This Community Bake will be featuring one of our very own; the "Baguette Baker Extraordinaire", Alan, aka alfanso. He is among a handful of fine baguette bakers on TFL who have spent years concentrating on baguettes, alfanso's favored craft, and his baguettes are consistently outstanding and consistently consistent.. Consistence and repeatability, coupled with breads that visually signify a particular baker are the hallmark of excellence. When viewing an image of any of Alan's baguettes, those that have been around for a while know exactly who baked the bread. We are fortunate to have him on the forum.
We have extracted the bakes of 4 participating bakers and present it in PDF form
Attention New Readers:
Although the Community Bake started some time back, it is still active. New participants are welcomed to join in at any time! It's constantly monitored and help of any kind is still available.
For those that are not familiar with Alan and his baguettes check out his blog.
Since the Covid Pandemic many new bakers have joined the forum. For those that are not familiar with our Community Bakes (CB) see THIS LINK. It should give you an idea of the concept and how things work.
Alan supplied the following information as a guide line to the bake. There are links below with additional resources. Alan's choice of baguette for the CB is Pain au Levain with Whole Wheat, by Jeffrey Hamelman. Jeffrey Hamelman recently retired as Head Baker at the King Arthur Flour Company. His book, "Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, 2nd Edition" is considered a "must have" by most of the bakers on this forum.
Alan writes:
I’ve attached the formula and some photos of my most recent bake of this bread. It is another really easy to manipulate bread that has a fantastic taste, but is not too heavy on the whole grain side. 1250g is a nice amount to create 4 "comfortable sized" baguettes.
I’ve simplified the formula a little by converting it from a 60% hydration to a 100% hydration levain.
Mr. Hamelman uses the term “Bread Flour” but in our realm this really means a standard AP flour with a similar protein profile to King Arthur AP flour, 11.7% protein.
This dough can also be mixed mechanically if you have neither developed the skills nor have the desire to mix by hand."
NOTE - for those using home milled flour a tweak may be necessary. Whole grain (100% extraction) will absorb quite a bit more water than white flour as well as commercial whole wheat flour. Since I used home milled grain, it was necessary to add more water before the dough became extensible enough to slap and fold. I estimate the water added was approximately 28 grams which brought the hydration to ~72%. I should have taken my own advice and measured the additional water, but I didn’t. For those using home milled grains, if would be helpful if you reported the extra water necessary to do the Slap & Folds. See THIS TECHNIQUE.
Additional Resources
- Shaping and scoring Maurizio’s baguettes
- Scoring and baking Hamelman’s pain au levain with mixed SD starters
- Shaping and scoring Bouabsa baguettes (still in my infancy, they’ve come a long way since then!)
- Martin Philip shaping and baking baguettes
- Jeffrey Hamelman shapes baguettes
Everyone is welcomed. Both expert and novice can learn and improve their baking skills by participating and sharing their experience. Make sure to post your good, bad, and ugly breads. We learn much more from our failures, than we do from our successes.
Danny
A late addition -
In Alan’s reply below he reminded us that this is not a competition. The goal of every Community Bake is to learn from one another. There are no losers, only winners. Each and every participant should become a better baguette baker with the help of others.
As my mother-in-law might say. “mais, dats sum tin crus der chere”.
I've never seen the edges like that before. Maybe me Hammelman can bless this thread again and weigh in. The interior crumb looks really great almost gelatinous which every once in a blue moon I just get it that way and really love it. Not gummy but gelatinous.
Btw way - dat be creole ? Definitely very 'Tin' alright !
Dan,
When I saw the crumb on your Bouabsa it immediately reminded me of the crumb that I got from Maurizio's Levain baguettes, back in Sept. 2018. I infrequently ever get a crumb that has the same characteristics as yours here, which seems to be an unusual crumb structure, and I thought so then too. The gelatinous crumb seems so unusual to me.
Pretty much the only things they have in common with your Bouabsa bake are the mixes being in the 70's hydration range, and the bassinage step.
These are Maurizio's Levain formula at 70% hydr. and 75% hydr.
The 75% hydr. version was fairly difficult to shape cleanly, I've never had an issue with shaping the Bouabsa dough.
Compliments to Maurizio!
I am presently considering the possibility that my dough is being overly developed early on. The tight crumb portion reminds me of commercially available sandwich bread. It is said that they beat that dough to death in mixers.
I am not saying that developing a dough fully doesn’t produce great results. By doing so, my latest bakes have catapulted me into a new realm. And for that I am appreciative. But for me (at this time) the new frontier is evenly distributed, open crumb. “Beam me up, Scotty”!
Let’s see where this fiasco winds up... LOL
OH! Maury’s shaping ain’t bad either. Love the football look!
The outer layer was cooked quickly by the steam and did not expand for some reason I don't yet understand, but the core of the loaf, expanding more slowly and at an intermediate temperature produced a more open crumb.
Doc, wouldn’t you think if the crust hardened too quickly, the ears would not have fractured.
Although, the loaves were extremely small circumference for their length (~330g and 20-21” long) they didn’t get as large circumference wise as I’d like. Raw dough ~4” circumference and baked off at 7” circumference (my best guess).
Because these loaves were time lapse video’d I didn't use a top heat shield. It would have blocked the over head in-oven lighting. If pre-mature hardening was the issue, the heat shield would have probably solved that. Keep in mind the bake originated at 550F.
These baguettes were the lightest yet, by far...
Theres a video on king Arthur's YouTube where jeff Hammelman evaluates baguette crumb and I seem to recall him talking to this exact point about it being tights near the cust. I think that's fairly normal. What strikes me as more obvious is the somewhat inconsistent spread of good versus tight crumb. Somehow I just chalk that up to shaping and the goal to really cylindarize the loaf so that the heat spreads evenly during the bake. Aside from that these are just great !
