Our latest Community Bake (CB) featured Baguettes and was a hit. Those that actively participated learned to bake baguettes of Artisan Quality. It seems the natural progression from there would be Ciabatta, the Italians answer to the French Baguette.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia -
"Ciabatta was first produced in 1982 by Arnaldo Cavallari, who called the bread ciabatta polesana after Polesine, the area he lived in. The recipe was subsequently licensed by Cavallari's company, Molini Adriesi, to bakers in 11 countries by 1999. Cavallari and other bakers in Italy were concerned by the popularity of sandwiches made from baguettes imported from France, which were endangering their businesses, and so set about trying to create an Italian alternative with which to make sandwiches. The recipe for ciabatta came about after several weeks trying variations of traditional bread recipes and consists of a soft, wet dough made with high gluten flour."
IAll bakers of every skill level are invited to participate. Novice bakers are especially welcomed and plenty of assistance will be available for the asking. The Community Bakes are non-competitive events that are designed around the idea of sharing kitchens with like minded bakers around the world, "cyber style". To participate, simply photograph and document your Ciabatta bakes. You are free to use any formula and process you wish. Commercial Yeast, sourdough, or a combination of both are completely acceptable. Once the participants gets active, many bakers will post their formulas and methods. There will be many variations to choose from.
Here is a list of our past CBs. They remain active and are monitored by numerous users that are ready, willing, and able to help if assistance is needed. A quick browse of past CBs will provide an accurate picture of what these events are all about.
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SOMETHING NEW - Since many of the CBs grow quite large, it can become difficult to follow the progress of each individual baker. Things get very spread out. In an attempt to alleviate congestion and consolidate individual baker’s bread post, the following is suggested.
- Post all bakes in the CB
- Copy and paste each bake into a dedicated BLOG post
- Paste all bakes into a single BLOG
- You may copy and paste the link to your BLOG post in the individual bake post as a reference for those that want to view your progess and evolution.
All participating bakers that consolidate their bakes the a BLO.g post will be linked in the original post for all to see.
Links to baker’s BLOGs that have posted a compiled list of bakes for this CB
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If you haven't eaten Ciabatta, you are in for a major surprise. The flavor, texture, and ultra thin crust make any sandwich special. Please join us and post your good, bad, and ugly bakes. Many old timers are probably tired of reading this (It is a personal mantra of mine), BUT... "we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes".
The following formula and process comes from Jeffrey Hamelman's book, " Bread - a baker's book of techniques and recipes". It is also available in Kindle version on Amazon.
NOTE - since the Total Dough Weight in the spreadsheet below was scaled to 1000 grams you can easily change the dough weight by multiplying each ingredient.
For example you decide to bake a 500 gram loaf.
Simply multiply the flour(570) by .5 to get 285. Water 371x.5=185.5 (round to 186).
Let's say you want 1500 grams of Total Dough Weight.
Flour - 570x1.5=855 and Water - 556.5
Does this with each and every ingredient to resize the formula to fit your needs.
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Below is a formula from Michael Wilson.
In Italy Ciabatta is mostly a CY leavened bread and the standard formula as per Giorilli is as follows:
Biga with 80% of the flour:400g bread flour180g water1.3g Instant Dry Yeast OR 4g fresh cake yeast Rise at 61-64F (16-18C) for 16-18 hrs Final dough:All of the biga
100g flour
220g water5g diastatic malt
10g salt
- Mix using the bassinage method until silky smooth.
- Rise in bulk until double, cut pieces, shape dust with plenty of flour and let leaven until ready.
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Ciabatta con pasta madre biga *** SEE THIS LINK ***
(SD biga) submitted by Michael Wilson
Biga: 16.5hrs @ ~18°C
300g flour
125g water
30g LM (50% hydration), refreshed twice
Main dough:
75g flour
3.5g diastatic malt
7.5g salt
200g water
15g olive oil
84.8% total hydration
81% PFF
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While that is basically the standard approach, I am conscious that these authentic formulas don't necessarily translate all that well using American flours. With that in mind perhaps Craig Ponsford's formula is most appropriate. I'll see if I can track it down..********************************************************
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Danny
Mike, “I’ve seen the light”!
Ciabatta cries out for biga...
The flavor is iconic. Nothing (as far as Ciabatta) that I know of compares with the flavor.
Thanks for educating us to “Italian Ciabatta”. Up until now, I was making French Ciabatta <LOL>
Wow the last bake looks perfect to me! And thank you for sharing the whole story of improvements.
I'd like to replicate the last one as a starting point for pure sourdough ciabatta, could you clarify the formula? Was it 90% prefermented flour in the final dough like in Abel's formula, but the biga itself had 76% of its flour prefermented? Or did you mean 76% flour prefermented in the biga?
Ilya, here is the formula.
Total Dough
100% strong flour
75% water
2.2% salt
The biga used 76% of the total flour and the hydration was 50%. The biga was leavened with sourdough only. Commercial yeast was not used in this formula.
I will be setting up a spreadsheet the more closely adheres to Abel’s formula linked above. It will be posted soon.
Let me know if I can help.
Danny
Perfect, thank you Dan! Does this look right, for 1000 g flour? https://fgbc.dk/vhl I like foodgeek's calculator, has useful functions. But doesn't allow 50% hydrated starter, so had to do 51% :)
The only variable you didn't mention was inoculation for the biga, I think.
(edit: fixed hydration to 75%)
Ilya, your calculations look correct. Good Luck. Hope you like the bread as much as I do.
Great, thank you, I'll try to set up the biga tomorrow night I think. Just converted the starter to low hydration this evening, and will give another feed tomorrow.
Ilya, if low hydration starters are new for you, THIS LINK may provide some useful information.
Actually, the entire post is pertinent for this bread.
I noticed you are making a pretty large batch. I think you’ll find that the keeping qualities of a sd Biga will be much better than CY. And as the breads ages the flavor increases...
Thank you, I've seen that thread but haven't read in detail yet, will check it out.
I just set it to 1000 g flour total for easier comparison, I wouldn't make such a huge batch when experimenting :) I'll probably make 800 g total for two 400 g ciabattas. But sourdough bread keeps very well, I agree - although I think adding whole grain helps a lot in this regard as well.
poolish and 72% overall hydration. 100% bread flour.
