Community Bake - Ciabatta!!!

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DanAyo on

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 water
1.3g 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

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mwilson on Thu, 10/29/2020 - 15:55

Hi Danny, this will be a good CB I'm sure!

Exciting to see a new one..

I hope you'll post a formula that is Italian in origin, perhaps from Giorilli for example. He is after all responsible for developing what is commonly accepted as the standard formula.

At least tell me there is a biga involved, don't wanna see no poolish haha

Failing that Craig Ponsford's is a worthy American interpretation.


Michael

You rascal, I emailed you a few days ago looking for the 'real deal'. I'd appreciate it if you would either post a formula and process on the CB or email it to me and I'll post it in the original post.

Glad to get input from you. Maybe we can get you to do a Levito Madre version. I am interested to try something of the sort.

UPDATE -
Michael's Biga version is now on the original post above.

 

I missed that email. I don't get notifications for that address. PM'ing me would have got my attention. I'll reply to your email...

Wow I was actually thinking I would like this!!! Have tried ciabatta recipe from Maurizio 3 times with varying level of success, and definitely need help figuring it out.

Would appreciate a sourdough recipe tested by the bakers here, or could keep working from Maurizio's formula, but maybe omit Kamut not to waste this flour that is a little more difficult to find.

Surprised this style of bread is so new!

Count me in, I’ve always wondered what making a ciabatta would be like so I guess I’ll find out.  But will it be as addictive to make as the baguettes?

Benny

Michael, the Giorilla formula specifies, "00 - W 380 P/L 0.55 (in absence of Manitoba) for the preferred flour.

For the Americans, would you pick a flour from this Amazon link? I'd like to be as accurate as possible. If found THIS ONE, but want to be sure before ordering.

You gotta' love the name for the Giorilla formula, "Giorilla Slippers"!

The "Manitaly Manitoba" flour you linked to is a little weaker according to the W values stated and is not as refined as the one specified in Giorilli's formula. The protein content is worryingly low, however we know from previous discussions that these number are calculated differently compared to UK and EU products. At the end of the day a white flour with good strength should do the trick. Try not to let these very specific technical details, which are more relevant to larger scale production baking, get in the way of making some good bread.

00 is not critical, W indicates overall strength and P/L indicates glutens tenacity vs extensibility ratio.

It was January 2020 when I last made a ciabatta (first attempt). This CB is timely as I was looking for something challenging. Hamelman also has a formula that uses a stiff biga, so I'll opt for that given Michael's comment :). 

I'm intrigued by the formula's pointed out by Michael and will give one a go in a second bake.

Cheers,

Gavin

That the Italian recipe has a 100% hydration. I realize you have been getting some excess water in your part of the world Danny but some may have spilled into this recipe. Hammelman says to lock the back door of the bakery to keep the bakers from from fleeing at a measly 80% hydration. He would need bars on the widows for this one!

 

Ciabatta: HGW, 0.1% IDY in cold overnight autolyse @ 60% hydration,  45% BF,  3 x 600g  ciabatta
 PFF       levain hydration       dough hydration      salt      total batch size

27.6%            60%                        79.8%              2.0%    1830 (includes 30g for aliquot jar)

designed for 

462g levain (28g seed + 159g H2O + 275g HGW -5 losses)  +  432g H2O + 200g H2O for bassinage   +    714g HGW + 10g diastatic malt + 1.0g IDY +    20g salt

Process:
 Combine the 714 High gluten flour, 10g diastatic malt, 0.1% IDY (1g)  and 432g cold water and mix for 8 min at speed 0.  Knead a few turns until it is fully smooth and place in a bowl, cover with StretchTite and refrigerate overnight. [60% hydration cold autolyse]

Mix 60% hydration levain from 28g seed, 159g H2O, 275g HGW, ferment 14 hrs overnight in a warm place; should yield 462g levain (planned on 450g after losses - but actually got only 441g because it rose up and stuck to the plastic wrap and at 60% hydration did not come clean from the bowl).  It did lose a little over 2% of the weight of the 275g added flour before it was used which defines a mature starter.

Combine autolysed flour and levain and mix at speed 0 (100 RPM) for (5 + 5 =10) min, adding 20g salt in the last 2 minutes.