Thanks, Geremy.
Here is the link you mentioned. It takes you straight to the baguette inspection section.
Jeffrey talks about too much pressure sealing the seam as another possiblity.
I am now think -
I welcome your opinions. Pro & Con for my ideas and any others you may think of.
I have a plan forward...
I was coming on to ask if you did any room temp fermentation prior to baking. I'm halfway through my first round of Bouabsa baguettes. The first half of the dough is on the oven and had a room temp rest of 45 minutes. The second half is going to skip that.
It'll be interesting to have your set to compare it to.
The dough went straight from retard to the oven. Next time (tomorrow) the dough will proof at RT for a while (maybe 30 min?) after shaping the then go back into retard. Then slashed and baked straight out of the fridge.
looking forward to seeing yours...
I keep expecting Jeffrey to slice onto his hand...every time I watch - especially now have gashed my finger with my lame the other day. To his point and my insisting emulating louis lamour's technique, he (mr hammelman) suggests that too much stress applied during rolling. That skill I think can always improve no matter how many times you've rolled these suckers out. Keep on rolling folks !
I think you should try the longer bulk retard, which is when the flavor develops, divide, pre-shape, shape, proof, bake as the original recipe states and skip the retard of the shaped loaf. I think that would help the crumb be more consistent. Maybe the crumb dries out and gets thicker if it is in the couche for too long. The crust should shatter when it is cut into. Like your partner in the wood chipper.
Don, please send me the link to your formula and process.
He was being tossed from a coffee can over the Pacific.
Advisory - quite adult language ahead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWz8NGIisMo
Dan,
Your baguettes look so unique. Forget about the shaping which looks as though it came off a lathe, but those scores! Reminds me of excavator earth auger screws.
Really beautiful work. And now...you've been indoctrinated into the simple pleasures of IDY baggies. Tag, you're it!
Watching you try to communicate with Bouabsa was funny. He seemed to be a very nice guy. I think most bakers are pretty nice guys.
Plan to use the Bouabsa formula next with T65 French flour. That’s going to be a real learning experience, 10% protein. No heavy gluten development with this one.
The rug did pull the whole room together.
I have always adhered to my memory of David's recipe as:
I autolyse 20 minutes or so with the yeast then add salt and held back water.
I do minimal mixing using the Rubaud method until dough just comes together. No kneading or S&F
Two hours with 2 or three coil folds. Then into fridge for 21 hrs
Divide cold and very loosely fold into letter wait 20 or 30 minutes
Shape (Hammelman method) proof while oven heats to 480
Stone on the bottom rack, boiling water poured into sheet pan on the top rack with care
Ten minutes with steam or until browning begins remove pan and bake another 15 minutes.
For the sourdough version I just deducted the amounts of flour and water for the starter
The Link with Janedo probably explains it best great-baguette-quest-n°3-anis-bouabsa
your work continue on here, I remember learning from your work in 2017.
When last I recall, you were in an "abbey" or meditation center in Hawaii pumping out dozens of batards a day. Do I recall correctly? Welcome back to both the mainland and TFL.
Yes that's me! After 12 years I decided to leave the monastery and teach people mindfulness and meditation. I'm currently competing with a few people to also work with NASA.
I have a lovely partner Helena, and we are having a baby boy in January.
Life moves fast! I'm excited to begin baking again, and I'm about to begin an autolyse right now—first loaf since becoming a civilian.
Two small batches with nutritional yeast made 3x 350g baguettes each. 11.8% pff, 67% hydration, 2% salt, 100% high gluten white flour. 23°C BF for 3 hr, with folds at 20 min intervals until it had enough strength. Bulk retard at 38°F for to 40°F dough temp. Shape direct from retard, counter proof for 45 min and bake.
The two on the left had 0.25% nutritional yeast added and the two on the right had 0.125%. There was a significant difference in extensibility from the beginning and both batches shaped without a pre-shaping step or rest. The 0.125% batch wanted to spring back a little but was easliy pursuaded to do what I asked. I will probably adopt the 0.25% nutritional yeast number when I want some increase in extensibility. Both batches were soft and tender when they went to the oven so I might try a batch with no counter proof just to see what difference it makes. The other option is to put them back into the retarder at a little higher temp for a longer time so that they still handle well on the way to the oven.
There's been a fair amount of discussion in this thread about the benefits of a bulk retard and subsequent shaping vs. shaping either before retard or at some point during retard withe the shaped dough being placed back into retard again.
While not an exhaustive review of Mr. Hamelman's Bread, what I find is that he does not list retarding "any" dough that is employing commercial yeast alone. They are listed as having a bench proof only.
The levain breads are a mixed bag of both bench proofing as well as retarding for about "half" of the entries. Some do not mention retard in the methodology at all. However, in no case is there any mention of retarding before shaping. All formulae that I've seen so far will have the dough shaped prior to retard.
I'm not going to rewrite the passage from Bread, 2nd edition, page 146 here. Rather to summarize, he writes that same concept. Breads can be retarded after shaping, with the bake delayed for up to 24 hours, and he states two reasons for doing so:
I take no sides, as I've done both, although my own retard experience has me pulling the dough halfway through as mentioned above or, more recently, abiding by Mr. Hamelman's method of shaping prior to retard. I also acknowledge the we've clearly discovered (MTloaf) that the Bouabsa dough is designed to be completely retarded prior to shaping.
As we've seen over and over, when it comes to bread baking, there are likely a hundred ways to do something right and a few hundred ways to do something wrong. Everyone's own experience, technique, oven and kitchen helps inform us what may best meet our needs.
And there is always the opportunity to fine tune our experience to see whether applied changes work for each of us. If not, then dial back.
