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.
Now that things are making sense and predictable I'll start planning to use this stuff. Its an ancient gtain so olan is to 50% this with the T65 -
Omg this darn phone - with I could take a normal pic
That should be similar to the semola rimacinata right at least related.
I like the darker bake for both staring at as well as the crunch of the crust.
Doc - Geremy demonstrates here that he can achieve a really open grigne while keeping his score lines quite close together. From his past bakes, this is a constant with him from bake to bake.
I am speaking more to everyones signature style. I gotta throw that out there since the title here might look a bit petulant. Yeah so first thought that lingered in the back of my head beyond all the doubts about this purchase was that if I can even 'dial' this oven in, will my loaves look the same ? Amazingly they do - in every way including things not caught on my p.o s. camera such as they cooling cracks. Well, it just makes you wonder and marvel how Dan's look like Dan's, Benny's like Benny's, Doc's like Doc's...yours like yours. This list goes on - MTLoaf's like .... well, DMSnyders (what the !). You know Alan I will occassionally push the bake into your dark realm but I find the crust a little too challenging eating-wise in fact I prefer the darker color visually but eating purposes is really the impetus for going 'golden'.
I wonder if it is the scoring, the flour, or how well they are proofed, or something else. But shows that it is possible. Very nice work all around.
Did I stop and think 'why is doc scoring so far apart'. For the record I score almost 90 degrees down and do it just like the some of those magic magic marker tutorials. On a related note, I thought (just yesterday) maybe I ought to slice in on an angle like Alan preaches and then maybe I too will have a 'flap' that can really announce itself. And I just want to say this for the record "ALAN'S CRUSTS RULE" <- alan please send a PM to confirm you registered this.
Doc you use the Moulin T65 - a quaeter inch in between, 72% I find that the shape of the final score is almost always a rhombus whether or not it bursts and from there its all about that 5 minute period of expansion characteristics. And ! btw these are rather thin loaves prior to final (about 1.5 inch diameter)
I went through 20Kg of the T65 and can confirm that it was hard to deal with (as others have confirmed) but at the time I was not ready for it. Maybe I will try it again at some point.
Great to know that you found a way to get the small diameter sticks to open up. It sounds like it has something to do with the oven. But maybe also the leavening. The batch I am running today has 2g of IDY (vs 700mg previously) in addition to 12% PFF so I will see how much of a difference it makes. The behavior with the extra IDY is like using nitromethane as a pyro accelerant. But when I tasted a bit of dough left in the aliquot jar, the flavor was more commercial yeast than my levain. So I will wait for final judgement until the cooled baguette is sliced.
Used the same formula (Saveur’s) as Bake #32. Since Doc is getting nice crumb when dough that is fully developed up front, I gave that a try. 4 separate mixing sessions at speed #0 for 6 min (24 min total - ending DT = 77F) with a 20-30 min rest between. The dough was super supple and I think it had the “plastic” qualities that Michael mentioned in a post today.
In order to keep the dough cool I used 2/3 of the water weight in shaved ice. I used too much because the dough after the first mix was 33F. I think this slowed the heck out of the CY.
At any rate the bread produced was typical of the New Orleans PoBoy breads. Crumb was a little more open, but I have a long way to go towards producing a crumb similar to Doc’s. Next bake my be Bahn Mi!
Dan what surprises me about this bake is that so many of the straps broke, that isn’t usually what happens with your baguettes. What do you think caused this?
Could have lots of oven spring, or possibly the fully developed gluten wouldn’t relax enough to all ow the straps to expand.
Goo Question, though.
I may be handling the dough to heavy handed at shaping. I say that because the center of the loaf has decent crumb, but not the ends.
if so its none other I've seen before - really open crumb - good job !
If you want an open crumb, why not start with a baguette dough? First add some sugar and verify that it doesn't mess up the open crumb. Then add some fat. Maybe 1% at a time and watch the crumb behavior. Try adding liquid fat 1%, Then try solid fat 1% and see the difference.
Q: if this is the typical po' boy bread, but much nicer IMO, why would you want to change it to a more open crumb? If the idea is to get a bead that emulates that classic, it seems that you are already there. Wouldn't a more open crumb also "endanger" the sandwich structure, considering what gets put into it?
Alan - I would like the breads to be lighter, less calories. It’s in my nature to always try to improve, make better than the original. I often don’t succeed, but non the less, driven to that end.
PFF levain hydration dough hydration salt total batch size
12.0% 77% 62.0% 2.0% 1755
227 (28 seed + 88 H2O + 119 BF -8 losses) 565 H2O 932 AP + 10 diastatic malt 21.40 salt
Make 235g stiff levain (77%) by putting into the levain the excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 60% hydration
Process:
Combine the 932 AP flour, 10 diastatic malt, and 566 cold water and mix for 5 min at speed 0 as if it was going to autolyse, then add 227g levain and 2.088g IDY and continue mixing for another 5 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine them before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporate the salt during the first 2 min.
Mix at speed 4 in 2 minute increments until fully developed, checking temperature and gluten development after each step (adding salt during the first 2 minutes)
69.6°F @ 10 min on speed 0.
71.8° @2 min on speed 4
73.4° @4 min on speed 4
75.6° @6 min on speed 4.
78.3°F@ 8 min on speed 4.
80.6°F @ 10 min on speed 4 [ this progression is almost exactly 1.09°F/minute of mixing time]
Take 30g for aliquot jar. Massage into the corners of the jar with a wet finger to eliminate air bubbles then add + 10 g H2O = ~40ml total
BF to ~150% of original volume (to 55ml in aliquot jar at ~2:50 from start of mixing)
Divide into 4 parts (~430g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 25min, final shape (7 min).
Counter proof for 0:45
Aliquot jar =75ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 35ml expansion so about 35/30=115% dough volume increase since end of mix)
Retard 2:00 @40°F to make it easier to slash
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle
Summary: Good but not great
While the additional IDY took some time off the total process by accellerating bulk fermentation, there was a cost in terms of flavor. Not so much that there was a dominant commercial yeast element, but because the normal complexity and acidity of the levain seems to be suppressed. On the other hand this batch seemed to be somewhat over fermented during BF which may have contributed to the off flavor profile. It handled very well for pre-shaping, but final shaping suffered from a lack of the easy extensibility of previous batches. I don't know whether this was related to not using an autolyse or to adding more IDY. The crumb seems compressed, though the center of this loaf (which I thought might have been crushed) turned out to be quite open.
I kept one uncut loaf which I will let stale overnight and plan to make bruschetta with it tomorrow. I will have a better sense of the hole distribution after I get all of the slices laid out tomorrow.
I will cut the IDY in half and do a repeat tomorrow using an overnight cold autolyse (and try to BF to 25-30% volume increase instead of 50%) before shaping.
Vietnamese Baguettes - Banh Mi
I followed the formula and process in THIS VIDEO. Bottom Line, the flavor was poor. I think there was too much yeast. Possible the dough was over oxidized.
The crumb was dense, there was too much dough in each bite. This didn’t work for me.
UpDate - after more thought I think I know why this bread lacked flavor and was blah. Salt 1.59% coupled with CY 1.79%. The dough fermented too quickly...
Dan that’s a pity, are you going to try a different recipe for Banh Mi?
I think the next bake will return to the New Orleans PoBoy breads with a few ideas gleaned from the Banh Mi baguettes. I like their shaping, slashing, and higher baking temps. I may give the T65 a shot with the NO PoBoys.
I checked and the Banh Mi formula used only 1.6% salt. The other formula considered also used a small percentage of salt. That may have negatively affected the flavor. The bread was sampled again, and it is not worth eating, IMO.
PFF levain hydration dough hydration salt total batch weight
12.0% 77% 62.0% 2.0% 1755g
227 (28 seed + 88 H2O + 119 BF -8 losses) 565 H2O 932 AP + 10 diastatic malt 21.40 salt
Make 235g stiff levain (77%) by putting into the levain the excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 60% hydration
Process:
Combined the 932 AP flour, 10 diastatic malt, and 566 cold water and mixed for 6 min at speed 0 (~100RPM spindle speed). Kneaded a few turns until it was fully smooth, placed in bowl and covered bowl with StretchTite, refrigerated overnight (10 hr). In the AM combined 229g levain and 1.01g IDY with the autolysed flour/water and continued to mix for 5 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine them before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporated the salt during the first 2 minutes at speed 0.
Mixed at speed 4 (~200 RPM spindle speed) in 2 minute increments for a total of 6 minutes (until fully developed)
Dough temperature:
55.0° after 5 min @speed 0
59.1° after 2 min @ 4
63.2° after 4 min @ 4
67.5° after 6 min @ 4 (very good extensibility)
(note temperature rose by 1.05°F/min while mixing at speed 4)
Take 30g for aliquot jar. Shape it into a somewhat long but narrow cylinder and lower it into the aliquot jar; spreading it out into the corners after contacting the bottom without trapping any air. Give it a few seconds to firmly attach to the sides then massage into the corners of the jar with a wet finger to eliminate any remaining air bubbles then add + 10 g H2O = ~40ml total
BF to ~125% of original volume (48 ml on aliquot jar)(~3:15 from start of mixing)
Divide into 4 parts (~430g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 35min, final shape (7 min).
Counter proof for 1:15
Aliquot jar =70ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 30ml expansion, so about 100% dough volume increase when it went to the retarder)
Retard 1:45 @40°F to make it easier to slash
Score two loaves [two at the bottom of image] shallow (~5mm) and two loaves deep (~1 cm) [two at the top]
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle
Analysis:
This seems to be right on the mark - dough took only 6 minutes at high speed (200 RPM spindle speed) to get to full gluten development with very good extensibility when shaped (perhaps aided by the cold autolyse and a 35min rest after pre-shaping); a uniformly open crumb, good ears, good color, crackley crust. I think I like the results of a deeper score (~1 cm in this case without much blade rotation so pretty much a straight down cut though with a curved lame blade).
The reduced extent of bulk fermentation (to 125% of post-mix volume instead of 150% yesterday) took longer because of the lower dough temperature but made shaping much easier, and the pre-shaped loaves were very extensible and thus amenable to stretching before final shaping and rolled out with almost no effort at all (after resting for a full 35 min during which they increased further in volume).
The reduction in IDY from 0.2% to 0.1% eliminated the flavor component that I associate with commercial yeast and again allowed the levain to again take center stage, so 0.1% will be the upper bound for future efforts.
These could probably have proofed a little longer before going to the retarder since they handled so nicely when they came out. [note to self: be patient]
Doc, your persistence has paid off! I plan to try your formula and process after I tire of the N.O. PoBoys.
Crumb is unique to you, and I’m liking it... alot!
I am going to have to change my lighting. The top-down view needs some side lights to really show off the crumb. With most of the light behind the camera all you see is white even when it is all nooks and crannies.
Plural for Rhombus. I like the scores !
I was trying to keep from cutting off my thumb and hold the angle and the slash length to stay in the middle of the lane. But there was so much oven spring I should have gone for 1/4" offset and tried to stay inside a narrower 1" lane. Maybe tomorrow when I am going to leap over to high gluten flour and jack up the hydration to 67% in an attempt to hold dough handling qualities close to what I had today. I don't expect it to be perfect but a step on the way. Maybe two or three tries to nail it down. I thought about adding some nutritional yeast but gave myself a dope slap for even considering a change to more than one thing at a time.
You're obligated to post the wound. I posted a nasty cut a month or two ago. No pain no game !
one bake from the next. To me that's a good thing. As mentioned before your scores are getting really consistent and the grignes are just dandy from one bake to the next. Of the three above, I'll place my vote on the bottom one, where the lines between the scores are the narrowest, even if the bottom one broke through. To me, those burst-throughs are part of the beauty, and not a defect. They give character to the visual quality of the bread. In competition, that would be the death-knell, but this isn't competition here.
To the chagrin of you all, I have yet to cut myself with the scoring lame. Now that the cat is out of the bag, I expect a visit to the ER real soon.
You maybe just jinxed it - I dunno ? Better keep some super glue handy now. Agree on the broken straps tho - a bit like the patina of rusty old buildings - a little character is nice.
Wonderful baguettes Doc. The crumb is spot on and the ears and grigne are amazing.
Funny now that our baguettes are looking better we are talking about better lighting for photography.
When the improvements are exhausted, some of us have to revert to better camera work and improved lighting :-)
I wish I was at that point, lol.
PFF levain hydration dough hydration salt total batch size
11.8% 100% 66.1% 2.0% 1795 - 30 for aliquot jar
227g levain (28 seed + 115 H2O + 115 BF -8 losses) + 565 H2O + 932 AP + 10 diastatic malt + 21.40 salt
Make 258g levain (100%) by putting into the levain the excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 60% hydration
Process:
Combine the 932 high gluten white bread flour and 566 room temperature water and mix for 6 min at speed 0. Turn out on the counter and knead a few turns until it is fully smooth then put it in a bowl and cover with StretchTite; refrigerate overnight.
In the AM add 251g levain with 1.01g IDY sprinkled on top and 10g of diastatic malt to the autolysed flour and water; continue mixing for another 5 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine the ingredients before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporate the salt during the last 2 min at speed 0.
Mix at speed 4 in 2 minute increments until fully developed:
Dough temperature:
59.2° after 5 min @speed 0
64.0° @2 min on 4
68.7° @4 min on 4
Add 10g water since the dough seems to be a little stiff
72.7° @6 min on speed 4
[this temperature increase is 2.28°F/min of mix time so a BIG increase for using high gluten flour even at a higher hydration]
Dough looks like this at the end of the mix
Take 30g for aliquot jar and add 10g of water to bring it up to the 40ml mark
BF to ~125% of original volume (48 ml on aliquot jar; ~3:30 from start of mixing)
Divide into 4 parts (~430g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 35min, final shape (7 min).
Counter proof for 1:15 (dough is soft but not poofy)
Retard 2:45 @40°F to make it easier to slash (next time try retarding at 50°F to see if
Score narrowly down the middle of the loaf with 1/4"- 3/8" offset
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle
Analysis:
This is my new baseline!
This was a move from AP flour to high gluten flour, making an effort to add enough water (up to 66.1% hydration) to have approximately the same dough texture as I was getting with the AP flour at 62% hydration. I will probably go up 1% next time just to see when it gets too soft to handle.
