Hi. I'm new to The Fresh Loaf and relatively new to baking in general. I've been essentially baking the master recipes from both Tartine and Tartine No 3 on a weekly basis for about a year.
The Tartine master recipe is 90% white, 10% wheat and 75% hydration. I've gotten this one down enough that I enjoy it. It looks like fancy bread, it tastes great and most of the time, the crumb makes for great sloppy sandwiches due to the occasional big holes.
The Tartine No 3 master recipe on the other hand has me really frustrated. It is 50% High extraction wheat (Type 85), 25% wheat, 25% white wheat, 85% hydration. I've probably made this bread over 25 times so far and I think my quality has peaked but is way below what it's supposed to look and taste like.
The two biggest problems are,
1 it's denser than its supposed to be (the holes are really small)
2 even after waiting hours before cutting into it, the inside is always a little moist. The bread knife always has wet bread stuck to it after the cuts through the center.
Has anyone has any luck with this recipe?
My current schedule after reading some blogs about tweaking autolysis and final rise is:
1. In the evening, I mix flours and water for overnight autolysis. I also make the leaven separately.
2. Morning, I mix leaven, dough and salt. Bulk ferment at 80F, folding every 30 min for 3-4 hours
3. Afternoon, I shape into a ball by spinning it with a dough knife a couple times. Rest for 30.
4. Final shaping.
5. 24hr final rise in the refrigerator.
6. Put bread in a hot dutch oven. Oven pre-heated to 500F, turned down to 450F when bread goes in. 20min lid on, 25min lid off.
Any help would be SOOO appreciated. Even if the help is you telling me to just give up and try lower hydration bread. At this point, I'll listen to anyone! :)
Tartine #3 is one of my favorite books. So, you're on a good track. At first glance, your final proof is 12 hours too long. It's most likely that one simple thing. But let's also explore other possibilities.
Your 2nd flour and 3rd flour aren't described well enough to give me a firm understanding of what you're using.
So, please let me know the page # of the formula you are using, and then write the exact flour you used, not just what the book says. For instance, most people don't know what "white whole-wheat flour" means in the formula on page 46. Maybe you do. But that is a tripping point for some people, because it is not widely known or understood, because many stores don't carry it. (Trader Joe, Kroger, and King Arthur make "white whole wheat.")
( I currently do 90% whole wheat loaves, home-milled flour, 88% hydration, about 1200 g of dough, in my trusty Lodge 3.2 combo cooker.) I've been on TFL since Sep 2019. so welcome!
There are plenty of other whole wheat bakers here, including home-millers, who will give you excellent advice. You will want to follow DanAyo, SheGar, ifs201, Mini Oven, danni3ll3, barryvabeach, MTloaf, UpsideDan, dabrownman, Our Crumb, and deblacksmith, plus some others.
Thanks for the reply. I'm super into everything conceptually about this book so I can't wait to get further into it. I just want to start on the right foot.
I've done this recipe a bunch of different ways because I've been looking for the variable(s) causing the problem.
1. The 50% High extraction was originally half and half King Arthur Bread Flour and King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour. The last 3-4 bakes has been with actual "Type 85" bread flour from carolinaground.com. The bread tasted and looked better but still no luck with getting more air/bubbles into the bread.
2. The 25% "wheat" and "white whole wheat" are both King Arthur Whole Wheat and White Whole Wheat.
3. No fresh-milled wheat.
4. I've tried a 3-5 hour warm final rise also and will try to revert back to that method. I started trying the 24hr cold final rise after reading http://tartine-bread.blogspot.com/2014/01/guest-baker-chad-robertson.html
I've also wondered if my 4.5 qt dutch oven is too small. I have to really be careful lying the shaped dough into it without burning myself and I wonder if that gradual placement doesn't allow the spring that apparently comes from the heat.
I'll get to following some of the people you recommended. Thanks!
I've learned that autolyse with whole wheat can also get out of hand. So I would suggest reducing that to 1 to 1.5 hours.
Also, what flour do you feed your starter and levain? If you feed it any whole wheat flour, it would be very powerful, and that would indicate that you need to do autoloyse, bulk ferment, and final proof on the _short_ end of the time ranges.
A long autolyse of whole wheat make lots of sugar out of starch. So as soon as the levain gets it, it really takes off.
--- Your lack of oven spring is most likely due to over-fermenting, not under-fermenting. Whole wheat dough has to essentially be, or look, under-fermented in order to get good oven spring. But it still won't be as dramatic as loaves of mostly refined white flour.
Also, what is the weight of the dough that you put in the dutch oven? That can require time/temp adjustments. More dough mass can mean a longer/cooler bake is needed.
--- your excess moisture in the final loaf means not enough water was baked off. You can slightly reduce the hydration, or you can bake a bit longer with the lid off. If the crust color is already where you want it, then you have to lower the "lid off" temperature for a longer bake.
--- There is also a "crumpled parchment paper" trick to gettng the dough into a dutch oven.
My starter is 50/50 King Arthur bread flour and whole wheat.
I should've mentioned also, that with the Tartine No3 recipe I'm using, there's 35g of wheat germ. I'm not sure what that does besides add nutrients.