I am all for each baker finding out for themselves what works best for them and adjusting recipes to fit life schedules. However to evaluate a recipe I think it is best to follow it faithfully to establish a baseline before making alterations. Hammelman does mention retarding yeasted bread in the straight dough section. He also recommends it for Challah and Brioche to facilitate handling and shaping.
I always loved the preceding page so it is included
Don, thanks for the post!
I find it interesting that the dough is BF, then degassed and retarder. and then it is degassed 2 or 3 additional times after that during the initial phase of retardation.
Have you done that?
What is the thought process of doing so?
Excess gas in a yeasted dough CO2 can affect flavor and choke out the yeast. I do that with pizza dough that has been in the fridge a few days by balling it up again which degasses it. The small amount of yeast in the Bouabsa does not seem to require it but I always despair when I see it puffed up with large bubbles. I don't like to over stretch a cold dough because the gluten can get torn.
Don, when bulk retarding Bouabsa would you recommend a light fold or two as the dough begins to cool?
The logic of degassing in the fridge may have something to do with the fact that dough bulked in mass will take a while to cool down to fridge temp and will continue to ferment. And CY being possibly more problematic.
like the baguette recipe will cool quickly and evenly. A larger recipe like a few pan loaves would require folding to redistribute the chilled outside of the dough is my guess too as you surmised.
Yeast has no dependence on CO2 as an input for growth and yeast stops replicating when it runs out of food or gets too cold. Also I don't understand how CO2 affects flavor.
But commercial yeast if VERY active and if you don't fold or degas dough as it cools you are likely to have a flabby batch when it finally cools off. So you can control this by starting the retard earlier or degassing it at some intermediate point(s) during the chilling process. Hamelman offers a couple of different retard temperatures and corresponding retard times for those who are using the retard to manage production schedule. For most home bakers who don't have a separately temperature controlled cooler in which to retard, and use a domestic refrigerator which runs at around 38-40°F, once the dough has reached 38°F yeast fermentation has pretty much stopped.
However, a sourdough has LAB which continues to produce acid at temperatures below where the yeast shuts down. This is one of the falacies of trying to use Gänzel's model to predict growth rates for both yeast and LAB. His model is fine for it's intended purpose but not totally accurate outside of the identified bounds (Tmin for his yeast [not commercial yeast] was 8°C [~46°F] and for the LAB he was investigating Tmin was around 3°C[~37°F].
Referring to CY, “once the dough has reached 38°F yeast fermentation has pretty much stopped.”
Is the commonly used practice of retarding CY dough balls for pizza for 24-48 hours to increase flavor a fallacy? If the yeast cease and there is no LAB, what would contribute to increased flavor over a period of long retard?
”constantly thinking...”
As I was merely running through the individual bread listings themselves.
In general I also agree to the value of establishing a baseline based on the author's write-up. But can't completely agree as we've all seen how skewed the BF timings are in FWSY, and with no explanation as to why the levains are ridiculously and "carelessly" oversized and discarded, nor why the BFs are also so dang long.
Even in Bread, while Mr. Hamelman writes with an eye toward the home baker, his book leans more toward the professional audience and the bakery environment.
Also, for those of us with competent baking skills, I believe that we can look at a formula and decide to go off the rails from the get-go. I've experienced a few times where I've abided (not The Dude) by the formula and to my chagrin paid the penalty because I should have know better as to what works in my kitchen and oven.
All this talk about T65 T55 and T45 flours made me decide today to use some of my T55 (I think it is but I forgot to label it so it could be T65) flour that I bought when flour was hard to find here recently. So I have another batch of three baguettes in bulk cold retard using Abel’s formula again. Because of the irregular browning last time, I’ve increased the diastatic malt to 0.5% which is what I typically add to most of my sourdoughs. I’ve also increased the hydration this time as I did a bassinage so the hydration is 72% rather than 70% the first time out. I let it ferment to 30% rise and now will leave it in bulk cold retard until tomorrow morning when I’ll shape and bake before work. So it will have had at least 18.5-19.5 hours of cold retard before it gets baked. I decided not to add nutritional yeast because I wanted to repeat this with as few variables changed as possible to compare.
Benny, I didn’t mess with mine either. We definitely shouldn’t need any additional extensibility with this flour. I chose not to seriously develop the gluten up front. Quick mix and stretch and folds only. I am under the impression that this flour must be handled with gentle care.
I also didn’t do as many slap and folds this time out, I did 150 because I wanted to make sure the salt, IDY and diastatic malt were well mixed after the bassinage. It will be interesting to see what effect the longer cold retard and somewhat gentler handling does. Oh I guess the T55 flour is another change from my AP flour the first time out, more variables than I initially intended...
With your fancy french flour. I am green with envy. You will be wearing berets and spreading snails on baguettes next. Do us a fava and give the bean flour another try with your precious cargo. It was originally added to strengthen the gluten in weaker flour and thats what it did to my AP that I should have added more water to. Look forward to seeing your bakes with the real deal.
This time I took MTloaf's advice, and bumped up the hydration from 68% to 70%. Other changes from 1st run. Eliminated the NY, dropped my traditional 300 FFs down to 200 FFs still split by ~5 minutes at the halfway point. Shaped right out of BF, this run had a full retard time frame of about 14 hours.
The dough was so easy to work with, and created no pushback. Final shaping was a snap. However, the first of the three was a bit of training wheels with slight barbell ends and little pitched middle. The other two were just dandy. Unfortunately, in my overcompensation from the prior run's runaway extensibility I did roll these a bit too short - 18 inches each, with barbell at 21 inches. Muscle memory, still in the early stages of development, coincided with fear of over-lengthening them.
All in all I'm pleased with the bake. As best as my palate can recall, and the wife agrees with me, the NY run contributed a slightly bitter flat taste. These seem "sweeter" and more enjoyable. The crust is super thin and snaps when biting into. Which I intend to do a lot more of before the next run!
