Community Bake - Baguettes by Alfanso

I have been wanting to try this recipe posted way back in the beginning on page one detailed here USA baguettes I upped the hydration to 70 to allow for local dry conditions. I scaled them to 290 grams per to keep the same ratio in a 17 or 18 inch 45cm length. I have decided that is a better length for my stone and oven. In trout fishing catching a 20 incher is the line to cross to be considered a trophy. I caught one and liked it but the shorter length just suits me better.

The dough handled fairly well but I am still struggling with the Goldilocks just right amount of tension in the pre-shape. I decide to load these sans parchment and slithered them off the peel one at a time and it took too long to straighten and arrange them. I think the delay caused them not to be steamed quite right. I see a home made super peel in my future. 

I keep trying to score more down the center to create that nice pattern but my batons seem to break their shackles and burst out of their shirt like The Hulk when he gets angry. I still like the eggshell thin crust though.

Overall it's a nice recipe and you get a lot of strength immediately from the 40% poolish but that had almost dissipated by shaping time. I added 25 gr of stiff starter to the mix but hard to say what the effect was. The flavor was good, I was happy with the crumb but the crust was a little stronger yet still had a nice crunch.

I enjoyed trying different recipes in this CB but I will probably go back to where I started with the Bouabsa as my preferred baguette recipe. 

This is the first Bouabsa attempt that I'm willing to show. The real first time I read the directions too quickly and did 3 sets of 300 SF and couldn't figure why everyone said it was so easy. There was cursing involved. And the crumb was ummm...best forgotten.

So this time...100 Slap and Folds. Fold and stretched every 20 minutes for an hour, 20 times in container. Retard for 36 hours. Preshape and 45 minute rest, shape and additional rise of 1 hour for 1 loaf, the rest 90+ minutes in the fridge. I don't trust baking more than one at a time right now.

Overall, I'm not unhappy with this. I'm using Morbread so the crumb might be better with KAAP but I'm going through 25ish lbs of flour a week and morbread is a good price point. Next run with KAAP or 00. I've been resisting breaking into it.

My first real ears on a baguette and it was on the last one when I scored faster and lighter. Also I recently realized my lame wasn't bent enough...such a silly little thing but what a big difference right away. The crust is thin and the crumb is light. And they coloured nicely. Nice flavor...but my heart is in getting to the same consistency with sourdough.

Again using Abel’s formula, 9% pre-fermented flour of which only 1.1% of the total dough was whole red fife.  ⅓ of the flour was T55 (no more left now) and ⅔ was my 13.3% protein all purpose Canadian.  IDY was used 0.07% and the hydration was 72% again.  Now that I know that my all purpose is really high protein I might increase the hydration next time to 75%.

I fermentolysed the levain, flour, water, yeast and diastatic malt which I increased to 1% in the hopes of getting a better browning of the crust.  Salt was added along with some water and mixed thoroughly with 100 slap and folds.  The bulk fermentation took under 3 hours at 79ºF and I did two sets of coil folds.  The dough was cold retarded en bulk for 21 hours because of scheduling issues.  It was divided and pre-shaped into loose rolls, rested 10 mins then shaped into long batards.  Here is where I could/should have rolled out longer than I did since once on the steel I noticed that I could have stretched them another 2-3 inches longer since I side loaded them this time.  Baked with Silvia towel and cast iron skillet for 13 mins at 500ºF then removed steaming gear turned the oven to 480ºF convection hoping that I would get better browning.  Baked a further total 12 mins oven on turning a few times and finally moved off the baking steel onto rack and left for a further 2 mins with the oven off and door ajar.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Is it always true that a sourdough loaf has a thick crust relative to the same formula made with commercial yeast?  And why is that?

but had to get it out after a few questionable bakes.  My mother-in-law keeps harping on us "I want some of Alan's bread, I want some of Alan's bread".  Since she's 92 and 1200 miles north, my wife decided that we should mail it to her against my warnings that it would likely go bad before arrival.  And I ain't paying to send a >2 lb. bread overnight express!  We decided to do a trial run to my brother-in-law in NJ.  

