Community Bake - Baguettes by Alfanso

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

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.

Just mix up a batch of flour and water to the same hydration as your intended target dough with no yeast (include the salt). Develop the gluten and divide the dough. Let it rest 20 min then shape it. Let it rest 15 min to come out of gluten tension and slash the loaf, turn it over and slash it again, then knead it, shape it, and repeat the slashing until you are tired or satisfied. You should be able to go perhaps 10 rounds for a batch of dough, maybe more.

When you are ready, add about 3X as much yeast as it would normally take just to speed things up, then repeat the drill again, and again, and again. It will rise and you will get more chances to try it with a poofy dough (and as wet as you want). This could go on all day. But after perhaps 100 trials you will feel ready to try it on real bread.

Doc

What a great idea! I can try with chilled dough while I'm at it. Thanks!

Chilled dough is definitely easier to score. After you’ve done it enough, and then made a mistake like loading the baguettes unscored into the oven where they warmed up and have to take them out again to score. Then you’ll feel more comfortable with scoring room temperature baguettes.

You have that beautiful Bouabsa open crumb that I love seeing AG, really beautiful. You’ll get the scoring with more practice, the Bouabsa formula is great to get lots of practice on since it can be so fast.

I make no secret that a good part of my scoring success is that I bake directly from retard, meaning that I score when the dough is chilled and much more "blade friendly".

Your crumb is super and you've already come to grips with shaping. There are some score lines that are just dandy, and further practice will have those marching to the beat of your blade in short order!

[Disclaimer]

All of what I relate here I learned from everybody's favorite baker Alfonso.

When we last visited with our hero, Slow-Mo, at 6:00 PM last night, the mother sourdough was active and ripe. The formula we are using for this bake is not specifically Italian bread. (Hamelman's Vermont sourdough) That being said, the lean sourdough makes a nice crusty "Italian/French style" baguette. The traditional shape Hamelman uses is a boule, (round loaf.) This formula calls for two levian builds at 125% hydration, (Think pancake batter.) At 6:00 AM this morning (12Hrs.) the first levien build is definitely ready. The ingredients for the second levian build are added to the first build levian, (140g.) We now have 280g of "liquid" levian. The second build should be ready to make the final dough at about noon today, (6 hrs.) The plot thickens, the anticipation in the air can be cut with a knife!

The final dough is mixed and into the bulk ferment. Once the dough ball reaches 25% of double the volume, I will move to preshape and shape. It's important to remember the dough will continue to ferment through the preshape, shape, and even the cold retard. That is why we stop the bulk at a very rough 25%. This will ensure we don't over ferment and get a really good oven spring. Later alligator!

The preshape and rest.

Just slightly shy of two hours in bulk, we have reached the target 25% volume increase.

The dough was scaled and preshaped. Now for a 20-minute rest to relax the gluten, before the final shaping. ( I know, it's a lot of steps.) Hopefully, the outcome will be worth the effort.

We are nearing the end game. No missteps as of yet all, is, as it should be.

The final shaping and cold retard. The shaped baguettes are placed in the linen couche, they are then placed into the refrigerator for a slow cold-proof. Since I know my 1990's vintage refrigerator struggles to keep a temperature that will completely stop the fermentation, I will check the progress in two hours. Catch you on the flip side!

The end game.

I have to say that aside from being out of practice with the scoring, I am very happy with this bake. Finally, even with the long break, I think I have the technical stuff sorted out. The rest is just a lot of practice (again,) and muscle memory.

The time away from the craft did you no harm, and I think that these are the best and most consistent looking baguettes you're yet shared with us.

A trio of beauties!

Alan

Nothing makes me as happy as a hero on a fresh baguette! pretty okay for 65%hydration! Kind of dense on the right side but hey, I am not a perfectionist! (Eye roll)

I agree with Alan, these are your best baguettes Will, really great shaping. The crumb is also more open than I recall. A hearty sandwich it made indeed.

Benny

I agree, all things considered, these were homerun. while still having room for improvement. It was pretty hard in the past to nail the end game when my dough was consistently over-proofed. What I learned during this community bake, both the technical side and what I learned about my equipment is priceless! Hey, Benny. All my make-ahead frittata breakfast is missing is ... wait for it...BREAD!

and I will join you for lunch. Looks really delicious 👍

The fledgling, triplet, sourdough French baguettes emerge from the nest.

Notes:

Levein Build #1 - 140g @ 125% Hydration. Build #2 in T- Minus 6hrs.

Hello, baguette aficionados.

As many of you know I have had great success making and freezing large batches of N.Y. Style pizza dough for later use. Today I will be freezing one of three lean dough, low hydration baguettes. The baguette will be frozen after the 25% bulk fermentation and shaping. (The same point the other two siblings will enter cold retard/proof.)

Be sure to look for my posting of the defrost and bake-off in a few days to one week.