Increase speed to 4 (200 RPM) and mix in 2 min increments until gluten is developed,
Then bassinage in 200g of water at ~25g/minute (4 x 2minutes)

Autolysed dough  1151g@~40°F
Add  441g levain mix @0 for 5 min
Incorporate the salt during the last 2 min at speed 0.
59.6° after 5 min at speed 0
65.0° 10 min @0  This just mixes the levain with the autolysed flour/water/yeast/DM, salt
Switch to speed 4
68.8° 2min@4 (+3.8°F/2 min = 1.9°F/min @ speed 4 initially before bassinage)
70.1° 4min@4  started bassinage of 200g H2O
71.1° 6min@4
72.3° 8 min@4  (including bassinage)
73.3° 10 min@4 (finish bassinage of 200 of H2O)
74.4° 12 min@4
75.4° 14 min@4 (+2.1°F in 4 minutes = ~0.5°F/min since it was pretty soupy by then)

Transfer to a bulk fermentation container taking a 30g sample for the aliquot jar and ferment for about 3:15 hrs to a volume increase of ~45%, (55ml on aliquot jar) folding once at 20 min to improve the structure.

Divide into 3 x  ~600g parts, (4” x 16” long and about 1½” thick)
and proof ~2 hr (aliquot jar rose to ~80 ml [133% vol increase]
Flip and finger poke at 2” intervals; transfer to perforated Teflon-coated 1/2-sheets
At 5:30 from start of mix - Bake w/ steam for 10 min @ 500°F, then reverse pans and bake an additional 13 min@430°F w/o steam

Assessment:
At 80% hydration this was a wet dough but handled well.  Needed a few folds at the beginning of BF and one fold at 20 minutes to give it a little more structure. It was probably a little over-proofed, but stood up well to being flipped over and finger stapled before going to the oven.  Probably should reduce the oven temperature and bake for another 7-10 min to get a little thicker crust and dry out the crumb a little bit.  Crust color was good, flavor was good, crust was a little leathery rather than being crisp.

I will be looking for techniques that enable increased hydration and a better metric for terminating bulk fermentation.

 

The baked ciabatte look really good Doc!

I see you opted for the finger jabbing prior to baking. I think this is mentioned in Carol Field's book.

I know that it is done to prevent too much height developing during the oven spring.

I first learned about stitching the top and the bottom of the ciabatta together with finger pokes from Nancy Silverton's Breads of La Brea Bakery in 1997.  And it seems like every time I go back to making ciabatta, I quickly re-learn that it is a good thing to do for any loaf above some minimum size.  The Italian restaurant chain Il Fornaio used to bake a ciabatta with a pattern of stitches made with an array of rods that is pressed into the top of the loaf just before oven entry that makes the loaf come out with a relatively flat top.  I don't know if they still do it or not - I always had them include a ciabatta when I would order catered lunches from them.  The technique lets you see the stitches when you slice the loaf.   I suspect that it also helps with uniformity of the end product, and it is a nice visual too.

Man, even the CRUST has an open structure!!

Good grief, man, you can do that with a sourdough??

Gee, that's something... something else again!... A long bread with a beautiful crumb from a sourdough starter!

I love it... just love it!

Good job!

Murph

but my last name today is Buttinski.  I had to take a look for myself, because that just can't be true.  I believe your error was adding up all of the minutes, when the list was just a progression of minute markers - i.e. how many minutes into the entire mix the Doc was at that point in time.

Hi Doc I love how you ciabatta looks and would love to try your recipe let me ask you a few questions about your nomenclature to understand it better my comments are on bold and cursive. If finish all my questions and before you read it I am sorry for so many. I am newbie using all this therminology. I have been baking for more than a year but all this therms I don't know what they are:

 

Ciabatta: HGW (this is high gluten flour?), 0.1% IDY in cold overnight autolyse @ 60% hydration,  45% BF (¿What is BF?),  3 x 600g  ciabatta

 PFF (Whats PFF means?)       levain hydration       dough hydration      salt      total batch size


27.6%                                                60%                        79.8%                 2.0%     1830 (includes 30g for aliquot jar)

Designed for 462g levain (28g seed (¿When you said seed is mother  or sourdoguh levain 100% hydration?)

+ 159g H2O + 275g HGW -5 losses) 

+  432g H2O + 200g H2O for bassinage (¿What is bassinage?) 