Rye levain with caraway seeds inside and out @73.5% hydration.  The little guy is for us here...

1200g x 1, 300g x 1

Who uses rice flour or a mixture of rice flour and wheat flour to keep the dough from sticking to the couche?  I just ran out of rice flour and I am thinking about using tapioca starch mixed with bread flour as a substitute  for the rice flour/wheat flour blend.  Does anybody have any experience with that combination?

Hello everyone.  DayAyo invited me to join your group. I participate in various Sourdough groups on social media and I have YouTube channel, The Sourdough Journey, where I have created a number of experiment-based sourdough baking videos.  Here is my most recent video, a 4-part series looking at the impact of bulk fermentation handling techniques on open crumb.   My videos are long-format, observational videos that include every step of the process.  

A Five-Loaf Experiment – Impact of Bulk Fermentation on Open Crumb  (Photo is at the bottom). 

1. All five of these loaves had surprisingly good structure coming out of bulk fermentation. Don’t let pre-shaping and final shaping screw up a potentially great loaf!
2. All of the handling methods created decent looking crumb and there was much less difference in the crumb across the five loaves than expected. The was a very noticeable difference in the structure (height, tension, symmetry) across the 5 loaves. This was surprising.
3. The coil folded loaves looked almost like final shaped loaves. The height and structure created through coil folding would allow for very light handling in preshaping and final shaping. The crumb had more air and probably needed more rest time between folds or some degassing to help amalgamate the crumb. I gave all loaves 30-minute rests between handling. The coil folded loaves would have benefitted from a longer rest between rounds (45-60 min), in my opinion.

Hello everyone. 

DayAyo invited me to join your group.

I participate in various Sourdough groups on social media and I have YouTube channel, The Sourdough Journey, where I have created a number of experiment-based sourdough baking videos.  Here is my most recent video, a 4-part series looking at the impact of bulk fermentation handling techniques on open crumb.   My videos are long-format, observational videos that include every step of the process.  

A Five-Loaf Experiment – Impact of Bulk Fermentation on Open Crumb  (Photo is at the bottom). 

I’m continuing my multiple-loaf experiments. This one was interesting.

I made 5 loaves with different handling techniques in bulk fermentation, and baked them with no pre-shaping and no final shaping to isolate the impact of different handling techniques.

The 5 loaves were (from left to right):

Loaf 1: No Knead (no handling after initial mix)

Loaf 2: 4 Stretch and Folds

Loaf 3: 8 Stretch and Folds

Loaf 4: 4 Coil Folds

Loaf 5: 5 Coil Folds and 1 Lamination (between coil folds 2 and 3)

All 5 loaves were from the same batch of dough. I followed the Tartine Basic Country Loaf recipe for all (78% hydration). The loaf weight, bulk fermentation time, temperature and baking times were all identical. After bulk fermentation, all of the loaves went into loaf pans (with no preshaping and no final shaping) for overnight cold retard. They were baked in a dutch oven the next morning. Note: I also counted the number of “layers” created in each loaf through the handling methods and it is indicated below. Also note: These are small loaves (250g flour weight) so the "big holes" are smaller than they appear here as compared to the crumb view of a standard full-sized loaf.

Assessment of the 5 Loaves:

Loaf 1 (Zero layers): This loaf shows the work of the yeast alone, with no human hands after mixing. It creates a fairly nice, regular crumb but does not create much height in the dough.

Loaf 2 (16 layers): This is the classic “Tartine” loaf which creates a somewhat open irregular crumb. Again, not much height due to fairly light handling. This loaf needs some help in preshaping and final shaping to build the height.

Loaf 3 (32 layers): This is essentially a “heavy handled” Tartine loaf with 8 stretch and folds continuing late in the process (3.5 hours into bulk). The crumb is more dense due to more handling, especially later into bulk. The late handling had more impact than the number of folds, in my opinion.