Ciabatta, cheese, flavored oil, pasta, and wine. I’m hungry...
Red wine, ciabatta and cheese. Perfect affinities.
Ciabatta with its high hydration allows for the making of some very light weight loaves. I think low density is characteristic of ciabatta. Above 4 cm3/g should be ideal.
After Will posted Signore Giorilli's formula, I knew it was next up for me.
Last night I created the 45% hydration biga. It was a lot of work by hand. I split up the workload by whisking the water and IDY together then I began adding in the flour a rounded soupspoon full at a time, continuing to whisk until I had to switch to hand mixing on the counter. When that became too difficult and dry I just covered the work up for an hour to allow the flour to hydrate and then added the remaining 1/3 of the flour. It was hard to do.
Into the wine cooler overnight (too warm in the apartment here), which is set for the mid-50dF range, and then out on the counter this morning. It looks a world different than others I've seen. Much smoother here than elsewhere.
For the final mix, in went the water and flour, holding back 10% of the water for bassinage. I cut up the biga into small chunks and began adding them to my Kitchen Aid mix with the dough hook, one at a time. The biga did not want to play nice! I had to squish the dough with my hand quite a bit to get it begin to incorporate. After that it was smooth sailing to get the customary slapping and lifting and dropping of the dough to indicate completion of the mix.
Mixing difference between the levain and biga versions: Levain - room temperature water straight from the faucet and the dough temped at 75.5dF upon completion. Biga - refrigerator water at ~38dF and the dough temped at 79dF. This version took much more effort and mixing friction to complete the mix. Cold water was a necessity.
From here I followed my standard M.O. By the third fold, 80 min into the 2 hr BF, the dough was really soft and billowy. After the divide and shaping into short barrels, onto the couche to await their fate. How to keep them shaped without spreading out? Here's the secret...Press the barrel of a wine bottle against the couche to maintain their shape.
A 45 min proof. These had an extensibility issue. I couldn't easily extend their shape on the way from couche to peel as I otherwise do. The dough resisted and I wasn't going to get into an argument with it. So these three ciabattas are shorter than my typical length. They were also resistant to browning any darker, so I began the final 2 minute venting at the 30 min bake mark.
incredible crust with a soft and light crumb, although looking a little tight. I can't tell you whether this was more flavorful than the last, as they are both really tasty and clean to the tongue.
Comparing the crumb from levain bake
330g x 3 ciabatta
I'm unsure whether all the work that went into building the biga was worth it, other than to experiment. Maybe I'll change the biga hydration to something like 65% from 45% to see how that works out. Regardless, I at least got to experiment with the "original" version.
Wow Alfonso great minds think alike i just worked out my dough for 1000g and got the biga started this morning and lo and behold turned on the TFL and its exactly what you have done. i too found the Biga resisting quite a bit and settled on leaving it for an hour and then giving it a little more work , which is the stage im at now. I've used some Caputo Classico and some multi grain mix in the biga and will need to go out for another bag of the Caputo later today.
Regards Derek
I just watched the video link below in Ilya's comment, and it seems like I did it all wrong and why my finished biga looks so different from the others I've seen. Completely overworked - both the biga ingredients as well as my hands. As the vide states, the idea is to not create a gluten structure in the biga. In that case, it is worth another try, and then see how the mixing step goes.
Well, isn't that part of the purpose of the CB? To gather together a lot of disparate information to better understand a process?
Thanks for sharing your tip of using wine bottles to support the couche on the ends, great tip.
Benny
Why is the bigga so stiff? I thought the instructions were to not have any gluten development in the bigga and I don't understand why that should be true either. My impression is that the bassinage water is held back because if it is incorporated into the dough before the gluten is fully developed, then the gluten does not get developed without a lot more mixing. But I get acceptable results with a 60% hydration levain/bigga that is only 28% of the flour. There is clearly an upper limit on how much of the flour can be in the bigga and that would appear to be around 80%. And why is that true? I just do not do well when I am asked to follow instructions that are insufficiently rationalized. I am sure there is a reason, I just don't know what it is.
After watching Ilya's link below, what you state does seem to be a key factor - avoiding the gluten development. Apparently all we are looking for in the biga is the long slow development, and to avoid the type of development that I did. In which case, I am sure to revisit the 45% hydration formula again.
As far as any rationalizations. My first instinct is to follow a formula without trying to rationalize. I don't need to always understand the underlying reasons behind something in order to proceed. Personally I'm okay with that approach - for me.
Now, this may be the authentic biga or ciabatta biga, but that does not mean that I'm stuck on doing it this way going forward. If that were the case, I'd have to throw out a large part of my baking repertoire. I bake more for my pleasure and the craft itself, but by no means need I adhere to an original formula - which I almost never do anyway.
And here, as I just stated in the prior comment, is the strength of the CB. Where we can all gather together to attempt to understand a process and foster improvements with our "herd mentality".
Some nice looking ciabatte there alan. I commend your efforts wrestling with this but as you are coming to realise this formula can be pulled off more effortlessly with further bakes I am sure.
Danny asked me to contribute an authentic formula but I knew from day one this could present some challenges. Firstly Giorilli's formula is designed with Italian flours in mind. North American (NA) wheat differs to European and Italian wheat in a number of ways, not just protein %. The Biga pre-ferment is often used to gain more strength something NA wheat flour really doesn't need more of. Specifically a biga will help to increase tenacity and allow for elevated hydration in the final dough. And apart from the differences in raw materials there will be I presume a certain unfamiliarity with this formula and process.
I hope you're not too disheartened and will attempt this again soon. A good result nonetheless!
Michael
Michael, what you say makes sense, but the thought occurs to me that Italian bakers often recommend Manitoba flour for biga. As I understand it, Manitoba flour normally comes from grain grown in the USA. So aren't we Europeans actually using US flour, at least partially, in our ciabattas?
And maybe if our American baking friends can find the "right" homegrown flour, it could be just perfect for a biga, no?
Lance
Lance, Manitoba is actually a Canadian province so Manitoba flour should be from Manitoba Canada, unless the name is being used differently than I had always assumed. However, your point is still true, it should be quite a strong flour with typically high protein like most flour grown here.