The results are quite pleasing, with an even more open crumb (and without any lighting changes), easy to shape after a 35 minute rest (I used a two-stage final shaping protocol for two of the four loaves that were a little short after the first stage of rolling out).
The crust is explosively crunchy (as opposed to crispy), but the higher gluten (speculation) gives it a little more resistance; color is good, taste is excellent.
Scoring looks a little better this round, with the higher protein flour apparently providing enough strength to keep the straps from breaking even with more expansion during proof and more oven spring. I also note that the loaves are not as lumpy as some I have shaped and scored in the past.
I really like your crumb Doc. Very impressive with the use of high gluten flour, something most of us haven’t been using recently I believe. You did do something I have been thinking of doing more recently, that is bulk fermentation to a lower rise and a longer final proof and it seems to have helped with the crumb. I have a levain going for another go at the Semola Rimacinata baguettes and I was planning to end bulk earlier and have a longer final proof at room temperature after shaping before another period in the fridge to allow cold scoring. A lot of back and forth in and out of the fridge, but I’d like to see if I can get a more open crumb. Great job on your part.
Another great looking bake, Doc. Do you think your oven setup has a lot to do with your excellent crumb? The crust looks thin and dark, while the crust immediately near it is open.
What changes have you made to improve the even and open crumb that you now produce? Please summarize.
After a few small changes very early in the game, I have been using the same oven program for every bake, so I doubt that it has much to do with the improvement in the crumb.
Summary:
This was bake #29 by my count (there were a number of dead-end trials that were not worth wasting time too write up, but that is part of making progress). And I think that the results reflect the cumulative effects of following the data and making small, single parameter changes to understand the impact on the end product. The contributions of everybody who is posting and commenting have contributed a lot of value to the evolution.
Trevor's guidance to avoid screwing it up at each step is always in the front of my mind. Benny set the example of consistent open crumb, and he was the origin of the use of the aliquot jar for measuring BF volume increase. He also pointed to Abel's pre-shaping style which has been a key improvement. Alan and Geremy have coached on techniques that have proven to be valuable for improving consistency and appearance. The experiments with low hydration dough were very informative, and your observations about minimizing the use of flour on the bench and the dough were flashbulb events that got me to differentiate between tacky dough and sticky dough so my dough handling skills have improved a lot as a result.
I now add 1% diastatic malt where I previously did not. And I keep nutritional yeast as an option which I am not currently using. For a long time I avoided using commercial yeast, but when the experimental matrix was filled without it and I started adding under Benny's guidance 0.065% (and eventually 0.1%) things improved further. So it is a cummulative result based on data-driven experimentation and process consistency. Having gone to a very low protein flour to get good crumb, discovering the very clear relationship between hydration and protein level and their joint impact on optimum handling qualitiets, then exploiting that to go back to a high gluten flour while in the process taking advantage of the additional strength to increase the degree of proof and thus get even better crumb. Just incremental improvements while deriving the design principles.
I may have stumbled upon something while scoring today.
While attempting to score the baguettes at an extremely low angle (fillet style), it was discovered that starting the slash with a more straight down angle, then immediately after penetration laying the blade over to the desired low angle made the low angle score much easier to start. Often times starting out at a low angle makes it difficult to start the score. This also possibly reduced the dreaded drag. Will require more testing. The dough may have been nice for scoring. But the dough today was never retarded, so it wasn’t chilled. And the flour was T65!
It’s worth a try.
The bread above is Bake #35. Writeup when sliced.
Abandoned the Banh Mi and went back to the New Orleans PoyBoy. I suspected the tight crumb may have been due to over development of the gluten. So these were hand mixed. Still has a texture more like cake than open crumb bread.
Next attempt will use less sugar and/or fats. The dough baked only 16 minutes at 550F (my sweet spot for ears) but the crust was too dark and the bottoms were slightly darker (less sugar for sure).
The great news is this bake used T65 flour and produced very nice ears. The dough behaved very well, although I messed up the water and had to wind up adding more water and going by feel. Wished I hadn’t done that...
I did learn a trick for shallow scoring and it seemed to help a lot. See THIS LINK. Too bad the top bread came of the loading board crooked. Tried, to no avail, to straighten it.
The flavor of the T65 did not come through on these. Another disappointing bake as far as flavor is concerned. The flour tasted stale, which I don’t think was the case. I know the gluten was not over worked. Best guess is the dough with added sugar and fat didn’t like the high heat bake (550F). But, the ears did :-)
Ba+k to the drawing board...
Liquid or solid fat when it was mixed in? Vegetable or animal origin?
Vegetable shortening. The bread is so bad tasting, it will be thrown out.
I hope T65 doesn’t stale too fast. That is how the bread taste. The fats are fresh and what is called for. Last attempt with KAAP tasted great.
Back at the same sesame semolina sourdough baguettes but with some changes to try to improve the crumb. So I made some changes in the hopes of achieving a more open crumb. The first significant change I made was to delete the commercial yeast altogether, this change was made by accident and wasn’t planned as removing the commercial yeast wasn’t something that I thought would improve the crumb. In fact, I thought that the addition of commercial yeast was part of what was giving my an open crumb.
I increased the hydration from 67 to 71% and I also reduced bulk fermentation rise in the aliquot jar from 25 to 20%. My thinking there was increasing hydration is often one route to open crumb as long as you handle the dough well. The reduction in bulk rise was done to make dough handling easier. You see, when I had to transfer the shaped dough to a tray with a wet towel and roll it, then transfer it to the tray with the sesame seeds and roll it, I found that the dough felt like it was getting degassed and stretched out too long. So reducing bulk made the dough much easier to handle this much and once seeded and in the couche the dough was 16” long, the max for my baking steel. Finally to compensate for the reduced fermentation I added a 30 mins bench rest in the couche followed by my usual 30 minute chill in the fridge. The fridge time is intended to firm the dough up to make it easier to score.
I think my changes were very successful and I’m quite happy with the improvement in the crumb compared to my first set. Leaving out the commercial yeast didn’t have the negative effect that I expected in making the crust thicker nor did leaving it out make the crumb less open.
I’m not sure you could bake a bad baguette if you wanted to...
Awesome
Thank you Dan, everything I know about baguettes I learned in this thread. That is just crazy when you think about how far we have all come from our first times baking baguettes. I’m happy I was able to get the crumb a bit more open, at least it is showing me that I do have a better grasp of fermentation and developing dough than I did before baking baguettes.
Benny, please post images in the future of your shaped loaves. You are shaping some Very nice 16” baguettes.
Have you tried reversing the baguette around in an attempt to evenly shape both ends?
No I haven’t thought of flipping them around halfway through rolling, interesting idea though. My shaping really still is wonky and something that still needs some work for sure. Flipping them end to end is a good idea, hopefully I’ll remember to try that next time.
At what point in shaping do you want to see the dough? Immediately after shaping, after seeding, after final proofing before scoring?
Really nice work! Are you giving it any folds during bulk fermentation.
When I started adding a small amount of IDY to the dough I did not see much difference in bulk fermentation timing - maybe 15-20 min less time (out of 3:30 so <10%) than with levain only, but once it was divided, things seemed to speed up, which may be the continued exponential growth of the commercial yeast as it surpasses the yeast in the levain.
It reminds me that I should run the baseline formula without the IDY and see what the timing is and what happens to the flavor.
Doc, I am still doing the same two sets of coil folds during bulk fermentation. I’m still developing the dough very little up front with only Rubaud mixing after adding the salt and a bit of water to ensure that the salt is well mixed. So I’m still doing as little as possible during bulk.
The flavour of this had no apparent sourness I usually associate with sourdough leavened bread despite the fact that there was no IDY to raise it. I was expecting that the flavour would be of sourdough, but it wasn’t. I was also expecting that the crust would be thick, but it wasn’t, except for the sesame seeds of course, but really the crust was nice and thin. I was always thinking that it was the IDY that was contributing to my open crumb I’ve been getting, but I guess this bake goes against that theory. However, I think limiting bulk rise to only 20% which is the lowest I’ve gone and then “catching up” with the final proof on the bench seemed to open this up. I will have to repeat this to see if it is reproducible or just a fluke.
I have been using the aliquot with water on top. 20% increase is minuscule. Today I shot for 25% and it got away from me and ended up at 34%.
I am making the aliquot dough immediately after the dough is completely mixed. I assume that is what you and Doc are doing.
Who knows... this CB may be in it’s infants stage :-)
I am spurred on to work at this more.
I think the supreme challenge of the baguette is what drives us onward.
Benny & Doc -
Are my calculations correct in THIS LINK?
Because the first fold is 50 mins into bulk, so much later than most other breads I’ve made, I take the dough out for the aliquot jar after the thorough mix. I’ve been taking a larger amount of dough lately as I’ve wanted to do smaller bulk rises. So this dough’s dome in the aliquot jar was around 40 mL or so. This makes the determination of 20 vs 25% a bit more obvious. I think I’ll continue to take a larger portion of dough for the aliquot jar as it does make reading the rise easier. I am using your method now Dan of weighing the water, it really is easier than linear measurements.
Your calculations are correct Dan.
It sounds like you are under-developing the gluten intentionally. When I tried that, my results became inconsistent so I went to the other end of the scale and used a weak flour and fully developed the gluten and it became consistent. That probably explains your crumb appearance.
How much pre-fermented flour? Much above 15% and the sourness seems to decline for me. Less PFF = more sour bread for reasons I can't explain. 12% PFF gives me a detectably but not aggressively sour result.
Will be interested in your repeat of that data point.
How long did it take to bulk ferment without the IDY?
Yes I got that idea from Don, but also from Trevor Wilson’s book as well and have stuck with it because it seemed to be working. So I only do Rubaud mixing at the beginning and then only two sets of coil folds.
Yes these had Alan’s formula of 15% pre-fermented flour. I’ve recently made a change to my starter maintenance. I make just enough starter to bake one batard and the baguettes now per week and have about 5 g left. I now feed my starter the day before I need to make the levain for the baguettes. I think I am transferring less acid load from the starter to the levain this way. In the past the starter would have been built days before making levain and while sitting in the fridge the acidity was probably building up too high.
I actually didn’t pay attention to the time other than when doing the coil folds. Since I have been using the aliquot jar, I really have been watching the dough and not the clock so much. My impression was that it took a bit longer but not that much.
you are ALL now out-me-ing me! Don't tell me you aren't or I'll be disappointed in you folks. And I haven't yet resorted calling anyone a liar on TFL. Just take it - I don't want to hear any false modesty!
Beautiful. Benny, you had to have the talent already in your hands or you couldn't have come this far this fast.
Alan, seriously, as I said earlier, everything I know about baguettes I learned from you all in this incredible thread. I’m still amazed that I’ve been able to bake good baguettes starting off as I did with my sort of baguettes way way back. I’m very happy with what I’ve accomplished, and particularly happy with the crumb on this semolina baguette without any IDY. I really thought the IDY was giving me that crumb, I guess I was wrong.
I still do need work on my shaping, it isn’t where I want it to be, that is taking me a while to get there. I have crumb, ears and grigne, but shaping still needs work.
These are incredible - maybr we need to start a site called thefeeshbagette.com amd these bless the homepage. I love your crumb !
Thanks Geremy that is nice of you to say. I am very happy with the crumb, more open than my first attempt so pleased that I have a better understanding of what variables to change when making baguettes to produce a better baguette.
Benny and Doc, please give us the girth (at the widest part) of your baked baguettes.
I wonder if a larger girth contributes to more open crumb.
Doc is shaping typical baguettes, but uses a larger dough. Benny and Maurizio are shaping torpedos, although the very ends are still exhibiting very open crumb.
Just wondering...
Ya know, you may be thinking success is way off in the distance, when it could happen your next attempt.
At the widest 3”. But Doc is getting fabulous crumb and his must be narrower than 3”.
Benny, measure the circumference. Today’s bake is 7”.
OK sorry, the diameter at the widest point is 8.25”, so girthier than the ones you folks are making.
The only think that doesn’t line up with the train the thought is your narrow ends are also open with evenly distributed cell structure.
I’m going to dial this end, just don’t know how bakes it’ll take :-)
All of a sudden have the urge to bake a pie!
It will be the pie itself multiplied by the number of rasberries squared !
calculator to figure out the number of raspberries that fit into I M Pei's Louvre pyramid...
Lives under there Alan. Didn't you watch 'The Edge of Tomorrow' - thank our lucky stars for Tommy Cruise for getting that !
Just an hour ago in a previous post I wrote, “Ya know, you may be thinking success is way off in the distance, when it could happen your next attempt.”
Could it possibly be, my time has come?
This bake used Louis Lamore’s Traditional French Baguette formula with T65. The hydration was upped to 70% and minimal hand mixing was utilized. I did not want to develop a strong gluten. The goal was a 25% rise (Aliquot), but it got away from me and ended up at 34%. After so many bakes, I sincerely hope I am getting close to dialing in This crumb thing. But it’ll take consistently to confirm...
Starting to gets ears with the T65 and higher hydration.
NOTE - the crumb on both of these loaves was a very nice pale yellow, much like semolina. I attribute this to the flour and also the way the dough was gently worked and not over oxidized. A very recent bake used T65 and was thoroughly mixed in the mixer. The result was a bright white crumb and the taste was so bad, the bread was fed to the birds. But for this bake the flavor was good and the texture was great. Still wondering if the flour isn’t staling prematurely. But because my home is lite up like a surgical room (6000K, super high lumen LED) the true color gets washed away. I do like bright light... But guess what, Patsy must have some bat genes in her DNA because she is ALWAYS dimming things down :-)
Dan the crumb on these is excellent, you must be pleased. What do you contribute this to, higher hydration, less dough manipulation?
I think, less dough handling, but not sure. Also less BF.
Hope this can be duplicated. This is a major advancement for me.
What are you BF to lately?
once BF is complete do you shape and go straight to retard?
Are you baking straight out of the fridge?
Memory is bad and there is SO MUCH data in the CB. Sorry for any repetitive questions.