Loaf 4 (32 layers): The four coil folds created much more height and structure to the dough. The crumb is somewhat more open but this appears to be added air from the coil folding.

Loaf 5 (48 layers): The 5 coil folds plus lamination created a nicely shaped loaf – very good height and symmetry with no preshaping and no final shaping. Very similar to loaf #4. It is also showing some added air bubbles in the crumb from the coil folds/lamination.

Findings:

1. All five of these loaves had surprisingly good structure coming out of bulk fermentation. Don’t let pre-shaping and final shaping screw up a potentially great loaf!
2. All of the handling methods created decent looking crumb and there was much less difference in the crumb across the five loaves than expected. The was a very noticeable difference in the structure (height, tension, symmetry) across the 5 loaves. This was surprising.
3. The coil folded loaves looked almost like final shaped loaves. The height and structure created through coil folding would allow for very light handling in preshaping and final shaping. The crumb had more air and probably needed more rest time between folds or some degassing to help amalgamate the crumb. I gave all loaves 30-minute rests between handling. The coil folded loaves would have benefitted from a longer rest between rounds (45-60 min), in my opinion.

This experiment also illustrates the bulk fermentation component of what I call “The Structure Chain.” The final crumb of the loaf is the combination of bulk fermentation + preshaping + final shaping. Very loose dough coming out of bulk fermentation (e.g., Loaf 1 and 2) needs more pre and final shaping. Very strong dough coming out of bulk fermentation (Loaves 4 and 5) can work with much looser pre-shaping and final shaping (in fact, you could probably skip pre-shaping in these two loaves). Lastly, with Loaf 3, when you create a dense crumb in bulk fermentation, nothing you do in preshaping and final shaping can re-open a dense crumb.

I recorded this entire process in a very long, 4-part video series if you are interested. Part 4 is a good summary, but if you really want to learn the details, every step is included in parts 1-3. Part 1 also includes a good overview and tutorial of the four methods for those who are not familiar with these methods. It also demonstrates how I counted the “layers” in each of the methods.

Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMNnFRtsaxxz0qmcEkSqPH6gLVRRswKjj

I had some left over levain today so I am making another batch of baguettes, roughly based on the Boubasa formula (less grain in final dough because of AP levain, and spelt not wholewheat) I plan to room temperature bulk ferment .  There has been much discussion here on shaping dough part way through the retard.  So if I retard for a couple of hours (? how many - 2-3 perhaps) then leave 12 hours plus in fridge before scoring and baking cold.  

is that a sensible plan?  

Leslie

 all in a dream
The loading had begun.
Flying Mother Nature's golden seed to a new home in the sun.

 with apologies to After the Gold Rush by Neil Young

The Super Peel doesn't seem to be available right now and it wasn't wide enough for side loading baguettes anyway so I made my own out of scrap 3/8" plywood and canvas. I hope it works like I imagined. It is 19" wide and fairly easy to make.If it works out  I may get a nicer piece of lumber and do it proper.

The Super Duper Peel

Baguette au Levain - same formula (Abel) with the following changes, NY 0.25%, diastatic malt 0.5%, 73% hydration, all AP flour 13.3% protein.  No slap and folds used, Rubaud used when adding salt and additional 15 g of water.  BF 80ºF about 2 hours 15 mins with only one coil fold.  Cold retard en bulk.

21 hours later preheated oven 500ºF, this time aluminum stuffed broiling rack with baking steel on second lowest rack, silvia towel on oven floor and cast iron skillet on top rack.  Pre-shaped loosely in a roll, bench rested 10-15 mins.  Then shaped on Silpat.  I believe the NY helped with extensibility as they were easier to stretch than expected, but I think going to 75% hydration next time might also help a bit.  