Although Manitoba is in Canada, I have read that most grain for Manitoba flour is grown in the USA. It's a strange world, isn't it?
Lance
OK that’s just wrong LOL.
Benny
has a picture of the US flag on the front of the package.
http://www.mulinocaputo.it/en/flour/la-linea-professionale/manitoba
I suppose they are using the word as a category or type of flour, not as a place of origin.
Quite right my friend. The Italians simply use the word "Manitoba" to describe flours that are what we might describe as "strong". I don't think there are any regulations on this but I believe the flour must be W350 or higher to be classed as "Manitoba", regardless of what blends or origins of wheat are in the mix.
Italians have long looked up to, and probably dreamed about the wheat that was grown in North America (the continent). Historically, the wheats grown in Italy were very weak, due in-part to overuse of the land causing nutrient depletion.
"Manitoba" symbolises that yearn for strong flour because huge yields of high quality wheat have been and still are grown there.
It's interesting to compare the Italians' use of strong flour when available with the situation in France, where the flour is also generally weak, but back in the day the government decreed that all flour had to be made from homegrown wheat.
Lance
Interesting indeed. Our approach here in the UK was to cross-breed English cultivars with Canadian ones, while still importing from Canada for specialist flours, and so it is the case unto to this day.
Can't do much about the climate here though!
Pre WW1, the other highly sought after strong flour for British bakers was that made from Hungarian wheat.
Lance
I forgot to mention that another solution to weak flours in France was the wide and accepted use of ascorbic acid.
Indeed the stronger wheat flours available in Italy are cut with North American wheats. And those that are very strong may be wholly North American in origin. The same applies here in the UK. My staple white flour of choice from Marriage's (Essex, UK) is their "superfines", which is a blend of traditional English varieties and some Canadian wheat. It is refined, somewhere between 00 and 0 and strong but balanced, perfect for my purposes.
I digress, to my point, Italian millers produce flours to meet very exact specifications. For nearly all white flours, particularly from common wheat, it is important that they achieve a good balance of tenacity vs extensibility, i.e. P/L = 0.55, or there abouts. During milling they can control flour particles size and pay much attention to the formulation to create a product that meets the spec.
Manitoba flours are often type 0 and use the heart of the grain.
about a thing or two (close to a R. DeNiro line - This Boy's Life) in the past 6 hours. Ilya posted a link below for a 45% hydr. biga in the making. Already mixed it and it will be awaiting a full ciabatta mix tomorrow. Without this guidance, I'd still be thinking I did it correctly.
I use King Arthur AP flour at 11.7% protein, and in general as stated somewhere earlier in this CB, I've made consistent ciabatte as above, with supermarket brands, tritordeum, higher hydration. biga, now this 45% version, and my usual go-to - 100% hydr. AP levain. So the task at hand doesn't faze me, nor does the idea that I might not have the correct flour, I seem to usually make-do with what I have ;-) . This was a learning lesson, well experienced and now learned!
I like having the experience of making the Giorilli formula, why wouldn't I? Although as mentioned I will usually go off the rails and take formulae in my own direction anyway. And as can be well evidenced in both the baguette CB and already developing in this one, there is a lot of group-think and support going on around here.
Thanks for your kind words and support, alan
Biga video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IzCbv97Tn8
No way my flour would get hydrated so easily! I should have tried it with Italian 00 maybe.
Thanks for sharing that video, he makes it look easy.
I haven’t made a biga for my ciabatta, I wanted to see how a 100% hydration levain recipe would work. I should be baking it later today the dough is in cold retard en bulk and will need some bench final proofing today.
I decided to try Joy Ride Coffee’s formula with a few changes making it all AP flour except for the levain.
Benny
I made a biga yesterday and just mixed the dough. I'll report later how it goes. I find it very tricky to monitor fermentation in 50% hydration starter that I used for more authenticiy, and same for the biga - not much happens over a very long time...
A demonstration of my own misunderstanding of what a mature 45% hydration biga process is and what the result should be. Back to the drawing board, or at least the mixing bowl.
alan
I found it nearly impossible to avoid some gluten development when making a biga with bread flour yesterday. I don't think it's possible with non-Italian flour, maybe only 00 would work like that. Let's hope we figure it out here!
That being the case, would making a biga be better by using a lower protein flour?
That would be my uneducated guess - but also it should withstand a very long fermentation time...
That's why I was thinking 00 flour. It can be still relatively high protein, but it works well with lower hydration, and finer particles get hydrated easier. My hypothesis, at least...
I love Vito Iacopelli - he is fearless about giving you the secrets of how to do whatever he is teaching. And he has tons of useful, interesting YouTube videos that you can watch. He usually does them in both English and Italian.
The point that Vito makes is that you don't want to develop any gluten in the process of making the biga, and one way to do that is to make sure that there is no "dough" produced in the process. But 45% hydration does not seem to be part of that spec, just not enough water to make a dough. And the way he does it is by pouring the water over the flour and just shaking them together until the water is absorbed. But depending on the flour you are using that might be 43% or 35% or 48% or 55%, just use what it takes. The remainder of the water needed to make it up to (in his case) 65% hydration is worked in after the biga has fermented (1 hr at room temp then 24 hr @ 4°C). And the salt is dissolved into the water before the water is bassinaged into the biga, and then a little bit of additional reserved water is added at the end to finish. And you can mix in the water in by hand or by machine.
The lesson I take away is that you want to preferment all of the flour (at least partially) without developing any gluten when you make the biga. And then you develop the gluten as you add the salted water to raise the hydration from 45% to 65% (or from wherever you start, up to wherever you finish - 80% in the case of ciabatta).
My suspicion is that 55% might be fine if you are careful not to develop any gluten (which means you have no unabsorbed water when you make the biga - which is probably a fairly wide margin depending on your specific flour).
He uses 0.15% IDY to make the biga and then adds another 0.15% IDY when he adds the salt and bassinages in the remaining water and develops the gluten. And then he ferments it for another hour before dividing. After dividing and shaping he then lets it ferment for another two hours before he makes pizza out of it. If he was making ciabatta it would then go to the oven, but the process might be to just shape the ciabatta instead of making pizza balls which would mean perhaps three hours of final fermentation (probably until it is ready depending on the temperature and the yeast and all of the other process steps that determine how long it takes to be ready for the oven).
