Hello!
I just got my hand on a stand-mixer. With little machine mix experience, I hope to receive advice and guidance from fellow Freshloaf bakers on how to incorporate a long autolyse with this stand mixer.
- I usually make 25% and 50% whole wheat sourdough which I give them 2 hours and 4 hours autolyse (with no starter nor salt) respectively. Then hand-mix the starter and salt in using Rubaud method, and start bulking process.
- The stand mixer I got a hand on is a 30 liters one with Speed 1 at 197 RPM and Speed 2 at 317 RPM, quite high compared to those I have seen many bakers using. (the specification is here: https://www.berjayasteel.com/products/bakery-machinery/mixer/bakery-mixer-without-netting)
- With the mixer, I conducted the long autolyse as usual and start machine mixing with 2 phases:
- Phase 1: mixing the starter in using speed 1 for about 5 mins, let the dough rest another 30 mins.
- Phase 2: mixing the salt in with reserved water, speed 1 at about 3-4 mins, then speed 2 for 8 mins. I only let the machine knead the dough to medium gluten-development and let bulk fermentation and folds do the rest.
Observations and concerns:
- The dough already has some time to develop gluten during the long autolyse. The phase 1 mixing seems to always break the dough's gluten structure apart; it comes together again after phase 2. It has a nice popping sound in the bowl and clean the bowl at the end.
- However, I feel like my machine mixing time is too long. Some bakers using spiral mixers and only do 3-4 mins at speed 1, 4 mins maximum at speed 2 with much lower RPM than my stand mixers. Are my mixing time too long? Is there any signs I should watch for to know if it's over-oxidied?
- What should I do to incorprate a long autolyse with machine mixing? Should the long autolyse reduce the machine mixing/kneading time instead of increasing it? Any advice/practice is well appreciated.
Thank you so much in advance. I hope to learn from everyone's experience.
With the length of fermentation time for sourdough being long enough to develop the gluten especially with a long autolyse the mixing time should be shorter. It depends on the recipe of course. A pullman type yeasted loaf is kneaded to full window pane whereas an open crumb sourdough is best achieved with a short mix and folded at intervals during the bulk to develop the gluten and structure.
I have left dough in my Bosch mixer for too long and the it becomes tight and too elastic for anything but sandwich style loaves. I mostly use a mixer to mix in ingredients and not do too much kneading. Speed one for three minutes is usually enough for the breads I make. I will sometimes use speed two if it is a wetter dough. It works better for me to hold back some water and drizzle it in at the end. If add ins (fruit, nut, seeds, porridge) are being used I do that at the end of the mix on low speed just until incorporated.