When placed in the couche, I didn’t flour the dough sufficiently on the exposed part of the dough so when I flipped the first one out it stuck badly to the transfer board, damaging it when trying to remove it from the board.  Of course I floured the remaining two immediately to prevent this from happening to them.

I scored this at about a 45* angle and tried to score more deeply.  I think I have a bit more of an ear in a few places and think that this scoring is the way to go rather than so parallel to the dough surface.  The browning took a long time, after the steaming of 13 mins baking at 500ºF they took an additional 19 mins to fully brown.  I might go back up to 1% diastatic malt next time.  I still need to work on my shaping.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Changes from run #1.  Add 0.25% NY., baked directly out of retard.  That's it!  Still using all KA AP flour.

The NY was mixed it in with the flours, but should have been sprinkled directly into the water for better absorption.  A little better shaping although still some work to do.  For the long batard size, the shaping of this dough is simpler and more consistent than this is.  Scoring has improved, but still needs to find some consistency.

I was able to roll these out with less elastic properties than the first run which was without the NY.  Still shrunk back 1 inch.  My hand peel just happens to be a hair under 22" in length, so it makes for a good guide when rolling out the baguettes.  And just big enough to move the dough from couche to oven peel.

Overall I'm pleased with this bake, which has a good crumb, and those scores that did work fit into the "signature" alfanso scoring pattern.  To be continued, but first I'll bake something else.

Bassinage on final mix, 200 French Folds with ~5 min rest halfway through. 3 Letter Folds at 20,40,60 min. and then into retard.  Shaped at about the mid-way point for ~20 hour retard.  Baked directly from retard, no warmup, oven to 480dF, 13 min with steam, rotated and 10 min more, 2 min vent.

325g x 3 Baguettes

Hey everyone (and hey Dan and Alfonso!)! I'm late to the massive party here -- some incredible posts and great to see all of your baguettes. Dan asked me to drop in and see if I can add some tips to the discussion. I should say that my approach is just one of an infinite way to go about making these tricky sticks, and in the end, I find (perhaps more so than other shapes) they take putting in the repetitions. I'm sure many of you have put in the time with these, so I might be preaching to the choir :) My comments are below, and I must say, I'm by no means an expert with this dough or shape -- no matter how many times I make them I still am challenged (in a good way).

I tend to bulk retard my baguette dough for a few reasons:

1. It's more convenient in terms of timing here in a home kitchen.
2. It helps with shaping. Dividing and rolling out dough straight from the fridge helps make the dough more manageable, and it's also possible to increase the hydration a bit this way (although that's not something I always do).
3. I prefer not to retard baguettes in shape because I find it gives them a slightly thicker crust: the cold air chills the exterior of the dough -- and with baguettes, with their thin, long shape, there's a lot!
4. It's easier to bulk retard a tub of dough than a shaping board + couche + shaped baguettes

Like many of you have posted, I also proof them en couche. I push this proof far, they're very delicate when I go to bake, and since I proof at room temperature, they can be hard to score. To help with this, I take my entire proofing board with couche and pop it into the fridge for 15-20 minutes to just barely firm up the exterior of the dough. This is not so much as to impart a thick crust, but just enough to make the dough slightly cold to the touch. Then I quickly take them out, score, load into the oven, and steam. If you're having trouble with scoring, this may help.

I'd suggest trying to make these with 100% white flour, and I tend to like lower protein white flour (11% or so) as it helps to lighten them up, and you get a more open interior with a thinner crust. Further, it helps to reduce the sourness in the end.

In general, I'm going for super-strong fermentation in the dough. After the bulk retard, I see lots of fermentation activity on the bottom of the dough when I go to shape: lots and lots of bubbles. Further, the dough is quite elastic and strong, but not so much as it's hard to shape and roll them out. I often hand mix this dough and only give it a few folds during bulk fermentation.