The same method could no doubt be used to make baguettes [think 100% hydration levain, and a 10hr cold autolyse at 60% hydration with a little IDY (or none)]. There would be almost no gluten developed until you combine the autolysed flour and the levain, then you develop the gluten, ferment the mixed dough for a couple of hours before dividing then 35 min rest before shaping then another hour or so before baking. Sound familiar? Adjust for the flour you have.
I'm probably being picky, but Vito's biga looks farinosa (floury) to me (I'm learning all the Italian jargon!). One of the biga sins, apparently.
More biga resources here and here.
Lance
See here for all of my Ciabatta CB bakes
I've tried Maurizio's ciabatta recipe before the CB 3 times, and was never satisfied with the result. So was quite keen to sort it out.
I followed Dan's 4th bake recipe. Here is the formula: https://fgbc.dk/vi6
Over two feeds I converted my 100% hydration rye starter into a 50% hydration BF starter. I found it tricky to monitor fermentation in it, since the growth was with such low hydration is not that obvious... So if i am being honest, I couldn't be sure in the strength of the starter, bit just went ahead hoping for the best. I made a ~50% hydration biga in the evening and let it ferment for 13 hours at RT (which is higher than recommended 14-16°C, but overnight it probably got close to that). Here is what it looked like:
[url=https://ibb.co/RNpq47p][/url]
Here is what it looked like in the morning when I was about to use it (the whiter parts is where I poked it a bit to see what was going on):
[url=https://ibb.co/StYNWYD][/url]
It certainly got much softer, but didn't have a particularly strong smell, slight acidity.
Did some slap&folds, left for 30 min. Did more slap&folds with wet hands/surface, so increased the hydration a bit addiitonally. Left for 30 min.
4x stretch&folds each 30 min mark.
Then 1.5 hrs bulk after that. Dough felt light and puffy, but not bubbly.
Divided in two and shaped into rough tubes, similar to what was shown in a video above.
Here they are on the couche:
[url=https://ibb.co/FzhtF8t][/url]
Proofed in the fridge for a bit due to life, then took out and proofed for a bit more, until (I think) it was mostly done, and preheated the oven.
Stretched them out when moving to the peel, dimpled with fingers and baked with steam at 250°C on steel. Here made one of the stupidest mistakes and pushed one ciabatta too far and it partially slid off the steel... So the end was hanging off, stretching with heating and eventually burning off, very sad.
Baked for 20 min with steam and further 17 min without.
And here is what I got, not very exciting - you can see the burned end on one of them:
[url=https://ibb.co/QdWkK4z][/url]
And here is the crumb from the one that I pushed too far:
[url=https://ibb.co/sqFVhKV][/url]
I'll share if the other one, or the other end of this one, looks different.
Taste is quite nice, the crust is thin and somewhat crispy. But is it even ciabatta? Not very open at all!
Some areas are really quite dense. Maybe I didn't properly mix the biga into the final dough? Or underproofed?
The taste is good though, can taste the sourness. And my girlfriend liked it, actually.
Hi Ilya,
Not too surprised that the crumb didn't open. My understanding is that ciabatta dough must be intensively mixed, creating a very strong gluten network. The resultant dough coming out of my mixer is very stretchy, wet looking and glistens. I don't think just a set or two of French Folds will cut it.
Also, and I don't know whether you did this, but the stretch and folds should be increasingly soft and gentle. By the time that BF terminates, the dough in the container should be quite delicate and for the most part, very different than any other dough we work with.
I think that 250dC is too hot, maybe drop down to 240 or 235dC.Looking forward to the next bake. Troopers like you and Benny catch on really quickly.
alan
Thanks for the comments Alan!
I don't have a mixer, so have to make do with what I can! Should I do like 150x2 Slap & Folds? This dough wasn't super high hydration either, it felt quite developed to me, but maybe ciabatta requires a different level of gluten than usually?
I felt the dough getting more supple, so was more gentle later on. But again, if everything should be really special, maybe I didn't do it right either, I don't know.
OK, I'll drop the temp down a notch next time! With the steel especially, it get a lot of heat into the dough very quickly.
I'll keep working on this. Baguettes got mostly solved after one round of comments from the knowledgeable gurus here, I'm sure the ciabattas will give up eventually!
about how to do this without a mixer, perhaps a search around TFL and elsewhere will lead you to an answer. It may be hard to do as it is next to impossible to over-mix a dough with French Folds, but that is pretty close to what (my understanding) we are looking for with a ciabatta.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mixing+ciabatta+dough+by+hand
Also Mukgling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BjMBavA4g0 . She's fabulous and used to post on TFL once in a while.
Based on what you know of ciabattas then Alan, do you think that my ciabattas were underdeveloped? I hand mixed using slap and folds, then lamination and coil folds. I didn’t feel that the dough was underdeveloped.
I do have a mixer, but I worry about wearing the mechanism prematurely by mixing bread dough intensively, it is only a KA and I’ve read that the plastic gears will wear quickly if using it for bread dough and even moderate speeds. So I’ve been hesitant to do formulas that seem to require mechanical mixing.
which may, in reality, not be reality! -
Underproofed doughs will have weak(er) gluten structure where the overly active yeast, now in a death spiral feeding frenzy will burst through the gluten network and create large caverns throughout the bread while still supporting the outer dimensions of the crust.
Overproofed dough will have yeast that no longer has food to support its gas producing qualities and the dough may somewhat or completely collapse as the crust gelatinizes, or the crust sets and then there are gaps immediately under it as the dough settles while it bakes.
At least that is my belief as of now. Here's our "sourdough journey" guy with visuals of under & overproofed loaves explaining it at paint-drying speeds.
My Kitchen Aid mixer is the better part of 40 years old, and likely has metal gears. The only bread dough I mix in it is for a ciabatta or pan de cristal, so the hydration is pretty high. I've never had that problem of the more recent KAs having their geas stripped. So I can't recommend that anyone else necessarily try this, only reporting on what my mixer can do.