This most recent bake is the first time I adjusted BF down to 20% and I will need to repeat what I did to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. At 20% rise I then bulk retard the dough in the fridge overnight not yet shaped or divided.
Next day usually after 20-24 hours because of my work schedule, I divide and then rest 20-30 mins. I then shape, roll on wet towel and roll or place on the seeds. I have found I cannot roll on the seeds because in fact the seeds just slide around. The place in the couche. Oven is turned on to 500ºF. The shaped baguettes are left in the couche at room temperature for 30 mins, poke test showing that they aren’t yet overproofed and appear to be appropriately proofed. Then they are placed back in the fridge to stiffen up a bit to make scoring easier. By the time the oven has reached temperature the 30 mins or fridge time has ended so I transfer each for scoring and bake cold dropping the temperature to 480ºF for 13 mins with steam and then 480ºF with convection without steam for 10 mins rotating them halfway and then final 3 mins oven turned off.
Really great crumb. Since you're talking flavor recently - for this formula I think its a great path yo minimize thr mixing but also if you can swing 18+ hours cold retart yiu should get rewarded with some great flavor. Louis recimmends a min of 6 hours but I like to push it to 12, 18 even 24 hours.
On a side note and being nit-picky - your crust looks a bit dry. Got enough steam ? Another note - looks like you are going thin and long. Look out for thin kinks - I find that you have to be very mindful of the shaping leading to a thin spot that is hard to recover from. Not to be hyper-critical but you are at that level danno !
Geremy, I checked my notes and the shaped and couched dough retarded for 22hr @ 38F.
Thin sections in the shaping process is a beast, especially with very slack dough. Nit-pik me, I want to learn and improve :-) No Problem.
Dry and dull crust -
I must have an oven problem. Dry and dull are the norm. No matter how much steam is supplied. I don’t find major leaks in the oven and I’m able to drown the oven’s cavity with steam. I’ve tried all of the following and even combinations of these.
And combos of the above.
I am getting ready to setup Tom’s Steam Curtain to give that a try.
Any Ideas? I’m wide open...
I’m sure you’ve experimented with brushing water on your dough Dan did it help at all?
Not really, Benny. I’ve been painting the last 3 or so batches with water with little results. This problem has plagued me for years. No big blisters, no sheen.
I suspected the oven was too hot (550F), reduced heat, same thing.
Just the right amount is all it takes. Last week in my oven thread when I started doubting things I went ahead and baked a loaf in my new replacement domestic gas oven and totally botched the steam - ie I let it escape. The loaf still rose and burst but came out dull and you can see that in the pics. since you are using the same flour as I do I can only think that the environment is too dry. Did you try the top rack ? I always got much better results up top. Also are you really trapping the steam ? For example with lava rocks you'll get a burst and then simmer. Its that initial burst and that matters (it seems) and shutting the door asap to trap it. In my experience if miss trapping that cloud, the simmering steam is kind of useless. Also with a domestic oven pumped up to over 500F a little less than 1/2 cup of water seemed the ticket. btw heres what Im looking for in terms of timing and throttling. First 5 mins - the spring and takes it final shape. next 8-10 minutes - not much color change. the last 5-7 minutes its starts to darken to final color. I evacuate around 10 minutes and throttle the temps down and kind of play it by ear to try and achieve the color I want by 19 or 20 mins. Oh yeah I also mist the loaves and I find that helps a bit. I am torn wondering about this because I know your steam commitment with devices and a lot of experiments - even still I feel like it escaping by the photos. Is any of the above worth anything considering your setup and regimen ?
OK this is interesting, as you know I’ve been baking my baguettes on a baking steel on a roasting rack stuffed with crumpled aluminum foil. This set up is on the lowest level of my oven because my oven isn’t that tall. Geremy are you saying that you would reverse my setup and place the rack high in the oven and the steaming gear below?
I was just telling it like is and what worked for me. One thing that wad highlighted in my 'new oven' thread is just how different of an experience gping feom a domestic gas oven to a commercial electric oven. With my gas oven with its laege cavity the hottest area was up top. Lava rocks at the base and eventually nice looking loaves appeared with the top rack configuration. Since you are producing such beautiful reaults I think changing it may or may not make any difference and it might actually get worse results. I guess if you tried this it may just turn out to be an academic exercise only. So no, Im suggesting as a rule of thumb but merely throwing user experiences at Danny - if it aint broke why fx it ?
Yeah, I’ll probably leave it as it is unless I reach a point that I just want to fiddle with things, but I haven’t reached that yet. Thanks Geremy.
My lava rock pan is 13x9 and filled to the brim with the rocks. I pour 2 full cups of near boiling water into them just after loading the dough. Then close the door immediately., and force the oven to refire to bring the temp up from let's say 435 back to 480 again, which happens pretty quickly. But the thick baking stone ensures that the dough is not cheated out of direct or immediate ambient heat.
So there's a lot of steam going on from all that water and the burst of steam continues for quite a while. The amount of water ensures that the steam is invisibly billowing inside the oven box. Here's a very short video I made of what the vent looks like with steam coming out. This was probably a few minutes into the bake too!
One more thing - I've never painted or sprayed the dough on the way into the oven nor anytime during the bake. They all bake au natural!
I’ve never seen steam like that come out of my oven, that is impressive. I no longer brush water on my baguettes, but I do like the effect on the larger batards and boules.
Many have seen my steam capabilities, but for those that haven’t see video below. I don’t know the answer to my problem but I do know that I can inject large volumes of steam at will. I’ve never been able to get consistent blisters are glossy crust. DARN IT...
That is such impressive steam, I can’t imagine that your crusts aren’t getting enough steam Dan.
that the pressure cooker systen is not providing enough steam. Seen that video before and was really impressed. Yeah thats a mystery as to why you are not getting a shinier crust. Then alan goes on to say that he uses 2 full cups of water. Even bigger mystery ! I guess I would try toggling things and see what happens. I think the first toggle I would try is raising that deck a notch or two and I say that watching the steam from the hose coming in from the top. Are you using a gas oven ? I should by now already know but if you are that whole slot where the hose is coming in - well isnt that a long width-wise vent ?
Geremy, “Also are you really trapping the steam ? For example with lava rocks you'll get a burst and then simmer. Its that initial burst and that matters (it seems) and shutting the door asap to trap it.”
I couldn’t agree more about the short flash of steam from lava rocks. Because of this the steam pan is filled with lava rocks, then a piece of very heavy duty aluminum foil is tightly fitted on the top. At the back of the pan the aluminum flares up and towards the back of the oven. This prevents the steam from escaping out of the door and the aluminum is also setup to prevent to rising steam from cooling the stone because it is directed by the foil away from it. Only a small hole is open in the front to allow the filling with water.
I am working on the steam towel at this time. Don’t know what else to do.
High gluten flour, cold overnight autolyse, NO IDY, 125% BF, 35 min rest
PFF levain hydration dough hydration salt total batch weight
11.8% 100% 66.7% 2.0% 1776g + 30g for aliquot jar
227 (29 seed + 115 H2O + 115 BF -8 losses) 566 H2O 932 AP + 10 diastatic malt 21.40 salt
Make 259g levain (100%) by putting into the levain the excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 62% hydration
Process:
combine the 932 AP flour, 10g diastatic malt, and 566 cold water and mix for 7 min at speed 0. Knead a few turns until it is fully smooth and cover bowl with StretchTite and refrigerate overnight. (Yielded 1502g net autolysed dough)
In the AM add the 252g levain and no IDY and continue mixing for another 6 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporate the salt during the first 2 min at speed 0.
56.8° after 6 min @speed 0
Mix at speed 4 in 2 minute increments until fully developed
61.0° @2 min on 4
66.0° @4 min on 4
Add 10g water [this little big of bassinaged liquid seemed to do a lot for the dough - making it smooth and stong and extensible]
70.3° @6 min on speed 4.
(2.25°F/min)
71.6° after transfer to BF container and removal of 30g for aliquot jar
Ferment in retarder for 3:30@66°F, then 1:30 at room temperature (~80°F) to ~125% of original volume (48 ml on aliquot jar)(~5:00 from start of mixing). BF in retarder at 66°F average was intended to slow it down a little so that it would not over-ferment while I was off at a meeting. This was probably not essential since there was no IDY in the mix and it was bound to be slow in any case
Divide into 4 parts (~444g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 35min, final shape (7 min).
Counter proof for 1:15 (until it was puffy and soft)
Retard 1:45 @40°F to make it easier to slash
Aliquot jar was at 70ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 30ml expansion so about 30/30=100% dough volume increase) when it went to the oven, but the aliquot jar had been on the counter while the dough was in the retarder.
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle
Analysis:
Including the DM in with the long cold autolyse seems to provide a darker bottom crust than adding it to the mix in the morning when the levain and the autolysed flour are combined and mixed.
Since Bennie ran a batch that had beautiful crumb without any commercial yeast, I decided that I would make the same adjustment to my successful baseline (which uses 0.1% IDY) and observe the result. Other than taking a while longer, the results are quite good. Shaping was somewhat hurried (and it shows), but the crumb is as good or better than previous trials.
The somewhat darker bottom crust is an improvement for those who like a dark bake (count me in that group).
I see that you found the same result as I did when I accidentally left out the IDY, the crumb you achieve is wonderful, really really and open irregular just as a baguette should be. I think you’ve also adjusted your scoring a bit, the straps seem narrower and the scores a bit more longitudinal rather than cross sectional in angle. I like the darker colour myself as well.
Well done Doc.
Benny
If you had x-ray vision and you looked into the shaped dough just before loading in the oven, what would the cell structure look like?
I am trying to learn if the structure of the cells (size, uniformity, wall thickness) are starting to develop in the pre-baked dough or if the magic mostly takes place in the oven.
When scored is the dough airy or is it compact and easily scored.
Is the magic taking place during a huge oven spring? Should our focus be on oven spring? A dough that blows up in the oven.
Strange questions, I know. I am trying to determine a main focal point for upcoming bakes when perfect crumb is the goal. Because of the relatively small circumference it is difficult to judge the amount of oven spring.
Doc, IMO you have elevated the quality of your crumb to Master Baguette Meister, Benny. Well done...
This is only a guess because I really don’t know, but I would think that the structure is already there in the unbaked dough. As the heat causes the water to evaporate and the alveoli in the dough to rapidly expand you get the oven spring. If I didn’t refrigerate the dough before scoring, it was always delicate and airy. It is only in recent bakes that with chilling the dough that scoring has been less scary with firmer dough. But I think that the cell structure is there already there in the dough and is only amplified by baking.
What does everyone else think?
1) Early errors are magnified downstream. The earlier the error, the greater the magnification, and the harder to compensate and correct. Errors caught early in the process are mostly manageable and create the least negative effects downstream.
2) The bake is nothing more than the culmination of everything that preceded it, right through the scoring of the dough. The structure and integrity is set in place before the dough is ever loaded into the oven.
Can the bake make a difference - of course. Dan's steaming related problems clearly demonstrate this. Or my own quite recent bone-headed move of not ensuring that the oven door was completely closed until about 8 minutes into the bake and the oven temperature had dropped off 100 degrees. Oven temperature management, hot and cool spots, manhandling a half baked loaf, the bread not reaching internal temperature... You all know the routine.
But none of these are related to the two key points above.
The openness of the crumb is fully determined by things you do before it goes into the oven, and is largely determined by things that happen before you reach the end of bulk proof. You can also damage it anytime you handle the dough (divide, pre-shape, shape). And we have pretty good evidence that the specifics of the flour you choose are less important, That leaves mixing and hydration and temperature and time (and potentially the amount of salt) as the major residual variables.
Doc, “ is largely determined by things that happen before you reach the end of bulk proof”.
Is it correct to assume that bulk proof the same as bulk ferment?
If cells structure is determined at the end of BF, it is amazing that it takes place at ~25% increase. This subject is extremely interesting to me.
Yes - I suspect that from there on (and perhaps before then), you are getting cell count reduction through growth, diffusion, collapse and consolidation, so it is probably important that you don't incorporate ingredients or process steps that tend to stabilize the alveloi (which is one of the roles of fat).
Just like Joe Jackson said. Ehm no, that was 'stepping out' .... whatever - a song about enjoying stuff after some challenges. Seems fitting enough
A little defective crumb but thats ok - no me importa
this pic below is for Dan who asked for a snap right after scoring. Its a terrible photo sorry -
You can't get what you want, 'til you know what you want.
Looks like the old times all over again. What a beauty. Look forward to reading more about this bake in the Sunday Papers...
PS Don't ever hire yourself out as a wedding photographer.
Thanks, Geremy. From the looks of the raw scored dough, it is apparent that you rely on massive oven spring for success. The image is helpful.
Your image gives credence to your belief that scoring is not as important as most people believe. Do you still agree with that statement?
I think the proof is the 'new oven thread' as you can see that each bake was scored just the same way and it wasnt until the oven conditions were hitting just the right temps and humidity then presto. Although I will say that this time I scored on a shallow angle as opposed to 90 degrees down and the ears developed better. So my position is that good scoring gets better reaults but you need the spring first and I think people get all wrapped up in the blade angle etc before solving the oven situation. Yah, I fogot to mention the little change up on scores this time. From here I'm ready to start loading more loaves at a time - just happy to part of this mega thead and 'back on the chain gang'
Geremy, I have also noticed that a low angle seems to produce better ears in doughs that are difficult such as baguettes.
I think there is truth on both ends of the scoring spectrum. Scoring angles and techniques matter and at least equally so, the condition of the dough and the oven setup must be combined in order to succeed. AND no ear is more challenging than those that sit atop a baguette.
9/19/20: High gluten flour, cold overnight autolyse, 0.1% IDY, 125% BF, 35 min rest, 3 x 425g + 2 x 250g baguettes
PFF levain hydration dough hydration salt total batch size
11.8% 100% 66.1% 2.0% 1802 (includes 30g for aliquot jar)
227 (28 seed + 115 H2O + 115 BF -8 losses) 566 H2O 932 AP + 10 diastatic malt 21.40 salt
Make 259g levain (100%) by putting into the levain the excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 62% hydration
Process:
combine the 932 AP flour, 10g diastatic malt, and 566 cold water and mix for 7 min at speed 0. Knead a few turns until it is fully smooth and cover bowl with StretchTite and refrigerate overnight.