Preheat at 480dF, bake at 460dF, 13 minutes of steam, 12 minutes after release and rotation, 2 minutes of venting.
As before 400g x 3, baked weight 320g.
my next bake will be the same, but I'll be scaling back the WW to 5%, maintain the 5% rye, and let it rip.
Alan, I really like the crumb. The holes don’t have to be huge for me. Just medium open and nicely spaced. Your’s fits the bill. Nice crumb all the way to the crust.
Gotta’ luv those third degree blisters...
” Muscle memory, still in the early stages of development, coincided with fear of over-lengthening them.” why not give the TRAINING WHEELS a try?
You "amateur" of love. We go to great lengths to make sticks. I threw the NY overdose baggies out in the yard last night and this morning a deer had it sideways in his mouth and seemed to be enjoying it. I thought it was great the way Hammelman explained the etymology of the word amateur in his comment here I haven't read his book cover to cover but there are pearls of wisdom even in the breads I don't intend to make. This one is one of my favorites and is applicable to right now on whether to venture out.
And the deer rejected it too. No, I'm not badmouthing NY, I guess under the circumstances, and amount used, it just didn't suit me at all, at least for this past bake with it. I wonder if I were to roll out a really long rope of dough, I suppose the NY would be a fantastic help.
When it come to amateurs, I'm right up there!
Just this morning in an email exchange with Dan, I wrote this about what Mr. Hamelman said pertaining to our CB:
"The exchange of so much knowledge has emerged in our group research and testing, A true laboratory of learning. I imagine way more than any of the other CBs. Could be wrong of course, but we are continuing to unlock the secrets of creating some fine baguettery! As Jeffrey Hamelman said about we amateurs - we break ground and experiment in ways that the pros don’t always or often do. Well, that just might be because we don’t have nonstop busy bakery schedules to maintain and adhere to, nor businesses to run, and are far from tied to our core beliefs and set in our ways!"
Regardless of the reason, this really has been a fine exercise in collaboration, discovery and experimental baking. No sniping, no animosity, no one-upmanship. Just a happy and dedicated group of bread fools trying to be better than yesterday and drag the others along with us as we go. Ain't a bad model to be a part of! Where else can you have this much fun and so many carbs for free?
@MTloaf You would enjoy reading Bread cover to cover (though the part about braiding may not prove useful until you want to make challah) and besides being educational it is a great read. The text around the recipes is often more valuable than the formulas themselves. It is my favorite bread book (I have a first edition and I have rebound it once already)
Read the whole book including doing a 6 braid Challah. I got bogged down in the flour testing part but slogged through it. I heard him mention on the Isolation Baking Show that he is working on a third edition that I will be looking forward to because my 1st edition is getting tattered. I am hoping he will devote even more pages to the home baking amateurs like myself and include the additional recipes in the 2nd. On one of the shows he also mentioned CO2 affecting the flavor while talking about folding. The Horst Bandel rye story is one of my favorites. His book has something for everyone. Arts and science with a touch of humanity.
I've been doing a lot of baking- just not posting. I don't have a tremendous amount of experience and have a lot of ground work to cover. It might be easier to go to another format but I'm quite hooked. I've played with fava and NY and hydration. And shaping before/after retard. And came to the same conclusions as everyone else.
Finally figured out my oven configuration. Fibrament stone with additional layer of quarry tile on the bottom most rack, loaf pan with lava rocks next to it for presteam, baking pan on uppermost rack with lava rocks. Initial steam in bottom oven at 500. Move to upper oven to complete bake. The upper element in the bottom oven is killer and just not workable. Lots of ruined dough in the learning process.
I decided to put myself up against me. I went back to the original original formula and my original flour... and wanted to see what happened. I'm not displeased. My crumb is more even, my shaping is better, my bakes are more even. And I know a lot more in general.
Now...I'm ready to move onto the revised formula and maybe reduce the whole grains, work on BF times which might be hurting oven spring, scoring- partway through 14 loaves today narrowing it down.
Thanks all for sharing. It is fascinating.
For the record, Hamelman's Pain au Levain makes an extremely challenging hamburger bun. In case you were wondering.
Jen, you are a much better baker than you give yourself credit for. Most of us have been working at this for decades.
For a new baker, you make this stuff look easy.
Keep on posting...
OH! If my crumb turns out like yours for tomorrow’s bake, I’ll be a happy camper.
The color and thin crust ain’t bad, either.
I agree with Dan on this Jen, it is really impressive what you’re able to do at your stage of baking bread, very impressive.
This is sheer determination bordering on insanity. I figure if y'all can do it, I can do it too. The amount to learn seems staggering but...one loaf at a time, eh?
Many thanks- there is a wealth of knowledge here to draw from! I've done about 10 years of baking in the last several weeks so at this rate, I'll be caught up in no time.
Your progress is showing. The oven fine tuning is paying off. A test kitchen requires test eaters to do more than cheer you on. I hope they help with the dishes. The Pain au Levain makes a good pizza crust.
Oh my word- all the dishes!
I should share loaves with others but I'm always sure tomorrow's bakes will be better than today's.
We shall pizza it soon then!
Jen - It really is hard to belive that you are a beginning baker. Those loaves exhibit an awful lot of learning. It is really supurb execution.
One step forward, two steps back. I think this is the theme of today’s bake for me. I once again used Abel’s Baguette au Levain formula that Alfanso shared his formula for. This is an almost all white flour (my starter is fed red fife so the only whole grain is in the starter At 1%) using a levain 9% PFF and 0.07% IDY.
I used what I believe to be T55 flour this time instead of AP.