Look at Mukgling's process. PS I think Mukgling is a him and not a her.
Prior to the many posting here about biga I had already decided I’d try a non biga ciabatta recipe. One of the people I follow on YouTube, Joy Ride Coffee has a formula up that I decided to give a go. I decided to make the ciabatta with a 12% white flour I have left over from an early baguette bake and only used whole grain in the levain. The levain itself is my usual 100% hydration.
Flour and water mixed and autolyse x 1 hour.
Levain added (8% pre-fermented flour) and given 30 min rest.
Bassinage adding salt and enough water to bring hydration up to 80% and then olive oil added followed by slap and folds x 250. Followed by 1 hour rest
one Lamination then 3 sets of coil folds at 45 min intervals.
Unsure how far to take bulk fermentation I ended it at 25% (probably a mistake) and the dough went into cold retard until the following day.
RT bench rest x 1 hour then divide and shape. I snapped into a log, uncertain if that is appropriate for a ciabatta. Rested in the couche seam side up for 1.5 hours until finger poke left a small dent only popping back up slowly and partially.
Baked at 480ºF with steam for 13 mins and then 420ºF convection without steam until golden brown.
One ciabatta split on top, which I wasn’t expecting. This made me think that they may have been underproofed and I think they were somewhat.
The crust is quite thin and crisp while the crumb has a tender chew compared to most sourdough I make. The flavour is alright, I think that the Quebec flour at 10% protein has better flavour, it certainly is more yellow in colour.
Here is my wine bottle helper (cheap wine I’ll never drink is good for something finally)
and curious how you got a consistent barrel shape.
Underproofed? This webpage from Serious Eats should interest you...
"I shaped into a log, uncertain if that is appropriate for a ciabatta. " Let's see now. Do you want hamburger rolls? - if so, it is a terrible shape for a ciabatta. Do you want sandwich slices? - a good shape although the crumb is, er um, not right and a tad too open ;-) . Do you want a ciabatta that can be placed into a dinner basket, sliced and ready to dip into olive oil for example? - yes, correct shape. Do you want to make bruschetta? - again a good shape. ...
A personal taste, I dislike ciabatta that is flatland way wider than tall.
Ya want open crumb ciabatta? I'll raise your bid! from my earliest days 7 years ago...
This example of mine is really not good. The crust is dandy and the barrel shaping is there already, but the crumb is not desirable in the least.
alan
I shaped these almost like I pre-shape the baguette dough. Then 1.5 hour proofing in the couche with your idea of the wine bottle to support one side helped them to their final shape.
I’m really unsure what ciabatta crumb and crust should look like. Unlike baguettes which I’d eaten many before, I don’t think I’ve even eaten a good ciabatta and even then rarely ate a ciabatta.
folks, and there ain't nuttin' wrong with that. I like a really open crumb ciabatta myself. But as I found out, one can make a fabulous ciabatta with very modest sized holes. To me, the key to a great ciabatta (as though I'm an expert, not) is the thin crisp crust, and the very light (weight) soft interior with that "classic" ciabatta sweet and clean flavor.
Good luck making a ciabatta for bruschetta with giant open crumb. You'll be eating the food off your lap!
If you eat a good ciabatta then you'll know that nothing about it is similar to other breads we eat (except maybe for pan de cristal, but that crust shatters when bitten into).
The holes in ciabatta crumb remind me of guitar leads - the space between the notes can be just as important as the notes played.
Thanks again for your helpful feedback Alan.
I will give this a go again with the same formula and push bulk further, I think I ended it too soon. I’d like the crumb to look less underproofed, some more moderate holes and more evenly distributed without the denser areas is what I’ll strive for.
The crust is good, I really liked how thin and crisp it is.
I have not run this experiment so I would appreciate any guidance that I can get about what to expect.
Suppose I make up a batch of ciabatta dough by whatever means I happen to choose, and divide it into two parts. One part gets a letter fold and is placed seam side up in a couche, supported by wine bottles or 4x4s or a U-shaped pan, so that it has about a 1:1 aspect ratio while proofing. The other half gets the letter fold and is placed on a couche, again seam up, but is not supported on the sides during proof (allowed to flatten out driven by gravity and constrained by dough strength).
Both ciabatta are inverted and docked when they are loaded on the pans and baked using the same oven cycle (whether together or sequentially depends on other things but the objective is to give them as close to the same experience in the oven as I can arrange).
Can we predict in advance what the differences will be in the cross section and character of the baked ciabatta and explain why we expect that outcome?
It seems to me that when you invert the supported loaf onto the pan it is immediately exposed to the same forces that were causing the unsupported ciabatta to spread out. And when the oven heats the surface of the dough, the internal thermal environment is only slightly different between the two (depending to some extent on exactly how long it takes to get them from the couche into the oven). Then once the trapped CO2 begins to expand and the surface begins to set, the ciabatta behaves like a balloon and expands, constrained by the tension in the crust so that it tends to want to form a shape which minimizes the ratio of surface area to volume (spherical or cylindrical depending on the exact shape of the loaf). As it expands, the tendency to split open depends a lot on the thermal and dough properties, but the final height to width ratio could be the same or may be different.
The question is "should we expect the supported ciabatta to be significantly more barrel-shaped than the one that is unsupported?"
True or false? And why?
I’d think that the ciabatta supported during its time in the couche should be more significantly barrel-shaped than the unsupported one. I believe that its 3D gluten matrix and distribution of gases has been set in this shape and spent time in this shape so that even with temporary flattening from the transfer, it will “remember” its shape better than the ciabatta that spent no time in a barrel-shape.
A sample size of three indicates that the diameter of the finished ciabatta is dependent on the circumference of the dough piece that goes into the oven. There was a small increase in the circumference of each loaf but not a lot (~5-15%) - though the whole batch was mostly lacking in bread-making characteristics and both the supported and unsupported loaves resulted in an un-ciabatta-like crumb (moderately sour and chewy but tasty). And there remains a fairly long list of "should have"s that will be addressed in the future.