In the AM add the 252g levain and 1.048g IDY and continue mixing for another 6 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporate the salt during the first 2 min at speed 0.
58.2° after 6 min @speed 0
Mix at speed 4 in 2 minute increments until fully developed
62.6° @2 min on 4
66.6° @4 min on 4
Add 10g water and bassinage into the mix during the next 2 min @ speed 4
70.6° @6 min on speed 4. (still not fully developed so mix another minute)
72.9° @7 min on speed 4
(2.06°F/min)
Take 30g for aliquot jar.
Ferment to ~125% of original volume (48 ml on aliquot jar)(~3:30 from start of mixing)
Divide into 5 parts (3x ~424g + 2 x 250g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 35min, final shape (7 min).
Counter proof for 1:00
Aliquot jar =70ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 30ml expansion so about 30/30=100% dough volume increase)
Retard 1:15 @40°F to make it easier to slash
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle
Assessment:
This batch was for a birthday party so I didn't want to go too far off the farm but because I only needed three loaves, I decided to make two 250g baguettes just to see what the ears and the crumb would look like.
The crumb looks good on both the large and the small loaves, but the ears on the small baguettes are not impressive. The dough felt like it was over-proofed when it was slashed and the ears on all of the loaves are sub-par.
Other than that, the timing was close to yesterday with a couple of small differences: the temperatures at the various stages of mixing were sightly different, and the bulk fermentation was perhaps a couple of percent above the planned 25% volume increase just because of the few extra minutes it took to get prepared to divide the dough. With the IDY in the mix, it starts slow but by the end of BF things are moving quite rapidly and can easily go further than intended.
You’re really consistent now on the amazing open crumb Doc, it doesn’t seem to matter too much what process you use or whether or not it has IDY in it.
Doc has joined the ranks with Benny. When it comes to baguettes, both bakers are definitely “dialed in”.
Your baguettes are consistent and would garner the respect of the very best professional bakers anywhere in the world.
Shall I say it?
WORLD CLASS!
@Benny - I think you are right in that the structure of the crumb does not depend on the use of commercial yeast, but adding a little IDY can accelerate the process so long as I stay below 0.1% yeast to keep it below the threshold where it affects the flavor. But it does take some time for that small amount of yeast to get going. So today I am trying something just a little bit different.
Last night when I mixed the flour and water (@60% hydration), I incorporated 0.1% IDY into the diastatic malt and mixed that with the flour. So the cold autolyse was a fermentolyse or yeastolyse if you like since the levain was built separately. This morning, the autolysed flour and water (really just a no-salt dough @ 60% hydration), exhibited some volume increase overnight. Enough that it was noticeable but not to the point where the dough was soft, maybe a few percent. Then I mixed in the 100% hydration levain, then the salt, then an additional 5% water to bring the dough up to 70% hydration.
It required a few additional minutes of high speed (4 on the Famag) mixing to get the gluten developed to the point I wanted. The dough is pretty slack, so I may add a fold or two to the BF and see how long it takes to get to 25% volume increase. Previously, with the IDY added to the levain then immediately combined with the cold autolysed dough, the BF time was ~3:30. On the occasion that I pre-mixed the IDY with a little water and a pinch of sugar, BF time was slightly less, so there is some acceleration if the yeast is dissolved first.
How cold is your fermentolyse (without levain) Doc, are we talking fridge overnight, or mixed cold put into the fridge a short while and left at room temperature overnight?
I mix with room temperature flour and water (though I did not check either the water temperature or the dough temperature after getting everything combined and before it went into the refrigerator). The dough ball is ~5.5" in diameter (1668g of dough) though it sits only about 3" thick in the bowl so it will take a few hours to chill down to 38°F.
The levain was 26g of seed starter + 133g each water and bread flour (~1:5:5) and fermented at a measured but uncontrolled 83.7°F overnight, losing 4g of CO2 (~3% of the weight of the added flour) in the process, so it was mature but not frothy when used.
The dough temperature after mixing was 74.4°F.
So the bit of fermentation during the overnight autolyse probably led to the baguettes being a little bit overfermented leading to the slightly poorer ears, would you agree Doc? The aliquot dough rise didn’t take into account any rise the dough experienced prior to the aliquot dough being removed after the levain was added. So your 25% increase may have been 30% or at least somewhere between 25-30%. Not to take anything away from the finial baguettes at all, but just looking at the one thing you weren’t happy with, the ears.
Doc, “The levain was 26g of seed starter + 133g each water and bread flour (~1:5:5) and fermented at a measured but uncontrolled 83.7°F overnight”.
How many hours did your levain ferment. 84F sounds hot for an overnight ferment.
At ~77 all I can get with 20% starter is 10 hr. As we discussed, I am using very high protein flour for me long fermented levains. It seems the gluten will be stronger when it mixes with the dough.
Doc, I’ll be baking your formula tomorrow. Glad I didn’t go 68% as originally planned. 65% with sd seems about right, although very slack.
I say “Mysterious” because -
There are opposing thoughts and techniques from bakers that are consistently producing Master Quality Baguettes.
After reading the above the un-initiated might think that baguettes are non-demanding and therefore a breeze to make. It does look that way. But, if you decided to give them a try with excellence as a goal, you are sure to have a change of mind. That is not to discourage anyone from such a unique bread. They are surely approachable by all. The key word, “excellence” is what makes them a supreme challenge for determined bakers.
I am amazed at the results of the baguettes made using very different formulas and even opposing methods. The varied results seem to contradict one another, but “the proof is in the pudding”.
Like so many things with baking there’s more than one way to arrive at the same end product, more or less. I think is what we’re really showing, that there really isn’t only one way to make a great baguette.
The flours used were many and varied and when handled well all made pretty nice baguettes, but that does not eliminate the possibility that for each flour there is an appropriate hydration and degree of gluten development.
I am looking for the elements that were common to all who had reasonable success. Please chime in if I mischaracterize anything:
There seemed to be rather less dough handling between end of mix and final shaping, with high hydration dough more likely to need at least some while stiffer dough does not.
Pre-shaping using as little flour as you can arrange and to a shape that is close to final shape was widely adopted
Nobody added any fat
While we initially saw people bulk fermenting to 150% of post-mix volume (or higher), everybody eventually found that something closer to 120-125% produced better results.
Chilling the dough to make it easier to slash seems to be another common success story, though I am not sure that we have a consensus on a metric for how far to let final proof go before baking (or retarding).
I don't think anybody is still adding nutritional yeast or fava bean flour to their dough, but there are a few, perhaps most (though I don't know about 'all'), who continue to add diastatic malt to improve browning.
but for some reason I was under the impression that baguettes are leavened with "old dough" types of preferments. Be it a yeasted biga, pate fermentee or stiff levain. Something about baguettes and flavour makes this ring true.
is made with wheat flour, water, salt yeast in the purest sense, although thee is some leeway for a fava bean type flour to be used as well. With or without a preferment - typically a poolish if one is to be used. And typically with cake yeast.
But there is nothing that stands in the way of, for example, a levain baguette ala the Monge Baguette of Eric Keyser.
As much as anything, the baguette is defined by the shape, just as with a batard or boule, without regard to what components are used.
(welcome back)
Baguettes were made daily and needed to be ready by very early morning I came to the conclusion that old dough style pre-ferment from the previous batch was used, traditionally. But I think this is an idea I dreamt up.
Nice to be back. I'd love to join in but my set-up isn't great for baking baguettes. I'll just have to admire from a far.
Raise hydration to 70%, High gluten flour, cold overnight autolyse, 0.1% IDY in autolyse, 120% BF, 25 min rest, 8 x 250g baguettes
PFF levain hydration dough hydration salt dough batch size
11.8% 100% 70% 2.0% 2000 + 30 for aliquot jar
285 [28 + 132 +132 - 7] 623g H2O + 62g bassinage 1039g HGW + 12g DM 23.60g salt
Make 292g levain (100%) by putting into the levain the excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 62% hydration
Process:
Combine the 1039g AP flour, 12g diastatic malt, + 1g IDY and 623g cold water and mix for 7 min at speed 0. Knead a few turns until it is fully smooth and cover bowl with StretchTite and refrigerate overnight. (Yielded 1668g net autolysed dough)
In the AM add the 285g levain and continue mixing for another 6 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporate the salt during the first 2 min at speed 0.
57.8° after 5 min @speed 0
Mix at speed 4 in 2 minute increments until fully developed
61.4° @2 min on 4
65.0° @4 min on 4
Add 62g water
67.8° @6 min on speed 4.
70.4° @8 min on speed 4
73.1° @10 min on speed 4
74.4° @11 min on speed 4
(1.51°F/min)
71.6° after transfer to BF container and removal of 30g for aliquot jar
Take 30g for aliquot jar - add water up to 40ml mark
Ferment to ~120% of original volume (48 ml on aliquot jar)(~2:30 from start of mixing)
Divide into 8 parts (8 x 250g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 25min, final shape (7 min).
Counter proof for 1:05
Aliquot jar =70ml (30ml dough, 10ml water, 30ml expansion so about 30/30=100% dough volume increase)
[This 100% volume increase in the aliquot jar between the beginning of bulk fermentation and the end of counter proofing seems to be consistent from batch to batch]
Retard 2:30 @40°F to make it easier to slash
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle
Analysis:
The crumb is more open than when mixing at 66.1% hydration, and adding 0.1% IDY in the diastatic malt and mixing it in with the flour before combining the water for the autolyse seems to have accelerated the bulk fermentation and shortened it by about an hour (3:30 to 2:30). There was a small amount of volume increase visible after the overnight cold autolyse (maybe a few percent). The last time I tried this with 0.065% IDY, there was no observable impact. The fact that this batch required more mixing to reach acceptable gluten development is curious. The temperature rise rate during mixing was also quite a bit less than last time, perhaps because of the added 62g of water and the resulting lower viscosity.
At 70% hydration, the dough was substantially harder to handle even when dividing and shaping at 20% bulk fermentation. The ears are hardly distinguishable - possibly because there were so many baguettes loaded at the same time that the rate of heating was inadequate to generate the required oven spring to open the slash. Try backing down to 68% hydration.
The baguettes on the next to the top rack of the oven (the three baguettes on the right in the photo) have a darker crust. Perhaps this is because there was nothing above them.
and there is nothing wrong with the look either. Yeah, the scores are weak in comparison to your past dozen or so bakes, but now you've entered into the hydration and packed like sardines issues. I'm going to throw my hat into the corner that says. that the hydration is the real culprit between the two, and that scoring lower hydration doughs has us working with a more compliant dough, hence more initial control over how they respond.
"At 70% hydration, the dough was substantially harder to handle..." Just as soon as we think we have it dialed in and are feeling our oats...Bam!, the dough reminds us of who is the boss!
I'll go out on a limb and say that the majority of artisan baguettes sold in fine bakeries have a hydration that hovers around 67-68%.
My guess is that the optimum hydration for the typical domestic commercial bread flour (if there is such a thing) is in the mid 60's (maybe 65-67%) so a baker would almost always want to work at the upper edge of what the labor can handle just to maximize the dough yield. Probably lower in Europe and higher in Canada.
So my next run will be at 68%, with 0.1% IDY included in the autolyse, and I am going to drop back to the larger baguette size just because that is the baseline against which all of the comparisons should be made. I expect a crumb that is a little more open than last week and perhaps not quite as open as today's batch, but with better ears. Should know in 24 hrs.
Trying to calculate your mixing time. Was it 48 or 56 min?
I’ve never attempted anything like that, but imagine the gluten is mixed to the absolute maximum.
How is the flavor?
It would be interesting to have to evaluate and compare the flavors of a bread mixed as above and another that was lightly mixed by hand.
Your consistent and well documented bakes add real value to this CB.
Great crumb. These baguettes remind me of the ones I was baking when I was somewhat overproofing them. I’d have really open crumb but then the ears and grigne were lacking Doc. I wonder if adding the IDY to the autolyse is the culprit, any fermentation then would have your aliquot jar underestimating the degree of rise.
Benny - thank you! That is a factor I had not even considered. I will make an adjustment to account for it. Probably add 1g of water to the aliquot jar.
Doc, have you considered adding the CY to your levain just before you mix it in the dough?
Is there some other reason to incorporate the CY in the autolyse?
The only reason I started adding CY to the dough was to reduce the end to end time. I have tried sprinkling it on the levain before combining the levain with the autolysed dough, dissolving it in a small amount of water with a pinch of sugar and adding it to the dough during gluten development, and adding it to the flour before mixing with water and beginning the autolyse.
So far the best effect (in terms of speeding things up without introducing a detectable commercial yeast flavor to the resulting bread) has been to add it to the flour before beginning the autolyse.
Nice to see that you boys are still at it while I have been hard at work. Benny making jeweled slippers, Dan is doing Po'boys, Doc is stacking them up like cord wood and Geremy has finally laid down his markers. Alans CB will go on forever. I have a little break in the action to do some baking again so I mixed up some T65 wonderdust batons. This flour is not as robust as american AP but the flavor and texture is really incredible. The burnt ends taste nothing like other flours.
I was a little rusty from the layoff so the shaping, scoring and loading did not go as smoothly as before.
Tapers, blunts and a barbell. My hands wanted to do them all.
I wonder if the wetter dough leads to a thinner crust. These were 74% hydration which I am convinced helps to get a more open crumb.
The crumb did not suffer from the clumsy handling and scoring.
This flour does not seem to attain the volume and strength of US AP but it excels in the eating department.
The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
Don, the crumb is outstanding and the rustic look of your loaves are beautiful.
Today I baked Doc’s formula (without CY) using T65. I stopped at 65% hydration because the dough felt very slack. I have started mixing by hand and purposely not developing the gluten. When the T65 is fully developed it seems to handle much more water, but IMO the flavor is drastically compromised. I have gone as high as 72% in the past but that one used CY only and the gluten was highly developed. I wonder if the acid from sd only makes for a slacker dough at the same hydration?
Is your clientele back to normal? I assume you are back to fishing.
Is still being decided. People have been cooped up and are itching to get out. The fishing was good and so was the catching. The smoke from the fires provided some shade from the sun and may have also added a wood fired oven taste to the bread.
