Sourdough poolish baguettes after weeks of practice!

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maojn on 6 Apr 2013 at 18:42

This is the result of my weeks of practice making baguettes. I posted a question in the forum and thanks to everyone who provided help. I have finally nailed down the problem and have made 3 consistant good batches. Turned out my problem is not only at scoring, but also the fermentation time, my oven temp,  and steaming duing baking.

The story started at my first post and here is the quesiton I posted. 

To summarize:

- The bulk fermentation should be much longer so the volume at least 3x

- The final fermentation takes 1 hour, instead of 30 min

- My scoring was indeed too deep, should be shallower like trying to make a flip. With the combination of enough fermentation, right scoring and right temp/steam, the ears will stand up themselves!!!

- put my stone at the bottom near the heat source which is 290C, preheat at least 1 hour, lava stones in cast iron tray under it preheat together. Once the dough in, add two cups of boiling water over the lava stone and keep the temp at 290 for 5 min, then drop to 240C. Take the lava stone out after 10 min and continue 240C for 10min

I am very happy with my current baguettes. I did modified my previous recipe a little bit and use only SD without instant yeast, also did autolyse during bulk fermentation.

 

Forgot to mention. The reason I keep making them even their appearance looks good is because I don't like the crumb to be too chewy. I tried KA bread flour, all purpose, french style and KA BF+ cake flour. I think french-style is a winner. But if I handle AP properly with autolyse, it's not bad and the cost is much lower. Any trick you can provide as well? 

Jean

Hi, Jean.

I think you already discovered that AP flour is usually best. Classic French baguettes, with a thin, crackly crust and open crumb are made with flour that is lower in protein than KAF AP. Some day, I am going to try making baguettes with cake flour or a flour mix that has less than 11% protein.

KAF's "French Style" flour is supposed to emulate French T55, but it is pretty expensive.

On the other hand, a lot of the California bakeries that are most highly regarded use one of two flours from Central Milling that have about 11.5% protein for baguettes. One of these is what Whole Foods Mkt sells as their 365 Organic All-purpose Flour. And it is significantly less expensive than KAF AP (unless you are buying 25 or 50 lb bags direct from KAF).

David

All around beautiful baguettes!    

Sylvia

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felicekitchen on 7 Apr 2013 at 11:57

they look wonderful!

Those are some cracking good looking baguettes!

Cheers,

Wingnut

Beautiful in every way, maojn! tells tales about your skills, and the fruits of your labor.

Excellent!

(Your oven gets to 290C!, WOW.. what oven type/make do you have?)

on homepage of my blog http://www.wretch.cc/blog/maojn7488

I think it's this one: 

http://products.geappliances.com/ApplProducts/Dispatcher?REQUEST=SpecPage&Sku=PT916SMSS

by making steam, i broke the bulb twice so far. but they are not expensive so it's worth it! Just wish I had thought of that one day I might be interested in artisan bread making and installed a steam oven instead when I remodeled my kitchen 。。。。

My God, these are seriously beautiful craft, maojn!  found your comments/record of your experience really interesting, too.  Thank you for sharing.  I'm jealous you can heat up your oven to 290 C. My old gas oven only goes up to 250 C......( but at least I can blame my oven if my baguette doesn't come out as good as yours....:p)

for your great compliment! We all know how hard we have to work behind the scene in order to achieve our goal here. And I have a good excuse myself that I don't have a steam oven, yet. :P

I've followed your first post:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/32824/sourdough-poolish-baguettes-pain-de-campagnecustomized-kneading-board%EF%B9%90-first-post-tfl

but it has instant yeast in it. I thought you now use only sd. Could you please post your final recipe?

Do you use your SD to make a poolish first? if so, what percentages please?

Sorry about the confusion. Yes, that's the recipe I currently use except I use SD in replace of instant yeast. It will take longer at main fermentation though. So:

SD starter 600g:
French Flour 300g
water 300g

Ferment at R.T until bubbling. Usually takes 6-8 hours. Then refrigerated overnight.

Final dough:
All above
French Flour 700g
Water 450g
salt 21g
diastatic malt powder 1tsp

I use mixer gently mixed everything into a wet ball. Lowest speed maybe for a minute or so. Then ferment at R.T. (about 65F here).
30min S/F 2x
30min S/F/2x
30min S/F/1x
1hour S/F/1x
.....
.....
continue to S/F every 1 hour until my small cylender (see picture below) becomes 3 fold (grow from 10ml to 30ml)
sometimes when it's 2 fold, I put it into refrigerator until next evening then continue below.
split to 4 equal dough, preshape, relax for 30min
shape into baguettes, rise for 1 hour
preheat oven with stone and lava rock to 290C (500F), this usually takes 1.5hours(yes, it's long)
bake for 10min at 240C with steam, 10 min more without steam.

Many thanks for the detailed recipe. I'm only confused regarding the first step. You mentioned:

SD starter 600g:
French Flour 300g
water 300g

Do you mean that you use 600g SD and mix it with 300g flour + 300g water? that would be 1200g? or do you mean just flour and water to make a poolish, not SD?

..am I not getting that right?

what I meant is sour dough made with equal amount of flour and water. I need to work on my communication, hahaha. So first, I feed my SD with equal amount of water and flour, then 6-8 hours later when it's bubbling, I take 600g of it and add the remaining ingredients and start the S/F etc.

Now I get it, many thanks.

My question now : how much SD do you feed 300g flour and 300g water?

And while you're here, could you please give me the Amazon link to that cylinder you use to measure the dough expansion

Now I get it, many thanks.

My question now : how much SD do you feed 300g flour and 300g water?

And while you're here, could you please give me the Amazon link to that cylinder you use to measure the dough expansion

 

Maojin, I'm starting my trials on baguettes and come across your channels. You baguette looks perfect! It's amazing in every way, really. 

One point I would like to ask though: You let the dough bulk till 3x and shape but still able to handle it without degassing? And do you still keep these at 65% hydration now? 

I am in the same spot right now as you were. I am still on my journey for a consistent great baguette. Do you have your recipe for these lovelies anywhere? I saw that you posted a recipe before but I was wondering if you are still using the same recipe with changes in handling.