I took the bit between the teeth and decided to give this one a go my first Community bake and my first use of a Biga. I had some Italian Caputo Classico flour that i thought should be perfect , as it was i didnt have enough so added some multigrain for the biga. I worked out i would make a 1 kg dough and was pleased to see Alfonso posting his 1 kg batch. I too made the biga up by hand and probably put more into it than i needed to. The Biga was left at room temperature from 9.30am to 6.30 am so 21 hours.
I mixed the water and the flour as well as the malt and the added the biga a piece at a time this was all done by hand i added the salt after all the biga had been incorporated . I kept back some of the water but was concerned that the dough didnt look like it was the 1 kg that i had planned for , so weighed it and found it to be short by 120g . i then added the remaining water and enough flour to make up the deficit.
The dough was mixed by hand on the bench over the period of an hour with a couple of little breaks for the mixer as well as the dough. It was then placed into a bowl and given BF for an hour and then i had to put it in the fridge as we had to go out. Some 8 hours later the dough was taken from the fridge where it had risen quite a bit, it was divided into 3 x 330g pieces and degassed and handed up nice and tight and allowed a 15 minute bench rest it was then shaped and placed onto a couch and covered The first loaf went into an oven with steaming towel for 15 minutes and then removed and baked for another 15 minutes. As soon as that came out the steaming towel was back in followed by 2 dough pieces same procedure although the oven was a bit higher for the first 15 minutes
Hey Derek, glad you joined in. I think, for a first effort, your bread was a success.
I have become fascinated with the Biga version of Ciabatta. There is lots to learn and I hope this CB becomes a valuable asset in that respect.
My most recent “BigaChib” was a total flop. I will be posting it today. The flop produced a pale bread similar to your. I wonder why this was the case? It looks like the sugars may have been depleted, but I have no proof that this is the case.
I imagine your bread taste great! Even my flop tasted great, although the texture was unpleasant and chewy.
starting gate. Nice open crumb too. The handful of times that I previously used a biga it was at a hydration quite a bit more manageable than this, presumably authentic, version. So this was probably not the best hydration to start off at. And with that written, any other biga with a higher hydration than this should be a cinch!
alan
Super crumb Derek, amazing job. The crust looks nice and thin as well. Are you pleased with the flavour?
Benny the aroma was quite outstanding and the flavour was very good too i got my cousin to come and pick one up for tea and appraisal and they thought it was wonderful. I will do this again but will use the Italian Caputo Classico flour only next bake to see if the aroma is from the caputo or the multigrain. For a dough that didnt go quite to plan it was very good. my previous post wouldnt allow an edit and came up with lots of code numbers for the pictures and omitted the picture i took of the biga after 24 hours so i will see if i can add it here
regards Derek
Derek, I sent Michael a list of Italian flours available in the US. He chose Caputo 00 Americana.
Stan of Brick Oven Baker sells it on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Mulino-Caputo-Americana-Flour-BrickOvenBaker/dp/B088X3T87B/ref=sr_1_7?crid=1CE1B9GYXM0P9&dchild=1&keywords=caputo%2Bamericana%2Bflour&sprefix=Caputo%2BAmericana%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-7&th=1
This time I made the biga as "it should be". Generally content with the results, but I'm unconvinced that this is any better, or perhaps even as good as my levain version. Which is not to place a negative marker on this version. Even if I have accurately produced this ciabatta, sometimes a more recent or updated version can be better. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and the taste of the diner!
This time I have a video of the process which is now uploaded to YouTube and embedded below. Hopefully, someone will prosper from watching it and perhaps it will clarify the steps with a visual, and not just words on the screen.
The video is 9 minutes long...
Beautiful ciabattas Alan, love the crumb and crust. Great video too which reminds me that I didn’t give my ciabattas the tug to stretch them after shaping, duh.
Benny
the Giorilli bakes, have been educational and leads to some new knowledge and experience. Not all that much my personal cup of tea, but now understanding the difference between the first and second bakes is important.
thanks, alan
Thanks for posting the video. The handling portion of the proofed dough was very interesting.
Nice looking bread!
the ciabatta on the move from couche to baking peel. But now I seem to have a system in place from divide right through to bake.
thanks, alan
Thanks. I liked the shaping, final proof and loading sections as it confirmed what I need to do in my next attempt.
Cheers,
Gavin
my reference . However, I am confounded at the billowy and "dry" nature of his dough at the same hydration. The steps were actually pretty easy to accomplish and I don't think it took me more than one time to get a feel for it.
alan
I am about to go home from work and have a 50% hydration starter waiting to be used for the biga. But I am still debating what flour to try. With bread flour. hydrating it was a lot of work, and there certainly was some gluten development involved. I have some low protein 00 flour. I suspect 00 flour is good for biga, but I am also wary of overfermenting it. Should I mix 00 with BF? Or us 00 for the biga, but BF for the rest of the flour, perhaps? Would appreciate any thoughts.
Ilya, the flour Michael recommended I try (USA) was Caputo 00 Americana. It has ~14.5% protein. You may be interested in Kristen’s (of Full Proof Baking) article on LM & PM. I found it informative and it’s in English.
Wonderful Dan, thanks for finding and sharing Kristen’s information. I’ll read it with great interest, but I doubt I’ll be able to use a low hydration Pasta Madre given the cool conditions needed (I don’t live in a house with a cold room) and need for a powerful mixer.
Thanks Dan!
I can easily get some "regular" strength 00 with ~12% protein, but not sure where to find that one, probably would have to order online. But for now I think I'll try to make the biga with weak 00 flour, and then add bread flour for the final dough. I think this might work well. And I am not doing a super high hydration, so maybe that will work out well...
And thanks for the link, looks very useful!
Ilya, I think you might have your strengths back to front. The biga should always be made with strong flour and a weaker flour can be used in the main dough.
This is because the strong flour is needed for the long biga fermentation which will degrade the gluten and more so with a levain/LM fermentation where acid and proteolysis also come into play.
But, hey! give it a try - it might work fine.
Other possibilities to give the biga flour an easier time:
Lance
Hi Lance,
Ooops I see. I am afraid it's too late, I have just made the biga. You don't think added strength from the bread flour in the end will be sufficient?