I've also played with the amount of leaven. Tartine calls for 100g. Tartine No3 calls for 75g. For this recipe, I've tried 75, 85 and 100 without noticing a big difference.
The total weight is almost exactly 1kg
The formula on page 46 is close to what i do. And the "fuzzy logic" in my brain (must be one of those hamsters on that exercise wheel) is now screaming "over fermented."
So assuming 500 g of input flour (not counting the flour in the levain), I suggest this:
-- 75 g levain is good if it is 100% hydration. That gives (37.5/537.5)*100 = 7.0% "prefermented flour", or PPF. Which I find is just the right amount, *if* nothing is left overnight. IE, it needs to be a same-day bread. If the bulk ferment _or_ the final proof goes over-night due to schedule requirements, even in the fridge, then halve the amount of levain.
-- 425 g water should be good.
-- 90 minute autolyse at the most, 60 min could work too.
-- keep your same bulk ferment, up to 4 hours, using 7% PPF.
-- final proof of 2 to 5 hours at room temp (assuming 7% PPF) , but start doing finger poke test at 2 hours. if it passes, ie, the slow fill-in, time to bake.
-- oven schedule, assuming 500 degree max setting, assuming it is calibrated correctly, and not a convection oven, or not using convection mode. This is close to what I do.
preheat to 495 F. ( that last 5 degress takes too long on my oven.) load dough. I have a baking stone onthe rack below the rack where the dutch oven sits. Also preheat dutch oven with lid off, so inside gets exposed to the hot air.
immediately reduce setting to 475, bake with lid on for 15 minites.
keep lid on, reduce setting to 450 F, bake 15 more minutes.
take lid off, reduce setting to 425 F, bake for 15 more minutes.
keep lid off, reduce setting to 400 F, bake for 5 to 25 more minutes.
if you have an instant read pen style thermometer, start taking temp at center of loaf at the 50 minute mark, and keep baking at 400 F until internal temp reaches 208-210 F. 208 if the crust has already reached your darkness limit. Go to 210 if the crust is not too dark. Wait at least 8 minutes between checking temp, or oven gets too cool.
Getting close to 210 gets that excess moisture out. At high altitude, you have to reduce the 208/210 F rule.
Total bake time could reach 70 minutes until you "dial in" the hydration level, and the times and temps.
On page 41, his temps are at 500 for 20 min, and 450 for another 30 min, so he likes real dark crusts. I don't like that dark and hard.
- - - - - -
Bottom line: The nitty-gritty details of ferment/proof hours, bake times and temps, will likely be different for you. but the overarching concepts are:
--WW ferments quicker than you think if you are used to mostly white refined flour. WW inthe starter makes a difference.
-- you have to under ferment to get good oven spring.
-- you have to bake off excess moisture, and/or find the "sweet spot" of hydration for the particular flours you use. Every flour is different, and requires tweaking the water amount. More hydration means longer/cooler bakes.
Bon chance, et bon appétit!
Nice!
Those sounds like some great suggestions. I've thought about preheating the dutch oven with the lid off but haven't given that a try yet.
Planning a bake tomorrow so I'll let you know how it goes!
Do you think the leaven is okay being made the night before or should I get that started first thing in the morning as well, and really start making the dough, autolysis, etc in the afternoon?
I usually feed starter, let it double, then put back in fridge, If I use it within 24 hours of doubling, it's good.
Since your starter is a super starter with the 50% WW, feeding the night prior is okay, as long as it doubles before putting it back in fridge, and it was in fridge over night.
If you feed it in the evening, and let it sit at room temp overnight, it would need another feeding in the AM.
Bythe way, it was DanAyo who opened my eyes to the "under ferment for oven spring", and taught me the PPF thing.
I don't know if I'd call it perfect but I am marking this down as my first success with this recipe. I'd tried taking as much of your advice as I could and stuck a little more to the book's recipe rather than the random "Tartine" youtube videos and blogs that I've read over the year.
My method was:
Thanks again for the help!
Woo-HOO! That's _excellent_ crumb for 100% WW !
Your oven spring along the score line is much better than mine.
How long did you wait before cutting it open? I found that I get really improved flavor if I can wait 20 hours (from the end of the bake) before cutting it. It's hard to resist, so I don't always do that.
Waiting also helps evaporate some of the internal moisture. My best tasting loaves were left to sit out about 2 hours to cool, usually upside down, or on edge, so the bottom doesn't get soggy. Then 8-10 hours in a paper grocery bag, again on edge or upside down. Then 8-10 hours sealed in a plastic bag, because I like a softer crust.
I once got serious about the "waiting for flavor" thing. 18 hours was "better" than 12. And 20 hours was the "magic mark" for me.
--
Waiting longer to cut open may solve the last bit of stickiness issue, but you can also try tweaking the hydration level down. It amazed me how much difference 2% made.
Awesome. Thanks!
That's just an overnight rest, so maybe 10 hours at most. Yeah, I couldn't resist. And now I feel like I can start playing with the variables without completely flailing and scratching my head.