I bulk fermented until 30% rise, then cold retarded the whole dough in bulk in the fridge at 2ºF for 18hr 45 mins. Pre-shaped loosely, bench rested 10 mins then shaped. This is where I ran into problems. This dough was super extensible. By the time I was ready to roll the shaped dough it was already at the maximal length of my baking steel. Trying to roll it a little bit to get a better final shape made it too long. Once placed in the oven the ends were touching the oven’s back wall or got folded under the parchment paper and under itself. At this point I should have side loaded them as the baking steel has more width than depth. I’ll have to do this next time to allow me to better shape my baguettes.
Still no ears : (. More practice is needed. I also note that they are still not browning evenly. I wonder if adding the malt to the flour and mixing then before autolyse would more evenly distribute it and result in more even browning? Oh I also increase diastatic malt to 0.5%.
You're getting continued good shaping and good oven spring, that's for sure, just no ears on the grigne.
My experience is that higher hydration doughs which request a bassinage, especially almost all-white flour doughs, generally are slack and quite extensible. Certainly true here and even called out in the formula as such.
And that creates a problem for baguette shaping. One solution is in your pre-shape, which you don't mention here. If you don't already do so, try a soft small boule shape or, what I do, a short barrel, also gently shaped. This should give you a better shaping experience for these slack doughs. Don't purposely stretch out the dough manually during the pre-rolling phase. Allow it to lengthen naturally as you start the shaping process. By the time you begin to roll, the length will be shorter and afford you more control.
I've taken to combining all dry ingredients into a separate mixing bowl and whisking them together to ensure an even distribution. Lately, since watching one of Martin Philip's Isolation videos, I've also included the salt before the autolyse. Levain gets whisked into the water before any dry is incorporated. By the time the dry meets the wet in the main mixing bowl, all ingredients are assured of their proper distribution.
And your baggies are now eligible for membership in the Jimmy Durante Nose club.
At the divid and pre-shape step, I rolled the doughs loosely into a barrel shape, however, because I cut them starting from a circle to thirds they start as triangles. Thus the rolled shape isn’t very symmetrical. Next time since this flour gives a fairly slack dough, I will pre-shape as a boule, that is a much better idea for such a slack dough. Since it is so extensible, I don’t need to have to start out so close to the final length at all. Good idea and I should have thought of that, duh, live and learn.
I’ve made note of your mixing all dry ingredients including salt together for next time. Since white flour takes so little time to hydrate and this flour is so slack and extensible I guess it doesn’t really need much of an autolyse anyhow.
Thanks for those observations and suggestions Alan.
Next bake will be better!
Benny - autolyse seems to serve only two functions, allowing the flour to fully hydrate, and giving the amylase enzymes enough time to produce maltose before the salt is added so that sugar availability is not a limiting factor during the remainder of the fermentation. This argues that the diastatic malt definitely should go in with the flour and get mixed before the autolyse. In commercial applications autolyse lasts on the order of 20 minutes and is done after a short initial mix. In the best documnented autolyse application I found the mixing was sufficient to pull the dough off the sides of the mixer.
Doc, would you still do an autolyse without levain, yeast and salt then for this recipe? This recipe calls for the levain to be added during the autolyse, so strictly speaking not really an autolyse, but a fermentolyse. Can the presence of diastatic malt help compensate for the addition of salt if one was going to do an all in mix?
I think at a minimum I will add the diastatic malt to the autolyse so that way at least it will definitely be more uniformly dispersed throughout. It sounds like Alan is already adding all dry ingredients at the beginning including the salt and getting good results on his bakes.
There is no benefit from doing an autolyse if you are going to add the salt since it is the salt that substantially slows the amylase activity which is why you do the autolyse in the first place. So yes, do an autolyse, and include everything except the salt (and fat if you will be adding fat to the dough). Mix enough to get all of the flour wet and let it sit for at least 20 min - though longer does produce more maltose but after 20 min you are ahead of the yeast. Actually, if you incorporate the yeast or starter up front there might be an advantage to a longer autolyse. But 20 min is enough to get the flour fully hydrated (assuming it was wet to start with). The added malt will increase the maltose production rate so that is helpful, and of course the maltose that is left over after the yeast take what they need will help with browning which in your case is why you are adding the malt.
for my autolyse until I started to maintain the Hamelman 125% hydration levains. In many of his formulae, Mr. Hamelman will add the levain to the initial pre-autolyse stage. Without doing so the hydration would be too low and the initial combining of the flour and water produces clumps, which love to maintain un-hydrated seams of flour and become troublesome to incorporate at fine dough mix time. I pretty much only mix by hand, my mechanical mixer is a 35 year old Kitchen Aid with the questionably useful dough hook. Therefore hand mixing is my experience.
I began to add the levain up front, and thus cut my autolyse time from ~30 minutes to 20 minutes to compensate for the levain being incorporated. I further expanded that to my standard 100% hydration levains mixes as well, and even to my 75% levain, because when mixing by hand I always found the thicker and stickier 75% levain to be more difficult to comfortably incorporate.
I am taking the word, at least for now, of Mr. Philip who claims that he does not see the yeast and salt being counter to each other. Here is where he advises that it is okay to combine the two at the outset.
And I'm also not promoting the way that I do it as the way that anyone else should. I can only report on my own experience.
It would seem that the yeast and salt idea would be an easy one to test. I'll do something in the next couple of days on it. I have been wondering on it myself. Depending on what I'm testing for, I have been adding it initially to the dough. I hate the process of kneading in salt water. Bad on cuts and hands with carpal tunnel!
There is plenty of water in the dough to disslove the salt during the kneading process. Just dump it on the dough and let it sit during the autolyse so that you don't forget it. Then mix as you normally would. It will go right into solution. If you want it to go even faster use popcorn salt which is a very fine grind.