It was so much easier this time. I used the technique from the video above, just sort of shaking the vessel with flour and water, and it just worked! I just scraped the bowl once to unstick some flour, and in the end I got grain-like biga with no free flour. I don't know if 00 or low protein is important though.
The only complication is dissolving the stiff starter. It's really tricky, takes a few minutes and some work. I actually realized I didn't do it properly at first, and decided to increase the final volume a bit: dissolved a little starter in water really thoroughly, added to the biga and tried to hydrate a little more with that mix, and then added more flour to compensate for increased hydration. So maybe there is still some flour with little to no access to the starter, and it'll keep its gluten intact, might help me too, haha. Grasping at straws here.
I'll ferment it at cool room temperature for a bit, and then will put in the fridge I think. No way to maintain 16°C.
Biga: 16.5hrs @ ~18°C
300g flour
125g water
30g LM (50% hydration), refreshed twice
Main dough:
75g flour
3.5g diastatic malt
7.5g salt
200g water
15g olive oil
84.8% total hydration
81% PFF
An aerial lamination with a coil fold landing! Full marks from the judges!
? Thanks Don.
with relish! But still in need of he burger itself!
alan
Michael - is that a little oil you put on your fingers at the beginning to keep the dough from sticking?
Beautiful dough and impressive shaping. I can watch that repeat for a long time, there is a rhythm to it that just shouts "artist at work".
That truly means a lot, very much appreciated Doc, I'm glad you like the video.
I'm using just a little water there to help prevent my hands from sticking to the dough. The work surface is dry however.
Thanks Michael. Water would have been my choice, so I had to ask.
Enough for two loaves the above dough as per the video (~740g) was allowed to bulk rise in a lightly oiled container until properly doubled in size. One fold was performed after 30 minutes. After around two hours at 28°C the very puffy dough was turned out onto a heavily floured surface.
This was then divided in two, circa 370g each, and each piece was shaped letter fold style. Many large bubbles revealed themselves. This was very enjoyable to do, like shaping clouds, the elasticity was perfect, not overly slack nor too strong.
The dough pieces already very puffy were then allowed to double in volume again. This level of volume increase will likely be far greater than many are used to. Approximating, the total volume of space occupied by the doughs combined is greater than 3x (300%) that of the mixed dough.
Proved and ready to bake.
I don't use a couche and I don't flip my doughs, and too I have missed out that characteristic streaky floured crust.
Normally, due to my setup I can only bake one loaf at a time. However, this time I have loaded one loaf on a cast iron stone and the other directly on the shelf above.
Again approximating, the baked loaves have a specific volume greater than 5. The one baked on the stone had a better and greater oven spring. The other got a bit charred being close to the oven element.
Beautiful ciabattas Michael, remind me are you using commercial yeast for your biga? The dough does look like a cumulonimbus cloud.
Thanks Benny, these are naturally leavened, seeded with my lievito madre starter. I haven't used commercial yeast in years. LM all the way!
Even if you have to go back to your grandfather's picture for inspiration! The shaping is great and even the loaf that baked on the open rack came out with a consistent look and coloration. Nice and dark, just as I prefer.
Love the description"like shaping clouds"! Ditto.
alan
I really appreciate your words, I am unable to fully express the gratitude I feel.
Michael
See THIS LINK for compilation of all of my Ciabatta bakes.
A couple of days ago I decide to re-make Bake #4 (Georilli - 50% sd biga version). The first one was a smashing success and I had to be sure that this could be replicated. To my surprise this turned out completely horrible. I knew when the final mix was taking place that the gluten was wrecked. But, great news! After mulling this failure over in my brain for ~48 hr the light came on. The flop became a precious treasure because I learned something new. The reason the biga is mixed in such a way as to NOT form gluten, is because IF the gluten is formed up front the dough is highly susceptible to degradation. Not sure how/why the first attempt turned out so well, but I know now why the second bake failed to the max. Note - the second attempt used 9% more PFF. Check out these images.
The image below was taken after the dough was removed the mixer. While mixing it was evident that the gluten was shot. Additional flour was added, intense kneading applied, nothing could resurrect the pockmarked dough.
Image below shows dough at shaping, what a complete mess!
It was obvious before this dough hit the oven that it was unable to rise.
BUT, the bread tasted outstanding, although the texture was horrible.
I am pretty confident that the reason a long fermented dough using a sourdough culture, made with 85% Pre-Fermented Flour should not have the gluten developed during the biga mix is to protect the gluten form irreparable damage.
Maybe this experience will help others.
I had the same thought: can gluten be degraded, if it's not developed? I hope you are right, and found the right answer to your problem! Then I have hope for my low protein biga, pretty sure I didn't develop any gluten at all when making it.
Sorry about your ciabattas, but if they taste great that's a success in my book!
That does make sense Dan, as we always say around here, we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. If we’re lucky, we just get to learn from others’ failures. ?
Sorry Danny, but that is not right.
I know now where this oft repeated error stems... I heard J. Hamelman say this in a video. Unfortunately, he got this one wrong. A more developed gluten is actually less susceptible to degradation. I'm sure Mr. Hamelman was trying to make a point but taken verbatim it is inaccurate.
The problem you are seeing is to do with acidity and the effect of coagulation on the gluten proteins.
I did give the LM a sugar wash today. The flopped bake tasted very acidic and the first attempt was not. They tasted very different, and I never considered that.
Michael, what is happening in the case of over mixed and oxidized dough? Why does it break down?
Thanks for the correction. We are fortunate to have someone that is technically trained and willing to share. Keep it coming...
Being described as "over mixed" could mean a number of things, the words alone just mean to exceed a certain desired point during mixing.
Specifically if ones means the degradation of the gluten network then that is depolymerisation. An excessive amount of prolonged energy input has resulted in the breaking of the gluten mesh. This is near impossible to do by hand.
Not "oxidised" but "over-oxidised" since this is not a binary thing. There are many flour components that have the potential to be oxidised. And imparting some degree of oxidation is actually a good thing especially for the gluten network.
So, it is important to note that these are different concepts.
Over-oxidised doughs can be stripped of their inherent wheat flavours and this is usually accompanied by a bleaching effect. In the extreme, over-oxidised doughs can be a horrendously impossible to work with, chalky dry to the touch, very bright white, and will never develop and smooth network, always tearing, even during rising. The effect can be described as "bucky".