Just a point about the order of things. I read your last sequence of events, and wasn't clear on how you ordered things. Autolyse is without levain. Otherwise it counts as part of the bulk ferment time. (Some people say the "with levain" time period before adding salt is "fermentolyse.")
You can also get an idea of what I do on my blog here. Normally, I:
Another key point, at least in my set up, is the point where the mass turns from what I call "wet sand" into dough. That's because I coarse mill. If I remember correctly, I never got the "wet sand " effect using store-bought WW flour. As far as I remember, I don't stretch-and-fold while it is still "wet sand." I wait until it transitions to "dough" and is also relaxed. If the stiff dough doesn't relax for 45-60 minutes, then I add water to help it along.
I'm excited for you. I know the "a-HA" feeling you get when you have a breakthrough.
I had been confused by what autolysis represented. For a while I thought maybe it was essentially "before salt"
In Tartine No3, he mixes the flours, then he mixes water and leaven to disperse it and then adds the flour to the liquid. He then labels the next step "For the autolysis"... but when I read some of the Tartine blogs that were calling for overnight autolysis, that was just flour and water. I also just finished reading Daniel Leader's Living Bread and he defines it the same way.
I guess it was just my mistake in Tartine No3 being my first bread book.
With the whole wheat dough, I do know what you mean. There's a scary texture to it at first where it feels almost crumbly, like it's going to fall apart during the folds. I'll remember next time to just give it a little more time.
I just re-read pages 36 and 37 in Book #3 and realized you're right. According to that, autolyse is "after levain, before salt."
I wondered where I got the idea that it was without levain, so I went to the beginning part... in the paragraph that spans page 21 and 23, that is where it implies ( not explicitly stated) that autolyse is before the levain.
In his original book, page 73, the autolyse is also after the levain.
So maybe, the autolyse/rest is more of a "don't stretch and fold it yet."
Anyway, the "pre soak" or whatever we call it, before adding the levain, seems to improve things when using fresh-milled/home-milled flour.
--
On second thought, it's Peter Reinhart who does the "soaker plus preferment" so that's where I think many of us got it for WW. And in Forkish's FWSY, his autolyse is before levain too.
Hello again! So I'm still debugging things and when I bake tomorrow, I'm going to try to remember to take pictures as I go to post here.
From all the advice above, things got better and then got worse over the last couple months of baking essentially the same recipe once a week. I think all the advice really helped but I still feel like there's something I'm screwing up.
After watching a bunch more youtube videos on high hydration breads, I must admit my dough is no where near as friendly as the youtube gurus. When I'm stretch&folding (and today's attempt at the coil fold)... I'm mostly dealing with a sloppy, sticky mess. And then when it comes to the final shaping, it's generally a 50/50 chance that I'll have something that actually lets me fold it.
I wonder three things:
1. Should I lengthen the autolysis step? Right now I do 1 hour just flour and water, then 1 hour with the starter before adding salt and moving on to the bulk fermentation with 30 minute folds.
2. Could my starter just be stupid? It definitely ferments but maybe too fast or just strangely?
3. Maybe I'm not mixing correctly? I will sometimes mix by hand and other times use a stand mixer on the lowest speed for 3-4 minutes until all the dry flour at the bottom is absorbed and its usually a goopy mush. And after autolysis, when I add the salt and final bit of water, I fold the salt in pretty well and then squeeze the dough between my fingers to break it up.
If this helps, I do my bulk fermentation in a proofing box, usually set to about 80F. I do 5 folds every thirty minutes and after 3 hours, I pour it out until a surface to shape. Often it's so sticky and without form that I wonder if it has somehow over-fermented but it never really had a peak moment where it held its folded shape for long.
If you're in a humid climate, it could be your flour absorbed some moisture.
The "hold back" water, used to mix in the salt, is often adjusted for this fine-tuning of hydration.
Bag to bag, season to season, and even week to week with the same bag, moisture level in flour never seems to remain perfectly constant.
Didn't even think about humidity... thanks.
I do keep the plastic bin covered during all of the autolysis and bulk fermentation... assuming we'd want to trap the moisture in the warm proofing box. Should I not do that?
Covering the bowl/container during autolysis and bulk ferment and proof is standard in order to maintain consistency.
What I was refering to was the moisture level of the dry flour has opportunity to be different every time you get a new bag, and every time you open the same bag that has been sitting around.
There are several opportunities to adjust hydration: initial mix, adding the levain/starter, adding the salt, doing folds.
It just takes experience, practice, and close observation at each step to see if you are over or under hydrated for that recipe. From what I've read, it seems the hold-out water that is added with the salt is the common time-point and opportunity to make adjustments with water.
I generally have two hold-out waters. First, I disolve the salt in some water to make it easier to incorporate in the dough. Plus some extra to add if needed if the dough still doesn't relax enough in 30 minutes or so.
--
Finally, the last hydration adjustment is in the bake. I usually aim to get internal temp to 208-210 F. If, at the end of my normal bake time, the internal temp is not high enough, it usually means still too much moisture. So I may lower the temp, and bake longer in order to bake off the moisture without turning the crust too dark.