+    714g HGW + 10g diastatic malt + 1.0g IDY +    20g salt

Process:
 Combine the 714 High gluten flour, 10g diastatic malt, 0.1% IDY (1g)  and 432g cold water and mix for 8 min at speed 0.  (In a Kitchen aid mixer would be the speed stir?
 

Knead a few turns until it is fully smooth and place in a bowl, cover with StretchTite and refrigerate overnight. [60% hydration cold autolyse] (I usually start at 2:00pm so after all that would be around 2:30 2:45pm, it's ok to bring it out next morningun at 5:00am? around 14:00 hours?)

Mix 60% hydration levain from 28g seed, 159g H2O, 275g HGW, ferment 14 hrs overnight in a warm place; should yield 462g levain (planned on 450g after losses - but actually got only 441g because it rose up and stuck to the plastic wrap and at 60% hydration did not come clean from the bowl).  It did lose a little over 2% of the weight of the 275g added flour before it was used which defines a mature starter. 

(¿So this I should make it also at 2:30pm but let it our of the fridge and use it at 5:00 am when I get my autolyse dough out of the fridge?) Just a note I live in El Salvador, Central America, here temprature are tropical we got high temperatures, so at 2:30 at the kitchen we could be at 28 to 26º Celsius at getting down one degree every hour until 21 around 12:00am and also our hummidity is aound 50 to 60%. I have a wine cooler where I could get 17ºC celcius constantly ¿I don't know if this would match better with your current temps for the levain?)

Combine autolysed flour and levain and mix at speed 0 (100 RPM) for (5 + 5 =10) min, adding 20g salt in the last 2 minutes (¿Why 5+5 and not said only 10 minutes?)

Increase speed to 4 (200 RPM) and mix in 2 min increments until gluten is developed,

 

Then bassinage in 200g of water at ~25g/minute (4 x 2minutes) (¿This is at 0 speed? and also why if I add 25 every minute is 4x2? it should be 4x1?)

 

Thank you in advance

The bread I am currently making had some commonality with ciabatta. I posted a video to show what I believe a ciabatta should look like at the point of shaping. Keyword; "jiggly".

I shaped it in the letter-fold style typical of a ciabatta and I had to burst many large and persistent bubbles that came to the surface. Keeping them is optional - If I were actually making a ciabatta then I would have.

Bulk, not measured but probably just under double.

Thought I'd share a quick demonstration of what I believe is characteristic of a good ciabatta.

That is a great demo to set the expectation.  With a ~90% volume increase during bulk, and a jello-like shaped loaf, how much longer can you proof before it is too fragile to transfer to a peel and thence to the oven?  And would you attempt to load it seam down or just leave it as shaped?

Thanks Doc.

Due to the way I do things, I never really have to worry about reaching that stage. My lievito madre starter allows me to ferment far beyond where most would dare to go. On top of that I also typically work my doughs to full gluten development, which means my doughs have a lot of strength.

On one occasion when it was too late in the day to bake, my proving dough had reached triple volume. I neglected it and left it there at room temp for another 15hrs before I actually baked it. It was still holding its volume after all that time, still strong! Amazing hey?!

Michael, when you highly develop your dough in the mixer, do you find the flavor of the bread somewhat bland compared to a dough that is less developed?

I am interested to learn.

Yes and no.

It really seems to depend on how I get to that stage of full development.

If I'm lazy and I mix hard and fast, then I definitely lose something, that natural wheat flavour. However, if I take the time to incorporate an autolyse stage (reductive phase) and mix slowly but for a longer time the flavour is clearly superior.

Also, lately I was thinking if there are sufficient yeast cell numbers present then this may help to prevent oxidation of carotenoid pigments since yeast will happily grab up that oxygen.

I have long been aware of this situation and have given much thought to if there can be a positive reconciliation. Full gluten development gives me the texture and importantly the volume I desire, but can I still obtain that while simultaneously retaining the natural wheat colour and flavour? I do think both worlds are possible with minor degrees of give and take.

That's why I like to work with durum wheat because then you really can see with your own eyes the effects of oxidation.

PS. I am saying that a autolysed dough acts as an anti-oxidant in some sense.

Mike, is see the dough is resting on a parchment paper. Are you going to invert it or will you bake it with the seam up?

That's one airy dough!