Shaping... What can we say? It's hard with baguettes and takes practice. There's a bunch of different methods out there, and I've gone through several of them. I'm not sure which I prefer, and I think it depends on the dough and the formula you're using. If it's an elastic, lower hydration dough you're working with, I might just do a few cinches (curling the dough up and tucking it in before rolling out), but if it's a higher hydration dough and feels extensible, I might opt for a shaping style as I have at my website (which is inspired by Jeffrey Hamelman and what he showed in his course in Washington I attended).

I find with baguettes, it's critical to get as much steam in the home oven as possible. Over steam it. I know this is a challenge for all of us home bakers, but it helps get that shiny, super-thin crust (assuming all else is lined up). 

I've also played with direct doughs (meaning they're baked the same day they're mixed) quite a bit, while I haven't arrived on my preferred approach yet, here's a look at a result I've had lately.

This is a recent bake with bulk retarded dough that came out wonderful, but a bit tight in areas.

In the end, I find baguettes are a real test in finding balance. When shaping, you want to give the dough just enough tension to hold its shape through to baking, but not handle it so much that the dough is thoroughly degassed. For flavor, I'm always trying to find a clean, minimally sour baguette that's sweet and mild. Partly-whole grain baguettes start to move away from this ideal, but I do like baking with whole grains! To get that thin crust, a direct dough is one way to go or a bulk retard -- but either way, maximal steam is essential.

The baguettes below were bulk retarded, shaped in the morning, proofed en couche, and baked hot and fast with as much steam as I could throw at my home oven. The crust was thin and colored wonderfully -- I was totally happy with the results!

I hope these few tips help. I'm always learning and always practicing at these, a bread that seems simple but has complexity oozing from every step in the process.

Well this was both promising and in the end disappointing.

Hamelman Baguette with Poolish formula, with some mods.

• Bumped the overall hydration up from 66% to 68.4%.  
• Added 0.25% Nutritional Yeast to the poolish water.  Note: it dissolved instantly.  
• BF for 100 min vs. 120 min.
• Divide, pre-shape, 20 min rest, shape.  
• Retard for 3 hours, and then bake at 460dF.
• 13 min with steam, rotate, 13 min finish, 3 min venting. 

 The shaping was heavenly and the first time that I’ve been able to get the dough to easily roll out to the full 21 inches and stay there.  They were simple to remove from couche and load onto the oven peel. 

The scoring and shaping seems really good to me and they looked so promising as they were loaded.  But for the life of me, I don’t get the lack of grigne on these.

The crust is amazingly crunchy, a bit akin to glass bread, and the crumb is soft, but there is a distinct lack of flavor profile.    Maybe these came out exactly as designed, and while being okay and something that I'd consider making again, are not much of a hit with me.

The good:  Adding the NY to the water incorporates it fully.  Easy to bump the hydration up by 2.4%.  Dough felt great during pre-shape and final shape.  First time with these longer loaves that I've reached consistent good shaping. Scoring was also a charm.  Crust is delightful and super crisp but could be a tad thinner.

The bad: Lack of grigne is 1st, 2nd and 3rd.  The crumb seems as though it should have opened more considering the dough did get a pretty good oven spring.  The taste is fine, and may be exactly what a baguette should be, but just seems a little too insipid.

Anyone who wishes to chime in on the lack of grigne is certainly welcome.  I feel as though I'm right back to that series of Martin Philip poolish baguettes from a month or so ago, and finally concluded then that my surface tension was part culprit.

Taking any and all suggestions here.

Here is my baking peel, well some of it anyway.  Simple to load the baguettes sideways with the parchment.

Tea released..The halfway point.

Had a nice first run. The loading went smoothly and no parchment was burned in the making of this picture. I made the BBGA USA again because every new recipe deserves a second chance. Maybe it was from all the practice lately or the 70% hydration but this dough was a pleasure to work with and as easy as any I have had yet. The extra tension in the pre shape really helped to roll them out. I am still getting the bursting oven spring but the crumb is nice and open when that happens.

This made for a nice tuna salad sandwhich.Everyones baguettes are improving so much. We will have this thing down pat in a few years.

