water if I see that the flour is stronger than expected. Or I increase hydration in the subsequent bake. However, the same flour type from a different batch can be completely different and might require significantly more or less water. This happened to me this summer while I was on vacations in Croatia and I got a great flour where I could easily increase the hydration to 85%. On the way home I bought the same type of flour in different town close to Slovenian border and it was completely different flour which was hardly able to bare 75% hydration.
So what is the advice: always put away some water which you can easily add later on. The amount of water in all recipes is only "informative" and one should always make small or big adjustments to get the right consistency of dough for the flour he is using.
I would buy that French flour but only after testing it and still you can expect that the flour you will get might be slightly different.
Don't fall in the trap that high hydration is the only way to baker's haven. It is simply not. A well prepared loaf at 68% hydration could be much better then a flat loaf at 87% hydration. Higher hydration is fine but only when you can afford it, means when you have the ingredients which support that. Otherwise stay on earth and in percentages which you can achieve. I am baking with gluten levels which are between 9.5 to 11 which is typical for AP flour in USA. 11% gluten is for me a strong bread flour. That's reality. I want to use my local flour and do my best to make a decent loaf out of it. If I reach that then that's my success.
Happy baking Robbie!
Thank you guys.
such fast and informative replies. I guess I was worried as the main message I read in every page of FWSY is about precise measurements, quantities/Temperature.
I will continue to use Organic bread flour and I will certainly be buying that T55 huge sack..... But I will lower the water content just to start and analyse the results.
I have baked many times with Canadian strong bread flour but am unable to see if it is the type you mentioned.
Thanks again. I hope to update on here when I have more experience with this method.
Robbie
if you have access to strong Canadian bread flour, get some of that and try mixing it with others for fun.
You've had some great advice from TFL members, here. I had experienced similar issues to you when I started baking sourdough. The minute TFL folk suggested dropping hydration of a recipe for US flours by 5-10% things took off.
The key: start on a lower hydration than the recipe, and gradually increase on subsequent bakes to get the desired result. That way you will (usually) get bread that you can 'shape and bake', rather than ending up with slop that you can only 'pour and chuck'…
Good luck with the French T55 flour. From memory, a very strong Canadian bread flour is (or was) available from Waitrose in the U.K. I use Allinson strong bread flour as it is available in supermarkets in 3kg bags.
Best wishes, and happy baking. Colin.
An addendum to my last post. If you haven't come across it already, UK-based Bakery Bits publishes a regular newsletter with some really good articles by Vanessa Kimbell. It is worth signing-up for, and as a customer, I can recommend their website for supplies and equipment too.
Best wishes, Colin.
You want Marriage's Manitoba (black and white sacks now)
Costco £13 Amazon £18
Wessex bread flour is almost the same as is Shipton's but start with a lower hydration with them.
Say for Forkies Sat-bread recipe by as much as 3% to start with as they are a bit softer.
The Marriages will also stretch a loooong way as pizza dough at 70% overnight.
..
Regards Iain
Great......
i will definitely try. Tho I have just ordered a load of flours from Shipton mill. So excited to try all these different flours. --------