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Sabina on Fri, 10/30/2020 - 10:59

For me, these turned out okay. I didn't end up adding all the water, and I think I would leave out even more next time. Also I would proof them right on the pan I was going to bake them on. Moving them around at all was extremely hard for me because they were so goopy. I might bake them longer at a lower temperature too because yeah, I burnt them. They taste pretty good, but they're also too crusty.

Sorry for the poor quality pictures. I should also have proofed them a bit longer, I think, based on the big holes only near the top of the loaf.

Ciabatta can benefit by flipping them over when loading. It helps prevent big holes at the top. A little stretching at same time if necessary. Interesting that you got all of the colors of the rainbow in your bake.

 I was under the apparently mistaken impression that I was supposed to leave them "face-up", and took great pains to keep them that way. Actually, the one on the left was flipped because I couldn't for the life of me get it onto the pan any other way, and you can tell it has fewer giant bubbles at the top, and is consequently not as over-browned (in my opinion) as the others. It's the bubbles that burnt.

The two loaves on the right were baked after the other two, and I probably baked them longer. So that explains all the different colours!

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Doc.Dough on Fri, 10/30/2020 - 11:20

What was the hydration when you quit adding water?  And what kind of flour are you using?

While you can say they are burned, they look just fine.  With a very thin crust and big bubbles, the surface can get overly brown before the crumb is fuly cooked.  And flavor counts (a lot of which comes from crust browning). Looks like they might have been baked in multiple batches since the color seems different from loaf to loaf. Or maybe the oven setup does not expose them all to uniform heating.

I'm really cheap and I used store-brand unbleached all-purpose flour. (I can't even tell you which store because I don't have the bag anymore, but it would be Walmart or Sobeys.)  Looks like my hydration was 69%, but I didn't measure. I just know I used about half the bassinage water amount (Hamelman formula from the first post). I might have used a bit more. I know that's not really all that high, but I have a really hard time mixing wet dough. I don't have a mixer.

Yes, different bakes. The two loaves on the left were baked first. I'm not good at taking pictures, but all the black parts of the bread are bubbles with air underneath. I'll definitely flip them next time like MTloaf says. The left loaf which was flipped looks much better to me than the others.

 

A lower protein flour such as a generic AP probably won't hold as much water as a stronger bread flour or high gluten flour but that should only effect the upper limit.  Even with hand mixing and AP flour you should be able to fully develop the gluten by mixing it fairly stiff and then adding the additional water slowly via bassinage.

You may have stopped at just the right place but maybe started the bassinage early or did not get to complete gluten development.  Perhaps Michael will teach us how to determine when the gluten is fully developed and how to know the limits of the flour.

A very nice blog page too! While searching the Italian master bakers, I Was lured by some nice looking chocolate panettone. Could you recommend a nice recipe for a novice, fly by the seat of his pants baker? 

 Micheal, I am curious as to what draws you to Italian bread? Are you of Italian heritage, or is it the techniques that you are indeared to?

 

Thanks Will.

A sourdough (lievito madre) recipe? or a yeasted one?

My interest in all things Italian has grown and grown over many years. My grandfather, god rest his soul, was not Italian but he certainly looked Italian. He was short and olive skinned. His mother was not really spoken of so we don't know where she came from originally...

Here he is...

As close to the  Olivieri formula as you know. He certainly does look Italian! My Italian influence starts in the Italian catholic schools' mom and dad went to in Tripoli Libya. Then with the start of WW2 The Italian concentration camps in North Italy. Because my family is Maltese (British subjects) they were labeled enemy aliens by the Fascists. Not unlike what the USA did to the Japanese. More than one of my Sicilian friend mothers in Canarsie Brooklyn would tell me how Beautifully my mom spoke Italian! 

A nearby neighbour of mine grew up in Malta. I have considered going there for a holiday on several occasions. 

In searching for a recipe from Olivieri I found two.., one, an apricot panettone-esque enriched bread and the other, a colomba Pasquale. They are essentially the same and will work for a panettone bake.

Both assume prior knowledge of how to prepare the LM however. From the video you linked we can see that he keeps his LM in water. Let me know if you need some pointers on how to do this...

LM fascinates me as I have never used it.  Would love to see your process.

As many (all) fresh loafers know, Jason makes a way good ciabatta!

I guess the subject says it all.  A second try at the 3 hr. autolyse and some significant improvements in process, as detailed below.  These are a little bigger than my typical ciabatta loaves, and probably could have used a few more minutes in the oven, but they had darkened to the point where I wasn't willing to trade of a burnt crust for any further baking time.