Well, the jig is up.  After all these years, it turns out that I was posting ShutterStock photos of bread all along.  Or at least it seems that way...

Two steps forward, two steps back.  Maybe no steps in either direction.  After yesterday's sad entry, where there were at least a few positives, emphasis on few, I decided to abide by MTloaf's suggestions to correct things.  Hence:

• Removed the 0.25% Nutritional Yeast from formula.  Check.
• Force a tighter pre-shape.  Check.
• Proof seam side up on couche.  Check.
• Room Temp proof.  Check.

 Additional changes:

• Stayed with the 68.4% hydration rather than the 66% in the Bread book formula.
• Used KA AP for the poolish as well as the final dough flour.  Up to now, and with a lot of success I'd been using my oversupply of Gold Medal bread flour for my levain builds.  Since the preferment portion of this bread is 33%, significantly more than I use in a levain bread, I wanted the protein from this flour replaced by the KA AP.
• Kept to my very recent 200 French Folds regimen, down from my prior 300 FFs.
• Stuck with BF of 100 min with a S&F in the bowl at 50 min.  Formula calls for 120 min. BF - but in a cooler environment than mine.
• Final shaping was a little tighter also.  Not difficult to shape, but displayed signs of lack of extensibility again.  
• Bench proofed for 60 min rather than the 60-90 in the formula.
• Bumped up oven temp to 480dF to get a better initial temp "shock" for steaming portion and then back down to recommended 460dF for remainder of bake.

Results:

• Dough was less extensible and a little more work to roll out completely.  Sprung back more than with the NY included.
• Scoring still showed miserable results.  I don't even question the depth, angle and quality of my scoring blade tip and stroke.  It is too ingrained to have been so off from what is displayed these two days.
• Difficult to obtain good coloration on crust.  Just will not darken unless nearing charred status. Too meekly colored for me.
• Crumb was a little more open than yesterday and soft.
• Crumb had a rich yellow tinted color.  Also yesterday, but I though that was from the NY.
• Crust was thicker, not a crackly-crunchy snap as yesterday's bread had, and this had a more "leathery" bite.  One of the only things salvaged from yesterday's bake was the crumb (excluding scoring and grigne).
• Taste was not much more than I'd expect from a good supermarket baguette.
• Long baton shaping continues down the right path.

Overall a disheartening experience due to a 2nd run with changed parameters applied.  And one that I'll put behind me by baking something more reliable next time.

I’ve been reading up on TFL and found an interesting post by dmsnyder responding to Janedo about scoring and his observations.

” 1. The lame blade should be held at a 45 degree angle to the surface of the loaf.

2. The depth of the cuts does not have to be super deep. 1/4 - 1/2 inch.
3. The cuts should not be too long. About 5-7 cm seems right.
4. The cuts should angle only slightly from the long axis of the loaf.
5. The cuts should overlap about 1/4 of their length.”

”I downloaded most of the videos of Prof. Calvel's lessons from the CIA (Culinary Institute of America.) I watched him scoring baguettes over and over. He uses a French lame with a curved blade. His strokes are very fast and firm. He holds the lame with the concavity toward him. With each stroke, he does a little wrist turn which lifts the cut flap up from the surface of the loaf a bit, I think. I suspect that's the way to get an ear and good grigne. That's the next refinement of technique I want to shoot for.“

Based on his observations I am still scoring too shallowly and too parallel to the dough surface.  I will have to aim for the goals above and hope I get good oven spring to support getting ears and grigne.

When we last saw the Pie King, a an epiphany reveled a revaluation. I had been over proofing my baguettes! Lets see if we can cure this malfunction! 3 levian builds will equal 3 @ four baguette bakes in the near future!  

The very active mother culture

Three stage #1 levian builds

Moving right along. The ripe Stage two levian

 Final dough, Flour, Water and Levian in Autolyse.

Final dough, Salt and .93 Gram commercial yeast kick starter.