I find the T65 comes together quite quickly and will unknit if you work it too much. I mixed these less than a minute and stop when it tries to shred. I have had good results from doing the last fold an hour after being in the fridge. I have not used SD with the french flour so I don't know how it would respond.
Dan would there be much acid from the levain at the time of mixing? I’d say your dough felt slacker because of your relative humidity compared with Don’s.
Good question, Benny. The thought may be wrong.
Maybe developing the T65 allows higher hydration. So much to learn.
Wow great ears at a high hydration Don and also incredible open crumb too. That bake has it all.
Doc has enjoyed so much success with his baguettes, I decided to try his formula using sd only and T65 flour. I deviated in that the dough was mixed by hand and purposely did not highly develop the gluten. The idea was that hopefully a great tasting french flour textured bread would be produced. The bread was chewy and required a strong bite. The flavor produced by CY only is much more to my liking. I failed in both categories, but the experiment added to my repertoire of knowledge.
I used this bake to test Tom’s Steam Curtain. Those results were mixed. The crust was shiny and there were a few blisters (a great Improvement over my typical breads), but the bread baked extremely pale and required 26 min @ 550F. Normally baguettes are baked in 16-18 min @ 550F. I assume the conversion to steam zapped a lot of heat from the oven. There are many mysteries that I’ve yet to uncover.
The bottom loaf was too long for the smaller stone used for the steam curtain. I was glad to have saved it, but it won’t win any beauty contest.
Dan the close up shot of the one baguette, the crust almost looks wrinkled as if it collapsed a bit, is it possible that it over proofed a bit?
I think the dough was under-proofed. I say that because the dough was BF to exactly 25% increase using a precise aliquot measurement. And after BF the dough was shaped, then retarded without any RT proofing. It was baked cold. No CY was used. So, I can’t imagine it was over-fermented.
The shaped dough was not poofy at the time of slashing.
The ability to discern over-proofing from under-proofing is difficult to discern, IMO. Cases like this one lends credence to that. We don’t know what we don’t know :-)
Maybe what I’m seeing is the effect of the steaming and baking then. I agree, hard to imagine overproofing with your methods.
Benny, I may venture into Final Proofing at RT and throw care to the wind at scoring time. I think it may be worth a try. Most of us, including myself are intimidated when it comes to scoring warm baguettes.
I used to do it and was always scared that the dough would totally deflate, it is an awful sight to see the wrinkles as your score the skin of the dough. It was bad enough that, as you know, I’ve gone back to putting the dough back in the fridge. Now, I haven’t tried scoring warm dough since I’ve greatly reduce bulk fermentation. When I was scoring warm dough it was also the dough that was somewhat overproofed so I wonder now with reduced fermentation if it would be less scary. The pros score warm don’t they?
duplicate
This was supposed to be built at 68% hydration (down from 70%), but the way it got mixed, it turned into 69.6% and it behaved like it through the whole process, High gluten flour, cold overnight autolyse, 0.13% IDY in autolyse, 120% BF, 35 min rest, 4 x 425g baguettes
PFF levain hydration dough hydration salt total batch size
12.0% 100% 68.0% 2.0% 1700+30
247 levain from (28 + 112 + 112 - 5) 538 + 40 H2O 886g HGW + 10g DM + 1.3g IDY 20.35g salt
Make 252g levain (100%) by putting into the levain the excess water above what is needed to do the autolyse at 60% hydration (in the future plan 8g extra for mixer and bowl losses)
Process:
combine the 886g AP flour, 10g diastatic malt, + 1.3g IDY and 538g cold water and mix for 7 min at speed 0. Knead a few turns until it is fully smooth and cover bowl with StretchTite and refrigerate overnight. (Yielded 1427g net autolysed dough)
In the AM add the 252g levain and continue mixing for another 4 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporate the salt during the first 2 min at speed 0.
Temperature vs mixing time:
58.2° after 5 min @speed 0
Mix at speed 4 in 2 minute increments until fully developed
61.9° @2 min on 4
65.1° @4 min on 4
Add 40g water
67.3° @6 min on speed 4
69.0° @8 min on speed 4
70.7° @10 min on speed 4
72.4° @12 min on speed 4
74.3° @14 min on speed 4
76.4° @16 min on speed 4
77.6° @17 min on speed 4
78.6° @18 min on speed 4
Temp rise rate decreases over time as the dough viscosity goes down, then increases as gluten development makes the dough stronger
Take 30g for aliquot jar - add water up to 42ml mark
Ferment to ~120% of original volume (48 ml on aliquot jar)(~2:00 from start of mixing)
Divide into 4 parts (8 x 425g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest 35min, final shape (7 min).
Counter proof for 1:00
Aliquot jar =60ml
Retard 4:00 @40°F for timing and to make it easier to slash
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle
Analysis:
At 69.6% hydration, the dough was not much easier to handle than at 70%.
The dough behaved differently today with the temperature rise during mixing starting out steep, declined somewhat as the dough warmed up, and then went up again as the gluten developed and made the dough more resistant. Eighteen minutes of high speed mixing seems excessive but until then the dough was not forming a good window pane and was not fully smooth.
On the final loaves, the ears were indistinct and the crumb was quite open. It still seemed to have been over-fermented even though I started to divide 30 min earlier and with about 2% less volume increase relative to the prior batch (at 70% hydration).
The pre-shaped baguettes rested for a full 35 minutes (10 min longer than yesterday) and bench proofed for only 60 min before being retarded. When it came time to slash, the dough handled well, but the scoring cut through a lot of air pockets that were just below the surface. The reduced extensibility is probably the source of the somewhat closed crumb at the ends of the cut baguette.
As Benny pointed out, the fact that the yeast is active during the autolyse means that there is already some dough volume increase prior to the end of mixing which I had not previously accounted for. And because I put in 1/4t of IDY rather than separately weighing exactly 1g, it had an extra 300mg in the batch which probably helped accelerate the bulk fermentation even further.
Hard to argue with the quality of the crumb Doc, slightly overproofed gives amazing crumb, but just compromises the other aspects of the baguette.
Today I made sure that everything was in place and ready to divide when the dough got to 20% volume increase. Working at a more accurate 66% hydration makes everything easier. And compensating for things like 8g of dough that’s sticks to the equipment, the 6g of water coating the fermentation container and 15g of flour accumulated from the mat and couche made the divided loaves all hit their target weight.
So I ordered this 18" long hardwood cutting board for shaping baguettes to an exact 18" length. Also, I feel the wood is much more conducive to a good outcome. I also added a couple of more measuring vessels. 1 liter S/S and 150 ml, Glass. I am not too concerned with the accuracy or the increments, as everything hits the scale. I do like to have everything weight out and ready. Oh, the glass cups are straight-sided, very nice.
Will, I use that exact glass for my Aliquot Jar. In that case the ml marks are very helpful. 1ml of volume is equal to 1g of water weight. That makes water calculations very east to convert volume displacement to water weight.
I used THIS SCRIBE to mark over the ml marks that are painted on the glass. After the marks are scribed a marks-a-lot is painted over the marks, the the excess ink is rubbed off with a paper towel. Doing that removes the concern about the painted marks coming off during washing down the road.
That's why I mentioned they are straight-sided! do you find them to be sturdy? Look at how they were shipped and they survived!
The glass is holding up well for me. Only have one, would hate to break it.
Bad image, but this is how the marks are permanently etched into the glass.
Hi Danny,
I bought the same jar on your recommendation. Thanks! One note: you've probably thought of this, but an unmarked jar (or marks between marks) can be scribed in the same way to the level of water by added weight. For example, 5 grams water = 5 ml water.
--Tom
Thanks Tom. Have you seen THIS LINK?
It is really nice that 1ml of water is equal to 1g. With water, milliliter volume equals water weight in grams.
Yes, that’s where I saw your jar. I was a little amused by your hypothetical measurements to 0.01 ml. That’s why I suggested you might want to scribe intermediate graduations. :) :)
I bookmarked that post and plan to follow it in my next bake. Thanks!
Tom, where did I mention “0.01 ml”. I’m pretty detailed but that takes the cake :-)
“From the above it is determined that the 30g dough displaces 27.52ml (or grams) of water.
For this example a 25% rise is targeted.
27.52*0.25=6.88
...
Once the water level in the Aliquot jar rises to 46.88ml the fermentation of the bread dough is complete.”
LOL, I’m usually not that specific but because I have my trusty syringe to add water I actually do the weights to 0.01 g accuracy, only because I can.
Most of the baguette bakers have said they eat their day old and older baguettes, toasted. Try taking your serrated knife and cutting a crosshatch pattern in the crumb, then toasting. The texture is interesting and the crevices are nice when spreading condiments.
Very interesting idea Dan, is that something common in Louisiana? I shall try that.
No, not really. Just tried it and liked the results.
You did a good job with the name.
one week old diet! I figure that I can cheat a little around the edges and still have some of my morning toast, but these beasts are going to test my will power!
I had to give Don's Bouabsa method a shot, except that I shaped and returned to retard for the few final hours before the bake.
The dough was extremely elastic, rolled out to 18 inches, but shrunk back to 16. I think that had I pre-shaped a longer cylinder I might not have had as much of an elasticity issue. Even after post-shape hibernation in retard, the dough was so incredibly soft that the blade left saw-toothed marks as it worked through the scoring. One of the more difficult executions of scoring for me in any recent time.
The blob-headed baguette was caused by one of the scores not going through the dough halfway down, hence the pinched waist and the fat head. Grr. However, the oven spring was explosive and the crumb is quite open. The one baguette that I was able to wrangle a good shape out of, definitely shows the capability of this formula and the bake.
If anyone's tracking circumferences, the handsome fella is 16 inches long and 6 inches around.
330g x 3 long batards
Alan, these are extremely interesting. Love the rustic look. Do you have a link for your formula? Wondering if Don may have tweaked it lately.
To what do you attribute such explosive oven spring?
Standard 75% hydration, 2% salt, 0.16% IDY. Autolyse w/IDY 20 min. Incorporate salt & bassinage. "mix a couple of minutes by hand, rest 10 minutes, mix again for a couple more minutes." BF 2 hrs, coil folds at 40 & 80. Retard 16 hrs., divide into 290g pieces, letter fold, rest 15-20 min., shape & proof 45 min. Bake 480dF w/steam 10 min, release steam rotate and 14 min more.
My version: IDY whisked into water, incorporate the water and flour the barest minimum prior to autolyse, 20 min. Bassinage with salted water in 2-3 consecutive additions, pinch and fold between each addition. Rest 5 min. 20 French Folds, rest 5 min., 20 FFs. BF 110 min. Letter Folds at 40 & 80, the gentlest possible. Retard overnight. Next day divide, pre-shape as gently as possible int short cylinders, rest 20 min., shape, couche back to retard for the final hours. Bake 480dF w/steam 13 min, release steam rotate and 10 min more, 2 min venting.
I think that the BF went too long and the dough was past the stage at which it should have been retarded. Even after return to retard the dough was way too flaccid to score well. Maybe I babied the shaping too much in an attempt at being extra-gentle in all phases, and the skin was not tight enough.
That oven spring IS the Bouabsa oven spring. Very typical for the bread to bake like that.
Alan, what flour are you using? I can’t pull off 75% with T65.
what would you estimate the percentage of BF rise
In the standard tupperware container I use, it started at the 32 oz. mark and after almost 2 hrs. topped out at the 48 oz. mark. I typical am more aggressive at eh Letter folds, so I know that the "normal" BF wouldn't take it that far. Next time, I think that I'll cut the BF at 90 min.
The regular formula that I'd always followed for the Bouabsa has folds at 20, 40 & 60 min, and retard after the 3rd fold.
I’ll start a Bouabsa with KAAP today!
According to you info you went with a 50% rise. when you consider that the dough rose during the folds, your rise according to Aliquot would be even more, I think.
Considering 30-35% of BF rise using an Aliquot jar?
But I do feel that the overly ginger Letter Folds yielded a dough that had more image of growth that It might otherwise have had. So, yes, maybe shoot for 30-35% BF.
I'm now down to 40 FFs (from 300!). At least with a dough this malleable and hydrated.
I can’t believe how much you’ve cut back on your French Folds. So comparing your results now with fewer FF vs your earlier results with much more FF, what would you say is the difference if any between fewer or more FFs?
I can only guess that there is less of a well-mixed dough going into BF and the gluten develops during the BF.
Looking back, I had made a similar run at the Bouabsa's at the end of August.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/64622/community-bake-baguettes-alfanso?page=5#comment-467902
I'm not sure that I can truly ID differences yet, although I'll stick with a more robust FF mix for doughs that are fairly drier.
Wow remarkable crumb, so open and airy, very very nice Alan.
except for the ciabatta types of bread, but as long as that is the flavor of the day, I might as well work at getting that under my belt too. Now going to get another slice under my belt...
Well you certainly got the open crumb whether you were trying or not with these Bouabsas.
By jove! I do believe you have got it. Nice looking crumb your holiness. Tell Benny to step aside;-) I recognize the stringy, webby grigne as a good sign of whats inside. That's some explosive bloom on those babies! On one of these pages I think I posted the method I have been using and it is pretty much as you stated minus the cold retard in the couche and no slap in folds. I went through a period of a tight crumb a few years ago from the joy of slapping and folding too much. I still do it for sourdough but less and less. The short mix is the way to go for this recipe. If it is too elastic you should shorten the RT bulk or maybe develop less gluten. I have also found too much tension in the pre-shape will also inhibit elongation.
Scoring @RT is a challenge and can lead to a jagged ear but I think it makes for a thinner crust. Did you proof seam up? I never liked the powdered donut look but a little flour on the couche does help with scoring room temp batons. Mine always deflate after scoring but they do bounce back.
I suppose a little Nutella would be off the diet menu.
“ Mine always deflate after scoring but they do bounce back.”
That statement paints an excellent picture. That really helps...
Can you paint another picture describing your shaped dough at the end of the Final Proof and just before scoring?
I jumped on the Bouabsa wagon and it is BF now. Mixed it at 71.23% hydration. Will try a retarded BF and plan to score warm.