Gänzle investigated the sensitivity of both yeast and L sanfrancisiencis to salt and concluded that yeast tolerated up to 8% salt while the LAB could tolerate only 4% before growth stopped. The data clearly shows that LAB are more sensitive to salt than yeast, and hints that there may be an optimal value around 2% where the differential growth rate of LAB vs yeast is maximized (see the plot at the bottom of page 3 of the linked paper). And while it is not a huge penalty, yeast growth is slowed by the addition of 2% salt.
While reading your post a few thoughts came to mind.
Isn’t it amazing how one person can observe another, and see things in the actions of others that would never have been noticed if they were doing it themselves. (The story of my life).
Ears -
From the shiny crust and blisters it appears you are getting ample steam. What temp are you baking at?
Looking forward to reading about your take on the taste.
Never even occurred to me to cut a bit of dough off the ends, duh!
Yes good point about pre-shaping smaller, I will do a boule next time that way I’ll have more room to roll it out to the desired length without going too far. Maybe this will help with getting some ears.
I think the steaming is good, I’m using a Silvia towel and cast iron skillet. I’m also spritzing some extra water on the baguettes before I close the oven door. I baked this time at 500ºF. Last time my second set of three I forgot to turn the temperature down to 480ºF and it gave me such good oven spring I thought I’d start at this temperature again. Once 13 mins was up, I removed the steaming equipment and turned the temperature to 480ºF. I think next time I will turn it down to 480ºF and turn the convection on as well, perhaps that will help with the browning, to make it more even.
Thanks Dan for your suggestions and observations.
Benny if your oven goes higher, you might give that a try. Think about it. Once the oven is open the cavity heats drops drastically. If f I could go 650F I would! The oven can be dropped down (if you wish) after loading. My baguettes make 550 straight through on many occasions. Other times the heats is dropped to ~485F convection. Either way the results are good.
Geremy told me to bake hot and fast if I wanted a softer chew; and I do...
Going to bake some T65 now.
upon loading the dough. I'm much more concerned about the temperature of the baking deck, which will retain the same heat for a long time, depending on composition and thickness.
For example, my oven, pre-heated to 480dF for a 460dF bake, will drop to ~425dF by the time the oven is loaded, water poured over the lava rocks and oven door closed. I immediately reset the baking temp on the oven to force it to re-fire. It comes back to desired temp within mere minutes into the bake. Meanwhile the steam is allowing the crust to begin expanding and the baking deck likely hasn't lost more than a degree or two, if that, in the process. And will help bring the oven temp back up with its own heat.
A questioning thought popped into mind when I looked at Benny’s baguette concerning ears. The “skin on his crust near the slash appeared thin. A quick search through the CB revealed Alan’s baguettes and there seemed to be a noticeably thicker skin at the scores.
Is there a correlation here?
Here is the scoring close-up on my posted run of the same formula, with all white flour vs. 25% whole grain, lower hydration in Dan's photo above.
Benny's grigne is getting no lift, but I don't know whether the thickness of the score comes into play. His scoring lines are certainly clean.
I wonder if I'm now scoring at too acute an angle, I think I might be at this point. I may need to angle my blade less perhaps. I think my blade may be too close to parallel to the surface of the dough. What do you think would that partially explain the lack of ears?
Would the lack of rolling of the dough also contribute to lack of ears? As I said, they were at length already before rolling so I rolled very very little.
I’m not convinced the skin thickness is related to scoring.
Just pulled my first T65s out of the oven. The scoring is sketchy and will need to be refined with this type of flour. Nothing will seem normal to American bakers with French flour, nothing...
A lot of folks have trouble adapting to new flours. I think that these are near perfect. Another Bouabsa run?
Alan, yes Bouabsa, but the hydration was dropped from 75 to 69. AND, next time I’ll strongly consider 67%. French flour is a different beast. It forms a great gluten with little work, but it is not strong like American flours. The dough has a shiny “clay-like” appearance. Scoring is quite different, especially since the skin is more fragile. At least, that was my experience the first time out of the gate.
Although, a slight exaggeration, the dough is more akin to Ciabatta than bread dough. Not really, just trying to make a point. The flour contains 15.5% moisture, and Michael tells us American is 14%. So it starts off wetter by 1.5%.
This is not a flour for new bakers.
we assume (unless janedo bumped the hydration up to meet North American flour characteristics). He might be a tad more adept at handling French flour. Oui? ?
Loved to see him handle that flour @ 75%. Don’t doubt it can be done, but watching would be an experience. Bet Trevor could give it a good go...
Geremy cautioned me to shape this dough cold. Believe me, I will in the future.
that I'd never used before. I don't recall any issue with the handling...
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/62964/abel-abel-and-yumi
@Danny - I would not trust a label to correctly reflect the moisture content of flour milled in France after it had been opened in LA (or LA either). Weigh out 100g of flour spred on a sheet pan and heat it to 150°F for a couple of hours (weigh it every 20 min to observe the weight loss). You should expect it to decline and level off. Then reweigh the pan and calculate how much water was in the flour when you started. Let us know what you find. I would bet it is not 15.5%.
Should the flour be useable after the test. Will the heat have any ill affects. I’m treating this stuff like gold dust.
The Bouabsa recipe relies and produces more oven spring than others. Not to say that all baguettes don't benefit from it but they should be proofed to less than the maximum. The bursting is related to explosive oven spring and the thin crust. I am betting the crumb will be good. What did you scale them to? Do I see a new wood shaping surface with an edge to hold it in place? Did you retard the shaped sticks? The ears look nice but the crust looks thicker.
Don, they weighed ~350. The dough was retarded around 21 hr.
Here is my loading board setup. It works without a hitch.