 Zero of 120 Minutes

120 of 120 Minutes

Irregularly shaped/sizes baguettes to proof.

I love the sounds/smell of baguettes in the morning! 

 Not to disappointed, While these will not win any awards, they will make some tasty heroes! 

or as full as my oven will allow.   No lucky rabbit's foot, but I think that I located my mojo this last bake, going back to more comfortable territory while still trying to learn the secrets of the longer baguette.

The details:

Yikes! I gave the wrong Letter Fold timing.  I was mixing a batch of rye dough at the same time.  That's the 20,40,60.80 min. folds.  This bread gets folds at 50 & 100 min. in my warm kitchen.

• Nutritional Yeast 0.25% - looks to be the sweet spot.  Whisked into water before levain is added.
• 70% overall hydration, 100% levain hydration.
• 200 FFs with 5 min rest in between
• 160 min. BF with folds as prescribed 20,40, 60, 80.
• shaped directly out of BF.  Pre-shape and shaping were easy.  Rolled out to 21 inches, shrunk back 1/2 inch. 
• Retarded total of 12 hours, with 40 min rest out of retard.
• 480dF pre-bake, 460dF oven, 13 min w/steam, rotate 10 min additional, 2 min venting.

The takeaway:

• Good overall shaping now, getting used to the longer length.
• surprised that there wasn't a better overall bloom, but these are just delightful as is.
• Still need to get a better open crumb on the longer baguettes.
• Scores could open more, but I'm still a toddler when it comes to the longer baton.  All in due time.

The halfway point and starting to look good

a little thin, alla a ficelle

turned up noses

What it's all about

\

 330g x 3 baguettes (baked weight 247)

I don’t feel that I’m progressing and improving lately.  This time I tried a different flour, it wa labelled as T55, but when I opened the package it had a fair amount of bran left in the flour.  I decided to use it anyways since I purchased it.  It wasn’t as dark as a whole red fife, but nowhere near as pale as AP or bread flour.

I used the same formula with some minor changes including going back up to 1% diastatic malt and increasing the hydration to 73%.  I did no slap and folds mixing the salt in with Rubaud kneading.  I did two sets of coil folds and the dough had developed a good windowpane after the 2nd set.  I did a bulk cold retard, this time it lasted 25 hours.

This dough was crazy extensible even without any NY.  Unfortunately I had decided to roll it when I realized how extensible it was.  I should have pre-shaped the 2nd and 3rd ones as boules to tighten them up, but of course I only thought of it after I had rolled all three.  After a short bench rest, not wanting them to relax too much I shaped them.  Again they were already quite long before I had a chance to even try to roll them, so in the end they were too long and I had to squeeze them onto the couche.  I’m sure I lost any surface tension in the skin that I may have developed during shaping because of this.

Baked with the steaming gear above the baguettes which I think is the way to go for my oven.  Baked @ 500*F for 13 mins with steam then an additional  13 mins rotating them.  They got a bit too much colour this time.  Oh I side loaded them this time.

I’ll cross my fingers that the crumb is fine, but I have my doubt considering the problems with them being too long and my having to shorten them on the couche.

Image

Image

Alan - When do you start timing your BF?  When flour hits water or when mixing is completed or when autolyse is finished or something else?

Alan - Two references of interest for autolyse:

Sugars in flour

Autolyse in a commercial bakery process

The other piece that I do not have a quantitative reference for yet is the sensitivity of native amylase enzymes to osmotic strength (salt concentration).  Industrial enzymes have been developed that have much better salt tolerance than what we find in commercial flour but I don't know how much of a rate penalty you pay in conversion of starch to maltose when you add 2% salt to the mix. The fact that the industrial application of autolyse does not include the salt in the early phases of the enzymatic starch degradation is significant.  And what Martin Philips says is that yeast is not affected by salt.  That is not the same as saying that amylase enzymes are not affected by salt.  In fact it may be that for small values of pre-fermented flour where the yeast numerical density is low at the outset, there is no real loss of performance because there is a small amount of available sugar in raw flour which may be sufficient to feed the yeast until the native amylase enzymes have had time to produce maltose even in the presence of the added salt.  At higher PFF values, I suspect that this is not the case and sugar availability is a limiting factor in bulk fermentation for those formulas.  But this is speculation on my part until I get some quantitative sensitivity numbers for the native amylase enzymes.