Depolymerisation however creates a sticky mess that has no elasticity. The dough will literally stick to everything and if let to rise will barely rise at all. This is mechanically induced proteolysis.
I can't comment on specifically why the gluten is designed to not be developed, as of now that's just the "rule" (meant to be broken). If you look at my first Giorilli bake, the biga was completely developed by the time it was incorporated into the final mix. The resultant bread baked up just fine.
The one area which might have been affected is in my "complaint" that the dough was reluctant to stretch fully on the path from couche to baking peel. Perhaps the developed biga at that hydration created some small level of resistance to its extensibility.
Let's talk of gluten degradation for a minute, and I want to use our trusty Bouabsa formula for this. When we finish its short BF on the bench we then place it into retard for anywhere from a wide range of, let's say, 18-24 hours. That would be an equivalent amount of time for our biga (or, at least, my 45% hydration biga in retard for 24 hours) before divide. In this case your biga going into the final mix and mine should be on relatively on equal footing.
And if we try to compare apples to apples, then I remain unconvinced at this time that the breakdown in gluten is the culprit.
I'm interested in how you mixed your biga. And then, what was the order in which you perform your final mix, and how each final mix component was incorporated. Details if you wouldn't mind, please. This is a detective story.
alan
Dan i think you will find that gluten forms when the flour is hydrated its development comes with mechanical manipulation in the form of mixing or even with the action of the gas being produced in fermentation. So we have gluten formed with the hydration it is just undeveloped at that early stage if no manipulation takes place.
Thank you for the info on the Caputo flour that you referenced we have quite a few Italian flours at our disposal here in Australia and quite a big population of Italian descendants and some big Italian stores too but following the flour shortage after the Covid outbreak a lot more seemed to be visible on supermarket shelves and i think it was because regular brands disappeared and bulk suppliers were asked to supply whatever flour they had and warehouses were scoured and some of the more expensive flours made a general appearance rather than just for the specialists.
i do enjoy using different flours when traveling overseas and have used Italian, French, Spanish and English flours, of course it can be fun trying to read the information panels but they all seem to be set out much the same, and i only once picked up a buckwheat flour by mistake in France but managed to use some of it anyway.
"The flop became a precious treasure because I learned something new."
Word.
This is my new mantra! I love this.
Here's a man staring into the jaws of defeat and sees a victory. And he's no fool.
May beginners like me take note. This... is the name of the sourdough game.
Post more like this. Most excellent!
Murph
See here for all of my Ciabatta CB bakes
Well, this is proving quite a challenge for me. Sorry for the long read, but wanted to provide as many details as I can.
As I mentioned above, I made a biga with weak 00 flour, which was immediately suggested to be a mistake. I only kept it at cool room temperature for a few hours in the evening, and then put in the fridge overnight. In the morning took it out and let warm up a little, and then mixed the final dough using bread flour and warm water (and salt). I had 77% prefermented flour, biga was 50% hydration, final dough was 75% hydration: https://fgbc.dk/vro
Making the biga was easy, but mixing the final dough by hand with so much 50% hydration biga is a real problem. I did it as best I could, and then did 100 slap&folds after a 15 min rest. At first it looked really nice and the dough was gaining strength, but then it just suddenly lost any structure and became very slack. I think it's quite a common progression with slap&folds, but it just wouldn't strengthen back and was getting really messy, so I just stopped and let it rest for 15 min. Then I did a set of strong stretch&folds, and left for 30 min again; this was followed by three more sets of stretch&folds spaced out by 30 min, and the in the en the dough was really smooth and strong enough for a windowpane.
Since mixing the final dough, a problem of lowly hydrated clumps were a problem. I had the same issue the previous time, and actually I could occasionally find particularly dense areas in the final bread, that must have come from these clumps. So I decided to fight them more thoroughly. While the dough is very weak it's really difficult, so I thought I'd keep pulling out small parts of the strengthened dough and squash those buggers to incorporate them. And around halfway doing it I realized I was probably really not helping the gluten that I developed this way, and was damaging the structure. But I felt like I had no choice, and just finished doing it.
Then I left the dough by the window for a slow bulk ferment without touching it, for around 2.5 hours. It was in a flat container that was a little too big, so it continued to flatten out during this time, but didn't actually cover all of the bottom surface, so it wasn't that badly soupy, I thought. But also because of that I couldn't really judge if there was any significant rise during this time (should have used an aliquot jar!). Then I gently scooped the dough that spread out, back to the main bulk of it, and turned it out onto a generously floured surface. I then divided the dough in two, and gently shaped into tube shaped, and placed on a couche upside down, and left to prove at slightly warmer temperature, around 25°C. When handling the dough is seemed OK - not impossible to handle, although didn't feel particularly strong either. What worried me more is no observable bubbles on the surface after bulk.
And no bubbles appeared during a rather long ~3 hour proof, and I couldn't see much rise happening. The poke test seemed to show some progress though, so I preheated my baking steel at 230°C and baked with steam for 15 min, and without for around 20 min. The dough was extremely soft and extensible before loading. I tried to stretch it a little when transferring onto the peel, and it just went all the way, I could barely fit it onto the peel and the steel.
And here are the results.
[url=https://ibb.co/pyCfhR1][/url]
[url=https://ibb.co/WFvQ4d3][/url]
[url=https://ibb.co/bz48JZ2][/url]
The crumb is very white, compared to my usual bakes - must be from the 00 flour. Crust is hard and crispy. Tastes nice! Much less acidic this time, maybe I detect a slight hint of sweetness. Crumb is a little moist, but not dense - although closed. Bubbles on top, again.
Going more inside, it looks a bit better, actually
[url=https://ibb.co/8jvT4hv][/url]
While writing my reply to you yesterday, you posted this. Which looks more underproofed than overproofed. Can't you even get your dough to make up its mind????
Ha! Well, who knows what the dough thinks! Is it possible overall it's underfermented, but spent too much time in the final proof? Not sure what I mean by that exactly... Just didn't feel like it was fermenting very actively, but I proofed it on the couche for a long time...