When I take it out of the fridge I divide it and pre-shape and rest them seam up. After 15 or 20 minutes I shape them and proof them for 40 minutes seam up. They do respond to the poke test and grow slightly while proofing. I can see grey bubbles inside the dough is the cue I look for but they always end up in the oven in just under an hour after removing from the fridge. Mine are still round before I score them but flatten out as they are loaded. I bake them at 480 for 24 minutes with steam pan on the top rack for 10 minutes. I would recommend you forgo the 550 this one time and see what happens.
If they are real elastic you can force them because they are very resilient for me YRMV I can't wait to see them but I will be fishing tomorrow. So I will look in when I get home.
Don, take a look at this. The opinion of others are also welcomed.
I decided to blindly follow your method of a stretch and fold after the dough (Bouabsa) retarded for an hour. Here is what the dough looked like after 1 hr in bulk retard and just before a light stretch and fold was performed.
Am I on the right track? You can see the indentation where the Aliquot Jar is placed. The dough, according to the aliquot had risen slightly since refrigerating.
By the way, I copied your instructions above about handling of the dough once the bulk retard is complete. I plan to try that tomorrow. Thanks...
Is all you need to know that the yeast is already active. I have been doing a fold after it has been in the fridge for an hour. It helps to tuck it in for bed it adds some strength and avoids the big gas bubble in the morning.
I know from the first score line and even before, when I touch the dough with my hand while bringing the blade down, whether I'll have trouble or not.
No, still the wayward prodigal son and couching seam side down. I'm not too certain that I could have pre-shaped these with any more TLFC and gentle touch, so that will remain a bit of a head scratcher for the immediate future. I'd rather not resort to adding Nutritional Yeast if I can avoid it, but this mix's elasticity surely would have prospered from it.
Thanks for the moral support! alan
When they have gone too far along in the bulk is when they are strong and elastic. I have had to shape them very aggressively at times and over elongate them to allow for the snap back, they seem to come out of it just fine. I pat down and shape gently but I roll them out with some force. The topside down in the couche will dry the skin out for easier scoring.
The moral of the story is: If it was easy anyone could do it and if I can do it anyone can.
Alan, do you think it would benefit to skip the pre-shape and go directly to shaping in an effort to have a more extensible dough?
you could get away with it. Might well be worth a try.
Next time through, I'll abide by the shorter BF, and longer pre-shape barrel. And couche, upside down, dang it!
It makes sense that couching seam side up would help with scoring. If part of the purpose is to dry the skin and have a skin form, the having the couche contact the area of the dough that will be scored it logical. Maybe this is the reason many couche seam side up.
I couche with the seam up, but I don’t like the way the dough doesn’t sit flat on the peel once it is inverted. The seam side is curved instead of being flat. Not a big deal, though.
Reduced hydration to 66%, 12% PFF, High gluten flour, cold overnight autolyse, 0.1% IDY in autolyse, 120% BF, 35 min rest, 4 x 425g baguettes
PFF levain hydration dough hydration salt total batch weight
12.0% 100% 66.0% 2.0% 1738
248 levain from (28 + 114 + 114) 553 H2O + (6g in 5 liter Cambro) 900g HGW + 10g DM + 1.0g IDY 20.7g salt
Process:
Combine the 900g AP flour, 10g diastatic malt, + 1.0g IDY and 553g cold water and mix for 7 min at speed 0. Knead a few turns until it is fully smooth and cover bowl with StretchTite and refrigerate overnight. (Yielded 1455g net autolysed dough)
In the AM add the 248g levain to the autolysed flour/water and mix for 5 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporate the salt during this interval at speed 0.
Temperature vs mixing time:
57.3° after 5 min @speed 0
Mix at speed 4 in 2 minute increments until fully developed
60.7° @2 min on speed 4
64.4° @4 min on speed 4
67.8° @6 min on speed 4
71.9° @8 min on speed 4
Take 30g for aliquot jar - add water up to 42ml mark
Ferment to ~120% of original volume ( water level rises to the 48 ml mark on aliquot jar)(~2:00 from start of mixing)[don’t wait for the water to reach 48ml, be ready for it and divide dough as soon as it gets there)
Divide into 4 parts (8 x 425g) and pre-shape (5 min), rest covered for 35min, final shape (7 min).
Counter proof for 0:45
Aliquot jar = 60ml
Retard 2:00 @50°F to make it easier to slash
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle
425g at pre-shape; 335g when cooled. 8-9" in circumfrence, 21" long on the pan and 19" long when cool
Analysis:
This is my new baseline formulation for baguettes made with levain and high gluten flour.
The flour and water were combined at 60% hydration and cold autolysed for 10 hrs. Then in the morning the levain and the cold autolysed dough were combined, salt added, followed by gluten development at 66% hydration. This might be reversed with gluten development occurring at 60% followed by mixing in the levain and then the salt. The dough was easy to handle and needed no additional folding during bulk fermentation.
When they started to expand in the oven, I wondered if I was going to have a few loaves that all looked like a fat snake that had swallowed a family of rats (there was a bulge for every slash along the length of the loaf) but after they had fully baked, most of the irregularity had evened itself out and they are pretty straight.
Dividing and pre-shaping were straight forward without any sense that the dough was over fermented. These rolled out a little short of the desired 21", but the pre-shaped dough pieces were a little longer than I usually make them, so I will try to make them about another inch longer to begin with and see how that works out.
Some wrinkles when slashing, but nice texture and not over-proofed. I continue to want to make slashes that migrate from one side of the loaf to the other but keep forgetting after I pick up the lame. You can see the way the slashes cause the loaf to twist during baking - the objective would be to position the slashes to prevent, compensate for, or undo that twist.
Great color, nice crumb, excellent flavor.
Is it possible the first slash was started before the very end of the loaf? The un-scored dough at the very tip could cause the loaf to pull downward (in this case). Then each consecutive slash would pull less and less unti the last slash (right side) is the most relaxed.
The rotation is caused by the local displacement of the surface as each slash opens and the dough expands perpendicular to the slash. The total rotation is the sum of the individual contributions. I will try making adjustments and observe what happens.
Again Doc beautiful crumb, you have things dialed in just perfectly now.
Design:
PFF levain hydration dough hydration salt total batch size
12.0% 100% 66.0% 2.0% 1738
248 levain from (28 + 114 + 114) 553 H2O + (6g in 5 liter Cambro) 900g HGW + 10g DM + 1.0g IDY 20.7g salt
Make 248g levain (100%)
Process:
Combine the 900g AP flour, 10g diastatic malt, + 1.0g IDY and 553g warm (115°F) water and mix for 8 min at speed 0. Knead a few turns until it is fully smooth (91.5°F) and cover bowl with StretchTite and refrigerate overnight. (Yielded 1455g net autolysed dough)
In the AM add the 252g levain on top of the (40°F) autolysed dough and mix for 5 minutes at speed 0 to fully combine before moving to speed 4 to develop the gluten. Incorporated the salt during this period of mixing. Dough temperature was a little warmer than yesterday, perhaps because of the 115°F water that I used for wetting the flour last night. The dough rose about 5/8” overnight in the bowl and was 40°F when removed from the refrigerator instead of 38° as it has been previously.
Temperature vs mixing time:
57.5° after 5 min @speed 0 (which was not much different from yesterday)
Mix at speed 4 in 2 minute increments until fully developed
61.2° @2 min on speed 4
64.5° @4 min on speed 4
67.9° @6 min on speed 4
72.2° @8 min on speed 4
(1.83°/min) This batch mixed quite a bit faster than yesterday for reasons I do not fully understand (faster temperature increase and less total mix time). Up to the beginning of the speed 4 mixing, the only difference was one extra minute of mixing prior to the autolyse and the very warm (115°F) water used to wet the flour. That may have been enough to get the gluten development off to a rapid start so that the dough developed some strength overnight during the cool down and long autolyse. In any event, during the last 2 minutes of mixing, the temperature increase was significantly greater than during the earlier 2-min increments and that was the interval during which the dough smoothed out and at the end of which I was able to pull a very nice window pane.
Take 30g for aliquot jar - add water up to 42ml mark
Ferment to <120% of original volume (~47 ml on aliquot jar)(~2:15 from start of mixing). The dough was divided a little earlier than yesterday and handled nicely. It was pre-shaped by rolling into puffy long cylinders and sealing them and rolling them in some flour to keep them from sticking to the Silpat. After the 30 min rest, final shapig ad rolling to length was easy with very good extensibility and no post-shaping snap-back.
The dough was divided into 4 parts by cutting off strips from the long dimension of the BF container (8 x 425g) and pre-shaping into long cylinders (5 min), rest 30min, final shape (6 min).
Counter proof for 0:45
Aliquot jar = 60ml at end of proof.
Retrospectively, they should have probably proofed for another 15 - 30 minutes since they were shaped a little early. The proofed dough was still somewhat supple and not soft or flabby. Since I was going to retard at 50°F I thought that in cooling somewhat more slowly, they might proof a little more but that was not obvious when they were pulled from the retarder to go to the oven.
Retard 1:30 @50°F to make it easier to slash
Bake using BAG-STM2 oven cycle
Next time rotate BF container 90° when turning out the dough onto the silicone mat so that the strips that are cut wind up being shorter
Dough was easy to handle and probably should have bench proofed a while longer. It was very easy to both pre-shape and shape so that the dough was handled very gently. I wonder if this negatively impacts the final crumb character.
Two of the loaves (top two in the photo) were scored such that the cuts progressed from the middle of the top of the baguette around the loaf in a counter-clockwise direction which did tend to compensate for the tendency of the loaf to twist as the slashes opened. The top loaf was scored slowly, about 2 minutes prior to oven entry, was scored straight down, and both the starting and ending points of each successive score advanced to the left as I worked down the baguette. The second from the top had a similar placement for the scores but the slashes were intentionally made deeper and the scores slightly longer. The last two were done hurriedly and it shows.
The overproofing is solved I’d say now, yet the crumb still looks great, maybe just a touch less open but not significantly so. It is very remarkable how evenly open the crumb is everywhere on your sliced baguette though, very very nice.
Running low on T65, so KA AP flour was used to mix a Bouabsa. For me 75% and AP flour seems awfully slack. So I mixed all ingredients at once using 65% hydration. After a brief mix the dough was rested 20 min. While waiting I weighed 10% hydration of water in a bowl. After the rest the dough was mixed using Rubaud and the mixing hand was lightly dipped in the bowl of water to up the hydration and also stop the dough from sticking to my hands. This process continued for about 5 minutes until the dough felt right to me. The remaining water in the bowl was weighed and i5 was determined that the final hydration of the dough was 71.23%.
2 sets of coil folds were performed every 30 minutes. An Aliquot jar was used and the Room temp BF was complete once it rose 30%. The dough was placed in the fridge @ 38F. After an hour of refrigeration, the dough was lightly folded one more time. Total retardation was 22 hr.
Don’s following instructions were closely followed.
” When I take it out of the fridge I divide it and pre-shape and rest them seam up. After 15 or 20 minutes I shape them and proof them for 40 minutes seam up. They do respond to the poke test and grow slightly while proofing. I can see grey bubbles inside the dough is the cue I look for but they always end up in the oven in just under an hour after removing from the fridge. Mine are still round before I score them but flatten out as they are loaded. I bake them at 480 for 24 minutes with steam pan on the top rack for 10 minutes. I would recommend you forgo the 550 this one time and see what happens.
If they are real elastic you can force them because they are very resilient for me.”
The only steam used was Sylvia’s Steam Towels. They were baked at 480F for 20 min total time. The only deviation from the instructions above is I forgot to shape one of the pre-shaped doughs (shown below on the bottom loaf) and this was negatively affected the final produce.
The texture and chew was super, but the flavor (KAAP) was basically bland. T65 has a way of making a “flour snob” out of a baguette Connoisseur.
I learned something... The actual colors of the bread are very close and accurate when shot against a white background. Both the color of the crust and crumb are extremely representative of the bread. Not so much with other backgrounds.
For best viewing of video below use THIS LINK
The ears are a project for another day. I am confident this can be dialed in. I am very pleased with the bite and chew. The flavor should be easily rectified with the French T65.
Thanks for your help, Don. This bake has been a leap in my learning process.
The holes and the glossy shine look great and the fermentation was spot on. It really is an easy recipe to get nice results. I should add that I do a short mix and rest for 10 minutes and mix again ala Trevor Wilson. How was the shaping and scoring? Your oven has too much top heat. When is the Rofco being delivered?:-) I'd say with your success this time you could dip into the T65 for next time but be prepared for nirvana.
Don, shaping was moderately difficult. Nothing any of us couldn’t do, because we’ve all gained a lot of experience through this CB. The dough was slack and slightly sticky. The roll out to length (~21”) was a breeze. No pull back or shrinkage.
Because the mixing was light the crumb was a yellowish/amber. Not sure why this crumb was so glossy. I’ve over mixed before and produced a tougher, bright white and tasteless crumb. I am certain that more intense mixing will allow more water and ears.
Where this dough differed from others was the size and amount of air pockets during shaping. It was evident that open crumb was soon to manifest. Even though the dough was airy, shaping went well.
I am presently pondering the explanation and reason for the open crumb. At this time I have no answer, butbwe know it works, whatever “it” is. Maybe RT final proof?
As for the over head heat. Next bake I’ll try to remember to place an aluminum foil shield on a top shelf under the heating element to deflect the radiation from the upper element. This has worked well in the past.
The glossy crumb comes from the long ferment. It looks like the hydration was enough to open up the crumb and still allow for easy shaping and handling. I am not certain that more intensive mixing will make for more pronounced ears but it would lead to a tighter crumb. I would look towards a shorter proof or more tension in the shaping for more ears. If your dough is not expanding in the fridge, the last fold of the cooling dough may not be necessary. I forgot to mention that I shoot for a 74 degree dough temperature when mixing. What was the weight of the divided dough? Mine end up around 290 grams per baton when I start with 500 grams of flour.
A sheet pan on the top rack for steaming should shield them from the top heat. I Can't wait to see how the T65 works for you with this recipe.
Don, “ The glossy crumb comes from the long ferment.” I’ve done countless long ferments that failed to produced shiny crumb. Do you always get shiny crumb from your Bouabsa?
