Scoring high hydration loaves

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noyeast on 19 May 2009 at 16:23

I'm using a craft knife and finding it good for scoring medium hydration loaves and of course low hydration ones are very easy also, but I still cannot score high hydration loaves such as french baguettes, etc, they simply ruin the shape of the loaf and I'm scared that will spoil any oven spring too.

 

Should I buy a razor blade and fashion myself a decent lame ? will that solve the problem or are my high hydration loaves just too wet ?

 

recipe is:

flour 500gms

water 375 gms

yeast 1/2 tesp surebake

salt 10 gms.

folded, fermented, cold retarted.

Paul.

I used to have that problem until I started making the outer "skin" of my final shaped dough much tighter.  I think the tight final shaping also helps oven spring as everything is curled around and therefore poised to puff out.

 

the dough as I final shape is exactly what I'm doing, however once risen and ready for baking the loaves are very soft and puffy, as they ought to be, and don't score well when they are high hydration loaves.

That said, I entirely agree with the practising comments and ..... I sure will be.

Paul.

I have the same problem with high hydration loafs. The knife or lame or whatever just drags through the dough. If I flour the loaf a little that helps, but I don't like the look. The bread tastes great; it just doesn't have the look I would like to achieve.

--Pamela

So I has some extra dough left over so I decided to make two baguettes, one with a loose final shaping and one with a tight one. I used the same amount of dough for each one. 

Lefty-loosey, righty-tightey:

They both scored easily (!)

And to make matters worse, the loose one had better spring:

And to prove me completely wrong, the loose one turned out to be better looking with much nicer scores:

So... Er.... forget what I said....

P.S.  Maybe I overtightened the "tight" one here...  I really dunno...

Hi Noyeast,

David Snyder has published an excellent scoring [url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10121/bread-scoring-tutorial-updated-122009][u]tutorial[/u][/url] that you might find helpful.

It takes practice, practice, practice.  I was wandering around the King Arthur website the other day and saw that they had offered the following class:

Hearth Bread Shaping and Scoring Practicum for the Serious Home Baker with Richard Miscovich

The best way to improve your hearth bread shaping and scoring skill is to practice, practice, practice. This class will have pounds of dough at the ready so students can shape loaf after loaf under the guidance of artisan baker and educator Richard Miscovich. This is a great opportunity to work on your skills shaping boules, bâtards and baguettes, as well as learn some classic regional shapes from France and around the world. The class will also practice different scoring patterns and use of stencils and dough appliqués to dress up your loaves for special occasions.

Oh, what fun that would have been!

 

Me, that is. I wish I had thought of this. I score it and bake it.  A practice batch of dough would be sooooo easy. And so helpful

This class will have pounds of dough at the ready so students can shape loaf after loaf  <snip> The class will also practice different scoring patterns and use of stencils and dough appliqués to dress up your loaves for special occasion

Larry

The best way to improve your hearth bread shaping and scoring skill is to practice, practice, practice. 

Amen to that!

On the other hand, the problem with practice dough is that you never really know if you got it right until it comes out of the oven. On the third hand, it's a great idea to get the feel of the moves or to get back in shape after a gap in baking. Sort of like the driving range of bread baking.

David

...make a big batch of dough but separate it into a few more little loaves. Make your fave recipe as is, but instead of say, two big rounds, make four little rounds. This will give you a little extra "practice room" not to mention being able to do the same slash a few times in rapid succession to see if you can get it right, instead of having to wait for another batch. Just an idea.