As far as the crust thickness. The CB has gotten so large, it is hard to navigate (a good problem to have). Concerning the latest bake with T65, the crust was phenomenal! Thin, crispy and crackly. Baking more of those tomorrow, will add 2% Fava Beans hoping to increase the strength just a tad.
Ya know, for the longest time I haven't really thought too much about blade angle. I know it needs to be there, and in a denser low hydration dough I'll definitely score more "down" than pure angle. What I find is that even though the angle of the bade for higher hydration doughs is more pronounced, the slight difference at which the blade enters the dough is really minimal, but there. If that makes sense. If you are thinking that the angle is too pronounced - overcompensating perhaps, then you might be "filleting" the dough rather than scoring it.
I think that rolling of the dough would have less impact than a weaker surface tension, although they can also be interconnected*. Weaker surface tension baguettes have the hallmark look of the spread but no loft to the ear. Here's a recent poolish all AP bake where I acknowledged at that time that my surface tension was poor.
* All the dang parts are interconnected! More so on baguettes than boules or batards.
Wouldn’t it be great if Alan could have scored one of Benny’s baguettes and had Benny score the others. From that we could (should) establish a truth about scoring angle.
I think Alan’s scoring would have also had less than perfect ears. But we may never know.
I’m not insinuating that score angle has no affect, but (as Alan & I spoke about yesterday) the condition of the dough, shaping, oven heat and steam all have to come together for perfection.
Given the characteristics that this flour seems to impart in this dough and the hydration of the dough I made, my blade angle was probably to close to parallel to the dough surface and probably the weight of the potential ear closed back down. There was still a decent bloom I guess because there was some opening at the score even before I got the dough into the oven and then good oven spring. But if the dough flap flopped down I wouldn't get an ear. That would make sense to me.
Benny, I know we've thought that the slash is able to "glue down" onto the dough and that this adhesion prevents the ear from forming. Are we sure this thought is valid?
This is what I've been considering. It may be completely wrong, but it is worth a thought. When the dough is slashed (at any angle) the gluten strands are separated, creating a permanent weak spot. If the remaining underlying gluten strands are strong and expands from increasing gas pressure it seems the slash would separate. I just viewed an old video and maybe we can draw a conclusion from watching it. You are able to use the YouTube settings to slow the video down to 1/4 speed. You also have the option to "scrub" the time line.
I'm not sure what is going on, but maybe together we can increase our understanding of the "glued down ears".
NOTE - the video below is considering pre-mature hardening of the crust as the culprit for that particular bake. I don't think that is Benny's problem, but the video may serve to help us better understand the dreaded "glued down ears" syndrome.
The video is best viewed using THIS LINK.
I remember watching this video before and just watched it again.
Yeah I’m really not sure what is causing the lack of ears, it isn’t lack of oven spring although mine didn’t poof up as much as your #14 batch did in your other time lapse video. Like most things in life, the causes are likely multifactorial. I didn’t do great on the shaping, so I’m sure that is a factor, I will alter my scoring though I do think I am overcompensating and as Alan said filleting the dough rather than scoring it. I do really like Abel’s formula because it has some of the character of sourdough, but also some of the characteristic of CY baguettes that I want.
To be repeated and hopefully with another step forward instead of back.
You get good ears when the dough is stiffer than what is shown in the video. I don't assess that as a shaping issue so much as a proofing issue. If the dough has a high hydration and/or is over proofed, it stretches rather than breaking. Hoop stress is maximum when the loaf takes on a cylindrical shape. If at that point the dough continues to stretch instead of fracturing along the slash, you will get no ear. Steam will help cook the surface quickly so that it is strong enough to crack instead of stretching when the skin is pulled tight by the expanding CO2 trapped in the crumb.
I'm in your boat....I've been extremely frustrated over my lack of ears. First of all, give yourself credit for consistent scoring even if it isn't exactly what you want. It implies control and care and you can work from there. That's what I'm trying to tell myself, at least.
It is hard to do when there are more fun aspects to focus on but have you considered putting a large amount of dough in front of you and only focusing on scoring? I wish now that I had photographed it (seemed like grunt work no one would want to see) but yesterday I had a double batch of P au Levain. I made 8 mini baguettes and 2 larger ones. I baked off one loaf at a time, varying the depth and angle of cut. I can't say that I'm entirely pleased yet but I have a much better direction. It was a rather long day of baking.
How deep are your scores? I had a big improvement when I increased the depth of the score and went at less of angle- essentially scoring under the dough.
As for dough handling...I'll post something soon. I want to repeat the experiment before making an official post. I manhandled one half of a batch of a high hydration dough roughly and there was not a large difference on crumb. If presented with a dough that was overly extensible, I wouldn't hesitate to add a little structure back in my dough by working it some. I'm rethinking the idea of shaping. What it really is is one last opportunity to correct the dough structure as needed for a proper bake. And if the dough is overly extensible, perhaps it is a good time to back that off just a bit.
I'm going to repeat my scoring practice with a lower hydration dough. I'll post it all then.
I think I’ve scoring deep enough, but who knows until I score well enough and have the right conditions to get an ear! I’d guess ½ - ¾ cm deep score? In terms of the angle the blade is almost parallel to the surface of the dough which is what I think you say you are also doing. I’m thinking of reducing the angle a bit because I may be overcompensating.
Make up a batch of 66% hydration dough and shape it. Then score it. Then fold it a few times and re-shape and re-score. Repeat until tired or consistent. You don't even need to include yeast, though salt makes a big difference in how the dough handles. If you want to try with dough that is closer in texture to your bread, just increase the hydration until it feels about the same.