” intensive mixing will make for more pronounced ears but it would lead to a tighter crumb.” A couple of weeks ago, I was definitely in your camp. BUT, Doc blew that conception out of the window. Look at his crumb! I know what a spiral mixer does to dough and he is highly developing the gluten.
” A sheet pan on the top rack for steaming should shield them from the top heat.” I can place a full size sheet pan on the second highest rack and place a couple of towels soaked in very hot water for steam. Or a Steam Curtain could also be setup there.
The dough shows no sign of rise in the fridge. Please check the temp of a glass of water, located where the bread dough is placed, that was left in your fridge for 6 hours.
For this batch I chose to mimic Doc. Each dough was ~400g and 21” long.
I estimate the DT during the RT BF @ ~76F.
This is a very long conversation to follow but I wish to chime in on two points. Glossy crumb and shrink back.
I'm forming ideas on glossy crumb (i'm not sure if you see it as an advantage of not) but I think there are 3 things at play here. Firstly the strength of the flour. Higher gluten content will result in a more glossy crumb. This will be exasperated by the next two points which are the autolyse and long ferment time. If you wish to avoid the glossy crumb but use very strong flour and an extended ferment time then drop the autolyse. Or use a less strong flour, minimal autolyse and aim for less ferment time. Or some combination of these ideas.
Second point is shrinkage. Are you talking about pre or post bake of the baguettes? If it's post bake then don't take the baguettes out of the oven once baked. Crack the oven door open and leave to cool slowly. This will help prevent the baked baguettes from shrinking.
Do you see much additional volume growth during 22 hrs of retard at 38°F? You note that you did fold lightly once, I am wondering if that was driven by a desire to build some more strength or keep it from getting too big.
Doc, neither the actual dough or the Aliquot jar showed any rise during the retard.
The only reason I folded the cold dough was blind faith in Don’s instructions. Actually, I hated doing it :-)
But, I will fold again. The results were too promising not too.
Beautiful crumb Dan, I think this is the type of crumb you have been working towards. I think the Bouasba is an awesome formula and it really works to give a wonderful crumb doesn’t it? You must be so happy.
right on the stick after we texted. Good shaping, opened scores, and nice open crumb. Ears on the grigne are another skill on this bread to be learned still.
But two things perplex me. How was it that you had complete extensibility when Don and I find the dough to be elastic? My curiosity at executing some simple changes mentioned elsewhere recently, led me to another mix yesterday, and when I shaped this morning it was again fairly elastic.
As Bouabsa was my first successful baguette I've baked it enough times, though intermittently, and never found the crust to be anything but extremely crisp and crunchy. Yet your version squeezes like Wonder bread. I know you like the softer crust, but I didn't think that it was possible with this formula.
Alan, the question about extensibilty. I don’t know. I used KAAP @ 71.23% hydration.
Could it be that all ingredients were lightly mixed by hand at 65% and rested 20 min. Then a bowl filled with 10% of the flour weight in water was added in tiny amounts with slightly wet hands to gradually increase hydration and prevent dough from sticking to my hands?
The resulting relaxed gluten may account for the extensibility and also the inability of the straps to stretch and not break.
The dough was slack and easily extended during the pre-shape and shape. When moving the shaped dough to the couche I had to be careful to not stretch it longer. There was no shrink back that I remember.
Tip - for those that don't know, handling wet dough with latex gloves prevents a lot of sticking problems. Any stuck dough comes off the glove(s) easily. I wash mine and reuse them a few times. I got the idea from one of Alan’s YouTube videos.
This was a bit of a disaster, ok maybe that is a bit dramatic, but because of a really boneheaded mistake of mine, it didn’t turn out as well as it might have. What would be a critical thing to miss doing related to the start of baking your baguettes? Steaming, no I remembered that and it was all set up, boiling water poured into the cast iron skillet. Let’s see I loaded the baguettes and they’re in there on the hot baking steel steam doing its thing. Maybe 1.5 minutes into steaming, OMG I didn’t score the baguettes!!!!! Have you ever wondered what baguettes would look like it you forgot to score them, then took them out, scored them as they were just starting to rise? Now the dough is warm instead of cold after having had them in the fridge for 60 minutes to firm up to score. Opening the oven of course lets the built up steam out. OK I’m sure I was reading your minds and did this just to educate you about this so you wouldn’t make this mistake ever.
I don’t think even the magic of Alan’s copyrighted camera angles can save these.
I won’t go into what I did with fermentation and the aliquot jar.
I forgot to give credit to David Snyder for his formula.
They still look pretty good!
OK Dan you’re right they’re not all that bad, the crumb somehow turned out quite well despite my boneheaded move that did compromise the oven spring as they are flatter than normal. These had 6% whole red fife and 5% whole rye.
The crumb is excellent per usual for you no matter the recipe. Well done! In the spirit of DMSnyder they should be called Toronto Sourdough Baguettes. How was the flavor and texture with the whole grain and SD only. What was the hydration? Forgetting to score is a lame excuse;-}
The flavour is fine, they aren’t my favourite flavour wise, the sesame semolina are hard to beat for that now. The texture well, the crust is somewhat thicker than other baguettes I’ve made, I wonder if that is because these spent a bit longer in the couche than others. I guess I’m not as scared of scoring a room temperature baguette now considering I’ve just scored albeit poorly very very warm baguettes. Because I don’t have a good excuse all I have is this lame one. Thanks Don.
How do you do it benny ???
Apparently you need to load unscored dough into the steamed oven then pull them after 1.5-2 minutes releasing the steam and dropping the temperature of your oven. Score the rising dough deflating them and then load them back in the oven. LOL
Perhaps it is related to my not manipulating the dough much during bulk and giving the dough a good pat down before shaping? I’m also still not where I’d like to be with shaping so in the end they don’t get a proper rolling, this probably leaves the cells round. I really don’t know Geremy.
More impressive actually was the dazzling array of local bakery sourced breads on offer at the City Market/Onion River Coop, a grocery up in Burlington. On the order of ten area bakehouses supply bread for their shelves, most of which look stunning. The winner for our dollars was Red Hen's 100% ww SD. The best 100% whole wheat hearth bread we've ever had. Cakey soft open crumb under a sturdy crust. Superb adorned with local cultured VT butter.
Happy Fall, bakers,
Tom
When you proof the baguettes in the couche is it seam side up or seam side down?
Not sure who you were asking Abe, but since I’m on the site right now I’ll answer first. I proof seam side up. I like to be able to see the seam so I know for sure where it is so I can ensure it ends of on the bottom when baking. And if the idea of the couche is partly to slightly dry out the skin which helps create the ear then it makes sense to have that side in full contact with the couche to me.
Benny
Appreciate your answer Benny. Your way makes sense to me. While watching a few videos on baguette baking often they seem (oops pun there) to proof seam side down, then flip over onto a board (so seam side up) then flip it back over to seam side down. However there is benefit from flipping the dough over, to bake, after proofing. Helps with he crumb etc. So it makes sense to me to proof seam side up then bake seam side down. You must flip it twice then?
No I flip only once from the couche to the transfer board. I give the proofed baguettes a gentle hop off the board seam side down to seam side down to the parchment lined peel in my case a cookie sheet.
So proof seam side up, flip over onto the seam then hop/slide onto the stone. I think this is the better way rather than proofing and baking seam side down.
Thanks Benny.
I find that the top (side without the seam) is more uniform when proofed in contact with the couche. I use a pair of double-weight corrugated cardboard peels to make the transfer. One peel is used to roll the baguette over on the couche so that it is seam down, then I roll it again to put it on the other peel (seam up), then roll it over again onto the pan (Rational Teflon-coated perforated 1/2-sheet) with the seam down again. Then they get painted with water using a 1" nylon-bristle paint brush, topped with kosher salt (averaging ~1.1g/baguette), then slashed (usually when the oven signals that it has reached the target temperature/humidity).
I think proofing and baking this way makes sense. Flipping a dough to bake would make a better crumb. This is why I was asking after seeing videos where they proof and bake seam side down.
Thanks for confirming this Doc Dough. Right now I can't bake baguettes due to my set-up but i'm prepping for when I can.
For lo those many centuries that I've been baking baguettes, I never couched seam side up more than 4-5 times. Most recently the past week - once. Outside of the inevitable occasional dud, I doubt there are many who would say that I can't get a good grigne with regularity. The couche is also covering, and in contact with the "anti-seam" side.
And I find it infinitely easier to flip the dough onto the hand peel from the couche, and then onto the oven peel. My few videos out there demonstrate that - and the subsequent grigne.
Swimming against the tide here...
Well that is certainly a very good argument for the other side. You proof seam side down and still produce baguettes that I envy (in a good envy way)!
The reason why I ask is because it makes sense to me (and apparently flipping a dough on its head after proofing is considered important when making ciabatta for this reason) when it comes to the crumb. The dough has been resting with weight and gravity producing a closer crumb at the bottom and a more open crumb in top and flipping the dough helps even it out. So I just thought the same would apply to all doughs. However there is the theory and there is the practice with results to show and your results say otherwise.
I don't understand the theory that suggests that ciabatta will have a more evenly distributed porosity if inverted at oven entry.
Of course bubbles don't move but flipping ensures larger bubbles aren't on top and allows for a more even expansion. When proofing the larger bubbles tend to be more on top because of less resistance. Hasn't got the weight of the dough to push up. This will encourage larger bubbles on top and smaller bubbles at the bottom of the dough. Flipping allows the smaller bubbles to expand more during oven spring for a more even crumb. Well that's the theory anyway.
I guess flipping also acts like a pat on the dough so some of the smaller bubbles might coalesce into larger ones and some of the larger ones could split into smaller ones thus evening out the crumb again like patting down the dough during shaping. I’ve been thinking that the relatively aggressive patting down of the dough during shaping, taking the preshaped dough stretching it out and patting it down is doing this as well but more aggressively.
Sounds very plausible. I've also noticed if there are any irregular large bubbles making an appearance during proofing then on course it happens on top. Flipping kind of evens everything out.
I follow the Cyril Hitz method, sometimes combined with the Scott MeGee method of ciabatta handling.
When the dough is gently inverted onto the well floured workbench from the BF tub, the first step is to double the dough over onto itself. This traps the "facing up" side of the dough in the center. After divide, when following my now preferred MeGee method, I gently roll the dough into a cylinder for proofing.
Hitz: https://youtu.be/LFja1ShZFsA?t=454
MeGee: https://youtu.be/xxr4oedBRIE?t=287
It works for me: www.thefreshloaf.com/node/62077/scott-megees-ciabatta-sans-olive-oil
For the life of me I'll never understand how Mr. MeGee gets such a compliant and cohesive dough, as evidenced earlier in the video.With no shaping whatsoever. I like this idea (I wonder why). Just turning the dough out onto the worktop and gently coaxing it into a rectangle then using the scraper cut it up into smaller rectangles. Then flip, load and bake. I'm wondering if a baguette can work this way but in a very large rectangle and rounding off the edges. Might be effective but wouldn't be scorable I imagine.
Thanks for the other idea Alan and the videos for a visual.
Gosselin Baguettes are done essentially as you suggest Abe. I haven’t made these, but I think I it was Don who directed me to that formula before this CB started.
This has definitely sparked my interest!
Thanks Benny.
of the Gosselin baguettes. It has some mighty oven spring... http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30650/sourdough-baguettes-my-version-gosselins-baguettes-tradition
Looks more rustic but nonetheless a nice result with a good crumb. So no shaping and no final proof. It's getting better!
This bake taught me a few things.
To what do I attribute the new found open crumb?
Aliquot Jar - accurate termination of BF
Bulk Retard as opposed to shaped and couched dough that is retarded.
NOTE - I can see and feel the air bubbles in the dough where they weren’t as obvious before
Once again this bake was mixed by hand. All ingredients were mixed @68% hydration until the flour was wet and left to rest 20 min. The extra 7% of hydration water was put into a bowl. The water was used to wet my hands and very slowly increase the hydration until the dough felt right. A deviation from past bakes was the “ frissage”. It is a french method of kneading dough. One hand holds the back of the down against the counter while the dominant hand pushes the dough forward and away against the counter. (An article claimed that this method was used to eliminate any dry flour lumps that remained after the fermentolyse.) there were no large lumps, but I tried the technique anyway. The frissage allowed the dough to progressively absorb the added water. I kept this up, adding water as the dough took it until all of the water (75% hydration) was absorbed. The dough was not moderately slack, but not extremely so. Next, because of the slack dough Slap & Folds were performed. Didn’t count them (~80-120) but continued until the dough “came together” and showed signs of strength. Set aside in a bowl to BF, with 30g in Aliquot jar. Once relaxed the dough was coil folded 4 times at about 20 min intervals. The last CF had the dough strengthened. The BF @ 73F got away from me (you’ve got to watch closely towards the end, as things really speed up) and the jar showed a 34% increase in height. Bulk retarded the dough @ 38F for 23 hr. Divided rested 15min, preshaped in to light balls rested 25min, and shaped rather aggressively to build hoop strength. 4 total folds during the shape. Proofed in couche (seam side up) for 30min. I think they were a little overproofed but the sprang very well in the oven.
Baked these differently. Pre-heat to 475F, moved stone lose to top. Pre-heated a cast iron pan with about a half inch of crushed lava rocks in the bottom. Took an opened tin can and put a small hole in the bottom that would allow 1 cup of water to drain out in ~5 min. The can with water was placed on top the hot cast iron pan and set on the floor of the oven. The loaves were also spritzed with spray water. The effects of the spray will be shown below.
The side of the bread that rec’d the sprayed water was shiny. The back side that didn’t receive any water was dull. I plan to pull out the shelf holding the stone so the water can be spritzed from directly above so as to wet all exposed sides of the baguette.
After closely following your method, my baguettes are resembling yours. Have you solved the broken strap issue yet if so, what is the fix?
I think the weaker flour and higher hydration has a tendency to bake up super thin and delicate crust. Because of this, the straps to break during the expansion of the large oven spring.
What say you?
