Pain au Levain Baguettes with WW Alfanso Style

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Isand66 on 8 Oct 2016 at 07:40

It's been a while since my last baguette bake and I've always admired the beauties coming out of fellow TFL baker Alfanso's oven.

I decided to give his formula adapted from master baker Jeffrey Hamelman a go.  I only changed up a few things by using KAF French style flour instead of bread flour and I also used fresh whole wheat I milled myself.  The other things I changed were using a bulk ferment of the dough overnight in the refrigerator and also using my mixer on low for a nice 6 minute ride around the bowl.  I then did stretch and folds at 3 intervals over a 2 hour period before putting it in the refrigerator to sleep until the next evening.  I followed my normal procedure of letting the dough rest in my proofer set at 79 degrees for 1 hour.  I then pre-shaped into rounds, let them rest for 15 minutes, finished shaping and let them rest in a couche for about an hour before baking.

My shaping didn't come out all that bad.  Could still use a bit of practice so I guess I need to make baguettes more often :0.

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The taste was fantastic with a nice sour tang and a nutty flavor from the whole wheat and small percentage of rye.  I couldn't be more happy with the crumb on this one as it was as open as you can ask for without going overboard.

I will definitely be making this one again and probably changing up some of the flour combinations in the future as well.

Thanks Alfanso for your inspiration and advice.

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Your baguettes look delicious! I love the crumb. It is perfect, just like the baguettes I have had in France!

Looks great - question about the KAF 'French style' flour - do you still have the package with the label. I tried that flour some time ago and personally did not like it - I felt it was sort of gimmick flour that was better suited for 'baguette blanche' or the sort of standard baguette you find in supermarkets in France. I noticed the crust came our almost exactly like a standard baguette and since then wish I took a photo of the ingredients. A couple of things that make French flour different from American flour besides the wheat itself is the addition of wheat malt and occasionally fava and soy flour as well as ascorbic acid. You have dome really well with their flour and now I wish I tried a levain based dough now that I see yours. Doubt that id ever get it again as it is so expensive but just out of interest would you mind dropping a photo of the label ? Great job enjoy the baguettes !

I really enjoy using this flour.  It is supposed to have a higher ash content.."The gluten or protein content of all purpose (11.7%) and French-style (11.5%) flours is very similar. The difference is the higher ash count as it's milled closer to the bran making it similar to French-style flour." 

I've been using it for a while now and really like the results, but it's not cheap and I've never been to France so I don't know if it really is the same or not.  I inserted a copy of the label below.  If it is not clear enough I will redo it. There is malt but no ascorbic acid.

Thanks for posting the pic - I bought this flour once and personally didn't really like it as mentioned, the product turned out to be a bit too flakey - it's probably better than a supermarket brand, but of course you need to factor price as well and for the extra cost, it didn't really justify it.  I was mostly interested to see if they used wheat malt which for whatever reason is just so difficult to find here and I see it's barley malt.  Personally I think wheat malt is one of the key flavor profiles of an authentic baguette and the only place I've ever been able to source it is at home beer brewing suppliers.  If you go out and sample both barely and wheat the first thing you notice is that barley has a bite and wheat is much more a smoother profile.  As for the price of this flour, it's kind of outrageous and the bags are small as I'm usually buying about 30lbs at a time.  

Btw, don't eat raw flour (lol, note the fine print !!!) 

Welcome to the club Ian.  The crumb looks fantastic, and we both know (and anyone else who has baked this formula in any form) that the bread is really fabulous, and as you say, nutty.  Now you are going to have TFL Peeping Toms asking you to slice the dang thing the long way to that they can get a peek at the crumb, thereby killing off a baguette ;-) .

The scoring part is tricky as anyone, especially me, can tell you from the "early" days.  I think that it is quite typical for young'uns at this craft to do either a sausage cut or a long longitudinal set of scores, as you did.  Those long scores wind up fighting with each other for who will get to bloom the best, and typically none of them win!  

Allow me to add this piece of advice, please.  The scores should overlap by about 1/3.  I captured this picture from a video I made - the one that I sent you the link of.  It should give you a fair idea of how to score.  But you can find folks significantly beyond my capacity on youtube (Hamelman and Hitz for instance) who demonstrate scoring baguettes.  

Congratulations.  Don't stop now, I need more playmates!

alan

I actually know how to score them, but for some reason when I was up to that step I had a brain freeze and forgot since it's been so long since I scored baguettes!  Thanks for the reminder.  I will refer back to this post next time.

I'm still enjoying the baggies and they are great when toasted with some butter or cheese!  Will make some garlic bread tonight to go with my wife's sauce she's making today.

Thanks again for your advice and inspiration.