The other function of autolyse is to give the flour time to become fully hydrated and 20 minutes is adequate (for finely milled flour - which excludes home-milled and stone ground and many whole meal flours) if there is sufficient initial mixing to eliminate even microscopic zones of water deficiency.

Doc

The baguette in the photo below is one of four in a batch that was split in half.  Two baguettes were baked as described in the image and two were put back into the retarder and the temperature set to average 44°F overnight (up from 38°F for the previous extended retard batch).  Those will be baked tomorrow after about 18 hrs of additional cold time.

The interesting thing in this batch is the relatively tight crumb on the left end of the loaf and the open crumb in the rest of it. 

The prior batch of four had one baguette that was only pre-shaped and not rolled out because it was already a little over-length, while the other three were folded in half and cinched for a preshape then rolled to 21" during final shaping.  The one loaf that was not rolled had a tight crumb and the other three had reasonably open crumb.

For this batch all four were folded and cinched for preshape then rolled out to 21" for final shaping.  This one (of the first two baked) had a big end and the rest of it was fairly cylindrical.  After cutting it open it became clear what happened.  The fat end has a more dense crumb.

There are two more that will be baked tomorrow and we will see if there is any visible difference between the short retard and the long retard as manifested in the openness of the crumb.  In the recent past I have not seen any significant difference between the crumb of a loaf that was retarded to 40°F core temperature (~3 hrs) and a loaf that was retarded for 16 hrs. So I don't expect any difference this time either but this trial has two baguettes in each batch and no difference between them so while not statistically significant in a strict sense it is a strong test for consistency.

Image

I just love the prefabricated levain method I invented! (That's quite enough beating my own drum)

 Todays bake will be a one day affair. For this bake the major change will be the changing out the 8% rye four for 8% Italian semolina. Other than that, the procedure will be mostly the same. That being said since it's a daytime bake, I will be able to keep a closer eye on the cold proof. No need to photograph each step. I will see you all at the slashing stage. Peace out, thanks for reading.

First impression. while mixing the dough I notcied that the 65% hydration mixture looked much drier, that the 8% rye dough. I slowly added in 30 ml (g) of additional water. bringing the total hydration to 68%. 

Photo #2 After three hours o cold proof. I don't know why at 41.5F,  the loafs are proofing so fast? In any event I am planning a 5PM bake. 

 Photo #2 (Three hours cold proof)

For this 10th set of baguettes I used Abel’s formula with these changes from previous.  Used the T? flour again that definitely has a small amount of bran in it. No NY used, 1% diastatic malt dissolved in the water.  Hydration dropped to 68%, Rubaud after salt added followed by 2 sets of coil folds until aliquot jar had risen 30%.  Cold Retard for 25 hours to work around my work schedule.

Pre-shaping done in a tightish boule started with the pre-heat of the oven.  Rested and shaped.  With the lower hydration these had more elasticity.  Shaping went much better, I think I have to stay with hydration in this area.  Scoring using the lame around 45-60* from horizontal and using quick strokes.  I tried to go for the pointy ended shape and was more of less successful.  They are probably a bit too fat, I will work on my shaping and hopefully improve if I can keep the dough consistent with the same flour and hydration from bake to bake.  Changing flours so often leaves me with too many changing variables and with my nascent skills it too hard to deal with.

Preheated the oven 525ºF Silvia towel in for preheating.  Dropped temperature to 500ºF when baguettes side loaded x 13 mins.  Then removed steam equipment and dropped temperature to 480ºF and baked until browned.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image