Are a feature not a bug. It means your getting a thin crust and good oven spring anyway. I find that if I do shorter scores they hold together better. I see 4 on yours and I have been using 6 or 7 with some sucess. I have a batch of T65 in the fridge to bake in the morning so we shall see. Your getting a nicer crumb now with proper hydration and it will open up even more if you stop slapping and flogging it around. Go easy on the delicate french flower. I was thinking of other ways to enjoy the the T65 and although it borders on blasphemy, I imagine it would make a mean biscuits and gravy.
Rather than spritzing with water Dan why don’t you quickly brush water on, it will be much more even a coating?
I have been “painting” water on my loaves for the last few bakes. No noticeable difference.
Sometimes things don't go swimmingly and the little errors start to cause defects that keeps the bake from optimal results. My wife says I am too critical of my efforts and she is probably right. I married Miss Right and I found out later her first name is Always. This batch is another T65 at 73% again. I didn't do the last fold after it had been in the fridge and this morning the rise was too much with a big gas bubble in the top. It was not a strong dough but very sticky and I should have put more tension in the pre-shape. The shaping was not pleasurable and the steaming experiment with the wet towel on a sheet pan with boiling water added did not generate the initial blast of steam I get from having no towel. The oven spring was underwhelming and the crust was a little dull. The beauty of the T65 Auguste is the flavor and texture will not be denied and the overall results were better than anticipated.
I like the results better with the curved bladed lame and the straps were not obliterated by oven spring.
The crumb was not my best work and the flavor and texture were not as good as other bakes but still enjoyable.
Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody,
When I paint my masterpiece. B Dylan
They look much better than you give credit for. Really nice long even shaping.
You are always so kind. I had high hopes going in of putting it all together but baguettes can be a cruel mistress. This CB has helped me focus more on shaping since appearance has becomes the criteria for success but flavor still rules at home.
Yeah, I still haven’t been able to get everything right on a bake. My shaping still isn’t really good. I don’t feel like I’ve made much progress in that respect. However, you are 100% right Don, flavour and I would add texture really are most important.
a bad baguette even with your hands tied behind your back! Maybe not up to your own personal standard, but there's world of baguette bakers out there that would kill to be able to get a bake like this one. Personally, I might maim, but wouldn't actually kill for this bake.
Accidentally, yesterday Danni referred to my baguettes as braguettes! I think that we stragglers on this CB can all adopt that term for our own work!
And when the bake going into the oven isn't what you expected coming out, it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Thanks Alan. "Braguettes" thats priceless. Is it just us or is it the baguette that causes us to have fits of OCD. Open crumb does not lead to an open mind.
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a bleeding
Just out of the oven and not quite ready to slice. Some more info here -
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/65940/au-canada
Looks like baguettes straight out of an oven in a French bakery. Looking forward not a crumb shot.
A makeshift couche using a towel lined with parchment paper. Towel underneath and parchment paper on top. Proof the baguette seam side up (you can use books or the like to keep the sides from collapsing) then when ready flatten out the couche, roll the baguette by tipping the side of the parchment paper and transfer to the oven. No boards, no handling of the dough after shaping... just pick up the parchment paper and onto the tray or pizza stone.
Getting frustrated with the longer Bouabsa form, I tried to incorporate some Don changes. Ultimately found a hybrid method to use which i think will work with more practice and changes going forward.
The shaggiest of masses for the yeasted Autolyse - 20 min. Bassinage with salted water - incorporate, rest 5 min. covered, 20 French Folds, rest 5 min covered, 20 FFs. Into container for 60 min BF with soft letter folds at 20,40,60 min. Retard. Divide ~15 hrs later, I returned to a more aggressive but still soft pre-shape. 20 min rest, shape, couche seam side down. Bake at 480dF.
In order to get a more extensible dough, I added 0.25% or 1.5g of NY along with the IDY just after water hit the mixing bowl. The dough was neither more nor less extensible and in fact ran the gamut of lengths - from 16-19 inches, as two of the three receded in length, creating a Mutt & Jeff look post-shaping. Dang.
Scoring showed some improvement, but still lacking consistency. The NY administered a loss of the crisp sweet flavor of the bread even at this small dosage. A most serious downside. The one bright spot is that the crumb is starting to catch up a little to the others around these parts.
Next go-round the NY will be gone and I'll drop the 75% hydration a few clicks. It's hard to fathom that 0.25% of NY would effect the flavor so much, and still yield no perceivable help on extensibility. A solution may be to create a longer preshape.
350g x 3 baguettes
In think you're trying to fix something that doesn't need fixing. Looks great to me.
Btw what's NY?
Nutritional Yeast = NY. You probably know that it is high in glutathione and increases the extensibility of the dough.
Thanks Benny. The only things I use are the the flours and trying to get the best out them. I don't add in anything other than for flavour.
My inconsistent shaping is magnified on the longer batons. To all that remain steadfast on this CB, we are never as close to "perfection" as we wish to be. Continuous improvement is a worthy goal.
Really nice crumb Alan, two thumbs up.
have started to come around with the more open Benito Crumb. Some tweaks here and there, and then seeking while geeking, tweaking the tweak, so to speak.
Whether I can maintain that consistency remains to be seen.
alan
I found that changing from an 8" cylinder to an 11" cylinder as the pre-shape made a lot of difference in how easily it rolled out to 21". Also started by cutting 9" long strips of dough off the BF mass - that eliminated some of the minor manipulations required to get things to pre-shape the way I wanted. And I rest a full 30-35 minutes before final shaping. But I am not using your delicate French T65 and I am not running the hydration up to 70+% either.
I've been beseeched by the cognoscenti on this CB to take the plunge and invest in the "wonderdust", as Don so elegantly put it. And always resisted. Partly because I'm a recalcitrant, partly because I have something like 200 lbs. of various flours bursting out of every nook in our apartment here. And in fairness, although not really being fair to myself, I can't quite pull the trigger on forking over that much for flour.
OTOH, I mentioned to my wife, related to Don's by name ;-) , that I just passed 70 years of toil on this earth last week, and perhaps she could spring for a bag as a BD present. I'm not sure whether she already forgot, so I'll give her a gentle nudge with my cattle prod later today.
I'm with you Doc on the length of the pre-shape. Although I like the Abel pre-shape method, I find that I can get more tension in it and may go back to my old way, which I did for this bake. I'll make the effort to extend the length of the baton at that point, as well as take your suggestion of a longer rest between pre-shape and final shape.
Happy Belated Birthday Alan. You’ll need to text her a reminder of your birthday wish.
Alan, what flour did you use? Surprising that 75% hydration and lightly worked dough would be elastic and not extensible. And NY on top of it all!
what is your new found “hybrid” method?
Don's contribution; minimal mixing, gentler BF folds, tighter pre-shape.
I forever "over mixed" the initial pre-autolyse components. For these past few bakes, stopping at gingerly ensuring that the flour will hydrate and nothing more. The true "shaggy mass" approach. So far I like the change.
Then the severe cutting back on French Folds and letting the BF develop the gluten structure.
With an extensible dough like this during the BF folds, I historically would look to get a maximum stretch, rather than now being kinder to the dough. But I stuck with my 3 Letter Fold, 60 min. BF before retard.
And returned to couching seam side down, having seen no evidence of an advantage otherwise. The downside to me was the additional manipulation of the couched dough between linen and baking peel. My couche is long enough that it complete encircles the dough and remains in contact with the full circumference of the batons.
The lack of extensibility was really surprising, considering the addition of the NY. However, even if this trend continues, the NY at even this minuscule level imparts an off-taste stealing away the magnificent clean flavor of the Bouabsa bread. And likely won't see further action in future bakes.
Your signature is on the top side. I am somewhat surprised they look so much like your other batons. Amazing blisters on the crust. Would the hybrid method involve a cold proof like your other bakes? Seam down says old habits are tough to break. Is it our ovens that is producing a different look to everyones attempt at the same recipe? Everyones crumbs looks nearly the same but the outside is another matter entirely.
I have found that keeping the dough temp near 74 has helped me with extensibility as Abel stated in his recipe. Just say no to the nutritional yeast
unique exterior to our bakes. I think that it was Mr. Hamelman who said that he could ID the bread's baker by the scoring alone.
I explained the hybrid style to Dan above, but kept to my old cold proofing tricks - pulling the dough out a few hours before the bake to divide and shape it and then back to retard. I pull the dough out only about 15 minutes prior to loading onto the oven peel.
After a few bakes, if the pattern holds and I continue employing these similar steps, the hybridization of my methodology will cease and it will become biznez as usual.
We should never be too good as to deny that there might be a better way.
"Just say no to the nutritional yeast" - wasn't that a Nancy Reagan slogan?
The intruduction of 50% Canadian T55 reuslted in a less extensible dough but the Canadian loaf burst much better. Go figure ! Could have been just shaping of the Canadian loaf. Regarding your shaping on the long loaves. I am not sure if you are still rocking these longies but if you rolling, one thing I learned was that it's much easier to avoid kinks (which I think I'm seeing on your longies) is to spread your fingers and roll while avoiding your palms. ie, stop rolling when the loaf his the area under your knuckles. Also, I try to push downwards only and let the loaf extend itself as opposed to forcing outwards. I find that if you use your palms and force both down and outwards you will almost always kink the loaf and that translates to funky final shapes. As with slinging pizzas, its hard to get a good pie if you never focused on perfect round pie. So in keeping with that mantra and yours btw (the amplification rule), gotsta go for a perfect cylinder ;)
I thought most Canadian flour was ~14% protein and French flour was substantially less. I would think that would dominate any comparison between them.
Doc most of the Canadian flour I’ve seen on our selves is about 13.3% protein, of course who knows how accurate this is the packages usually state 4 G protein per 30 g serving. I’ve been able to track down a 10% protein all purpose flour that is from Quebec Canada, but it is not widely available and only found thus far is specialty food markets.
These are my first go at an all white flour 10% protein, in this case from Quebec, that is sourdough and no commercial yeast. After the good results I had with the sesame semolina sourdough baguettes without commercial yeast I decided I needed to give it a go again but with the Quebec white flour. These are essentially Abel’s baguettes au levain without the commercial yeast and hydration increased to 70% during bassinage and finally encrusted with poppy seeds. So I’ll just call them Yorkville Baguettes since that is the neighborhood that I live in ?
These were done in my now usual fashion with very little intervention, so only Rubaud mixing when adding the salt to ensure that it is well mixed. There were no slap and folds done. I did my usual two coil folds, in between telemedicine appointments (don’t tell my patients) so not quite at the usual 50 mins intervals. Bulk fermentation was monitored with an aliquot jar once again ending when the jar showed a 20% rise. The dough was put into a 2ºC fridge for bulk cold retard and stayed there for a bit more than 24 hours.
The following day I did a pre-shape into loose cylinders followed by a 25 mins bench remembering that the last time I used this flour it was extremely extensible. Shaping when pretty well for me and these were each then dampened on a wet towel and “rolled” on a cookie tray with poppy seeds. They were transferred to my floured couche seam side up thinking that the weight of the dough would help press the poppy seeds firmly into the dough to help attach them. They were given a 40 min bench rest. With 10 mins left to the bench rest the oven was turned on to pre-heat at 500ºF. At the 40 min mark the baguettes were put back into the fridge to firm up and stayed there for 40 mins.
Finally they were baked as usual with steam at 480ºF for 13 minutes and then 10 mins at 480ºF rotating them at the halfway mark then the temperature was dropped to 450ºF and the baguettes were given another 3 minutes and then they were done.
I’m super happy with how these turned out. I think these are my best baguettes to date and the ones I’m most proud of, there isn’t too much I’m disappointed with, not to say that they are perfect, but I’m really pleased. The shaping was probably my most successful, the crust is thin, crisp and really delicious with the poppy seeds.
“ They were given a 40 min bench rest. With 10 mins left to the bench rest the oven was turned on to pre-heat at 500ºF. At the 40 min mark the baguettes were put back into the fridge to firm up and stayed there for 40 mins.”
40 min rest then put into fridge for 40 min.
were the baguettes well fermented before putting in fridge? I ask because the dough at 2C should continue to ferment.
The ears are beautiful. And at 70% hydration and 10% protein!
so, 20% would be your preferred increase at this time?
I will be baking tomorrow. May try the seeded loaves. Yours look so nice.
Thanks Dan, I am so happy with this bake, it is one of the few that I won’t complain too much about any faults.
I actually had the aliquot jar stay with the dough throughout bulk and into cold retard and out on the counter whenever the dough was on the counter and back in the fridge when the dough was back in the fridge. At the end of cold retard en bulk, the aliquot jar was back down to the starting point, this is the exact thing I’ve seen in the past. By the time the shaped baguettes were at the end of their 40 mins bench rest, the aliquot jar was back up to 20’ish percent rise. I know this isn’t really representative of the degree of bulk, but this is more or less what I’ve seen in the past when I’ve done this, mostly out of curiosity. The baguettes at that point were puffier but didn’t look anywhere near a puffy as I used to have them when I used to bulk rise to 35%. So I’m not sure that they were well fermented, they certainly didn’t look like the 35% rise baguettes in the past, definitely less proofed looking than those. Yes I counted on them continuing to proof as they chilled out in the fridge.
I all about the seeded crusts now on baguettes. I’m also totally happy that an all sourdough raised baguette that I can make can still have that thin crisp crust that I want in a baguette. For the longest time I thought wrongly that I needed to use commercial yeast to get a thin crust baguette, that is not the case at all.
A few slices of that and you won't be able to pass your drug test.
Thanks Doc I’ll try to avoid drug tests this week as we eat these opiate covered baggies.
Benny, talk us through your process for rolling the torpedoes. How do you get the even reduction in circumference towards the ends? I imagine the dough was extensible and slack?
Yes you’re right the dough was very extensible, I have to say that I’m quite pleased with how this Quebec flour handles and tastes. I’m sure that I haven’t had the pleasure of working with French T55 or T65 but I’m happy enough with this flour that I’m not looking anymore. I posted videos of what I did with this bake. I didn’t post them to this tread instead posting them in my blog. I didn’t think you guys would be interested in my videos. As you may know I’ve been using Abel’s shaping methods and do find that they work for me. They are less complex than what I used to do. I’m not sure I could explain well, I’ll post the videos below. I’m almost embarrassed to post them for you guys to critique, but here they are.
???