Big changes this time. Tried authentic french T65 flour, a first for me. It was a learning adventure for sure. The characteristics is this flour is very unlike any other flour I’ve ever used. Bouabsa was the baguette of the day, but the hydration was reduced from 75% to 69. A much needed reduction. The flour is weak by nature and requires gentle handling. The gluten forms easily and a super supple and smooth dough is easily attainable. It displays a shiny and very cream colored appearance. The windowpane is surprisingly nice, although thin.
The bread bakes up exquisitely, and the crust crackles and the crumb is creamy, moist, and has a wonderful soft texture. The contrast between the crunchy crust and the soft interior is more pronounced than anything I’ve produced in the past.
The taste can best be described as clean, very clean. It should pair well with many additions and make great sandwiches. Update - just tried a piece with Truffle Salt and fresh cracked Black Pepper. It is wonderful! As a self confessed “sour head”, it lacks the depth and complexity that is so familiar to me. It will never replace sourdough, but it shouldn’t compete in the same arena.
Is the flour worth $2.62 per pound? For me, a resounding yes! Mostly because of the marvelous textures that I’ve been unable to produce from American flours. Future bakes may sway my opinion, but for now, “I’m a very happy camper”.
Even though things went awry during the bake, the results were surprisingly stellar. The crumb is much improved. God is smiling upon me. the saying, “you deserve a break today, is fits me perfectly”.
Below is a quick YouTube video showing the In-oven bake.
Use Video is best viewed using THIS LINK.
Dan your baguettes are beginning to have a look of their own now. You’re really getting quite consistent. That has great shaping with good ears and also a great crumb. If you like the flavour from sourdough you should try a hybrid bake like Abel’s if you haven’t already.
Such as crackly etc - you're echoing what I've been blabbing forever about. To me there is no equal - the french just know their $#!+ (pardon my french) when it comes to food. What a beautiful bake danny and so glad you're happy, and so glad to chat with you on the phone yesterday. I love your cajon accent !
OK the outside wasn’t much to look at, but the crumb, wow, pretty open and lacy. The dense areas at the ends are secondary to my squashing the ends when trying to fit them in the oven. Squashed up against the back of the oven and the door compressing the crumb. The crust is thin and crisp. The crumb has that nice sheen, gelatinized without being gummy or wet. I must do this again but get the shaping better and get some ears.
My experience was very much the same.
That french flour is very special for baguettes. Your crumb is beautiful!
What lovely crumb. I've been holding off ordering French Flours until I have better control but it is so very tempting.
This time no additives and the recipe done by the book. 500 gr Wheat Montana AP 75% water, it scales out to three 18 inch batons at 290 gr each What I learned today was I need to put more tension in the pre-shape to keep them from stretching so easily. They were weak in the middle and too thin before trying to roll them out. I am going to try rolling an oval and resting them seam down next time. Baked at 480 with steam from above. The new stone is better on the rack a notch higher.
Pleased with the crust and crumb but I need to work on getting back to a uniform shape and figure out why the ends are lifting off the stone so much.
The crumb had a yellowish color that happens now and then, which I think means the carotenoids are still in there and have been not worked out of the dough from too much kneading. Doc will probably want to weigh in on that one so I will just say they tasted good.
Don, what happens with lower hydration?
I'm the water boy. It probably would make handling easier but I tend to error on the wet side. I don't know where that exact place is to get both holes and easy handling but with these amounts of dough it changes with just a few grams of water either way.
Had you been baking the longer batons all along, or is it just with this hydra-monster of a thread that you started? Folks just keep getting better and better. Just the way it is supposed to be. Another outstanding bake and another signature scoring pattern.
I'm now kinda hooked for the moment on the longer baguettes too.
The lacy crumbs in just the past 24 hours have been so inspiring.
I did the shorties for a bit to make loading easier but I found they were too much bread and liked a traditional size better. My previous stone was 17inches but not deep enough to get an even bake with three. My new stone seems to handle three wide better except for the ends curling. I would like to try ficilles next. I thought I saw that they are defined by five scores on 180 gr dough and less than a foot long.
Yes it seems we are headed back to the origins. Like fly fishing much of what we learn is history we haven't read yet. Getting an open crumb with IDY on baguettes seems much easier than SD unless it is a larger loaf then getting an open crumb with IDY seems to be difficult must be one of those E=MC2 things.
Not much of a story here (my specialty). Why did I choose to concentrate on baguettes anyway? Well, part of it was the challenge of figuring these out. But the greater part of it is that I like a higher crust to crumb ratio.
Big boules? Boo, great for crumb, and ya git the husky crust. I can't even think of the last time I made one. I like batards, who doesn't, so that is on my secondary go to list. Not too often but they're there. But ooh la la, dark crunchy crust. baguettes are it for me. And really there's nothing more to the story than that.
Now, with the CB tilt toward "full" sized baguettes, I guess I got a bee in my bonnet, or at least a pebble in my shoe. I'd been shying away from the big boys for all this time because I liked what I did, liked the size and liked what came out of the oven. And I an irrational distrust of side loading no matter how nurturing kendalm had been in his pleas to get me to join the sidewinders' club. Well, I guess it was time, and what do I discover? There's even a bigger crust to crumb ratio on these swords.
I have no illusions that I'll abandon the long batard, but for right now, I'm kinda jazzed about getting to my next bake. And one of the next few will be a Bouabsa, how could I not?
When someone compliments me on a loaf I give them, I will sometimes say "baking is fun!".
I got the commercial size plastic wrap from Costco and it is barely long enough. I think the skinny ones bake up better and have more oven spring. In the normal course of eating these I just slice them crosswise and rarely slice them in half for show. I doubt that I am the only one who smears them with Nutella!
I hope we are still doing this when Kendalm gets his oven up and running so he can show us how it's really done and I look forward to you showing us your Bouabsa. Keep your shirt on please.
extirpated by my dermatologist recently. I'l be sure to upload a photo on my next post.
FTR - staking that claim right now !