The pizza photo is strickly for attention...

Formula: Vermont Sourdough +-10% Semolina

Okay, two out of the oven, not too shabby! One experimental baguette, I think the best scoring out of the bunch, don't you just know! I changed up the timing, I froze it just before it would have gone into the oven. Fully proofed and scored. I am going to try for a bake directly from frozen no steam! We will see what results this produces.

Who is your hero? More than a few kids answered Joe Namath. My reply? Ham, Salami and Provalone! Smile...

I followed Alfanso,s recipe to the T:

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/64322/beginning-bakers-trouble-whigh-hydration-doughs

I already posted my baguettes in the Community Bake,where's your epicenter of comfort?

but thought that here would be a more relevant place..Sorry for the double-post!

They were absolutely delicious and a "breeze" to shape compared to the higher hydration doughs

I tried before... But why is the crumb so dense??

Thanks for this recipe Alfanso!

Don't you just love Vermont sourdough baguettes! You can try shaving a little time off of the bulk ferment to get a more open crumb.

The details of this bake are in my blog https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/68537/black-and-white-sesame-seed-encrusted-yorkville-sourdough-baguettes

Crumb photos.

Still have my eye on you, just pulled back from commenting on most posts.

Beautiful , and you haven't lost a step. The linen couche should make a difference. A few suggestions...

Never wash it.
"season" it with some AP flour that you force into the weave, then brush/scrape off.
Use a stiff brush to clear off excess flour or a dough scraper/bench knife (what I use).
Hang to dry.
Roll up rather than fold up.

Once this dang Covid stuff recedes and you can make it here, we'll be rolling them together!

Alan

One more thing. Those plastic sleeves for wet umbrellas make for a nice resting place for the rolled up couche. Keeps the couche together and avoids getting flour on other things.

Thank you for your comments and suggestions for the couche. I had washed the cotton couche only once when the dough was so stuck to the fabric that i wasn’t going to come out otherwise. I do use a plastic scraper that came with the couche to scrape off excess flour and will continue to use that with the flax couche as well.

Rolling is a good idea and something that I haven’t been doing, I will start.

I hope Florida’s cases don’t get much worse, but I worry that you guys are in the beginning of a fourth wave with Delta. I am hopeful that we can travel down in November fingers crossed. I would enjoy baking with you.

Benny

This is a nice YouTube video that Melissa over at Breadtopia.com brought to my attention. I thought that some of you might enjoy it.

I haven’t baked plain sourdough baguettes in a while and I thought it would be a good way to test out my new flax linen couche. You might recall that my old couche, sold to me as being flax linen was in fact 100% cotton and has given me tons of grief each time I’ve tried to bake ciabattas. The dough would stick no matter how much flour I used. So I broke down and got a new couche. I seasoned it by sprinkling then rubbing in white flour. It did work well and my baguette dough didn’t stick, thank goodness. The big test will be trying ciabatta again.

I’ve updated my formula for these baguettes and used Scott McGee’s shaping. I’m very happy with his technique. In fact, when shaping the baguettes you never press down at all on the dough to elongate. You press along the edge where the dough meets the table which builds tension and elongates the dough. This time I’ve increased the hydration to 72% and increased the dough so each baguette is 330 g. I was easily able to shape the baguettes to the maximum length of my cookie tray that fits in my fridge which is 15 inches. The shaped baguettes sit in the couche on the cookie tray which makes it easy to give the dough a final chill to ease scoring once they are fully proofed to 30% rise by aliquot jar. By the way, the pH of the dough at the time of baking is a relatively high 4.34. For hearth loaves I’ve been aiming for a pH of 3.8 - 4.0 at the time of bake.

With the longer baguettes I’ve now also done five scores per baguette which I think works well for this length. I’ve need a bit more practice to avoid overlapping them too much which I did particularly in the one baguette where the ears broke from the oven spring.

Glad to see you like it. That said, a small correction. He is MeGee not McGee, if anyone wants to find him. That said, you're a friggin' baguette freak of nature! Another super outstanding set.

He's good, isn't he? But doesn't show the inside of either the baguette or the ciabatta. He scales these out at 400g which is fairly heavy for a bakery shop baguette. His dough has to be super active to be able to grow as it does at each phase.

His croissant video is likely the best I've seen so far and I've watched a lot of them.

Just in case you missed the nuance, I'll say it again, you're a friggin' baguette freak of nature! Take that!

Apologies to Mr. MeGee, I’ve never seen that last name before. Now I have a lot of corrections to make in my notes LOL. Thank you Alan for your kind words. Strangely enough my baguettes are now much better than my recent batards. Not sure you noticed but I was able to get a few pointy tips on these guys.

Here’s the crumb, I just polished one off by myself to go with my miso grilled vegetable salad for dinner. My homemade miso is getting close to being ready so that’ll have to be used in a loaf of bread in the near future along with many other dishes.