This is a melding of learned methods employed here.  The formula is based on the Scott MeGee ciabatta.  However his version is a direct dough with IDY, pretty much a no-no for me except when making a baguette de tradition.  I've made these before with biga, with varying degrees of hydration, with and without olive oil and even used some of my remaining precious tritordeum flour as well.

What I present is a levain version employing 1) Mr. MeGee's formula framework and 2) his folding method, which I really like.  3) Ciril Hitz' folding over of the dough onto itself before divide, and 4) Brofkraft's 3 hour autolyse as the most recent addition to my toolbox.  There is no olive oil used, rather I reworked the formula to add the oil's 3% hydration to the water.

Correction to the spreadsheet below: now that my mixing method has both improved and decreased in time, there is no need for cold water in the mix. 

 

 

 

This look amazing. Beautiful colour.

Do you think this would work equally well without the IDY? And do you have fine scales to measure such small amount of IDY? My scale only measures in whole grams... I've been thinking to get some IDY and mix them with some flour to be able to measure small IDY amounts.

Why do you use cold levain?

I have a milligram scale and IDY weighed 0.69g, 0.76g and 0.82g for 1/4t (scraped off, not heaping) for three different 1/4t measuring spoons.  So great justification for getting a small scale to measure small quantities.

Thank you Doc! I understand that a precision scale is required for such small quantities, even for few-gram measurements (I am even slightly wary of measuring 10-20 g amounts of salt for the bread, but haven't actually had any problems). But I actually never needed such small quantities, and only seeing some yeasted recipes thought that there is no way I could actually follow them... I guess that's an advantage of fresh yeast (is it smth like 4x more in weight then? much more measurable), but I am yet to find them here in the UK.

I purchased a second scale last year when I found that I wanted to be more precise with measuring diastatic malt and salt.  Now I’m not sure I could live without it especially when baking any IDY recipes.  Go for it Ilya, I picked one up from Amazon and it was quite reasonable.

This scale (300g x/ 0.001g) used to sell for $50 but at $100 is still a very good deal.  I didn't check the UK Amazon site, but it is from China so should be widely available.  It does drift a little over time and temperature, but for instant weights it is excellent (and it comes with a 200g cal weight).  And with a 300g capacity you are not always looking for a lightweight pan.  I usually use a 5.5 oz polypropylene food service cup as a pan.  It will hold 120g of liquid and weighs about 7g dry.

Been reading the entries here and the abbreviations have me puzzled.  Have no idea what IDY, HGW, etc. mean.  Doc's recipe above is unintelligible to me.  Can someone help with the abbreviations please?

IDY = Instant dry yeast; BF = bread flour; HGW= high gluten wheat (I'm assuming); PFF = prefermented flour...these are my assumptions. It can get pretty technical for sure. but additive! 

In the earlier iterations from the formula when it would take a few minutes longer to mix.  If the water and levain weren't cold, the mixing friction on my mixer would rate the temperature to the low 80s dF.  Starting off with a cold levain and cold water alleviated that.  With my current method as in the notes below the formula, the temperature of the mix remains much cooler.

It probably would work well without the IDY, but perhaps boost the levain percentage up to 25% pre fermented flour.  In all iterations of this formula, I've always added that pinch of IDY to ensure that the dough will rise within my anticipated 2 hour BF window.

I bought a scale on Amazon for ~ US$10 that reads down the the hundredths of a gram (0.00)g.  It seems pretty accurate and have been using it for years to scale out the salt and DY.  Of course this isn't the main scale as it only reads up to maybe 500g.

Late Edit.  You can also get away with using measuring spoons in lieu of a scale.  It won't be accurate but should be close.  Conversion table can be found here. 

thanks, alan

Wow another stunner early in the CB.  I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get my first bake in but its great seeing a recipe from you Alan that uses some levain.  I was hoping to make a sourdough ciabatta and have been looking for a recipe, this might be a good way to start.  Thanks for posting your detailed formula as you always do Alan.

Benny

It could just be me. But last time I even tried to retard shaped ciabattas, which seemed to have revolutionized my baguettes, but the results were only OK, I'd say. And one our of four of them inflated like a balloon! Which is quite convenient to stuff for sandwiches, but not what I was looking for :) if someone else tried it, I'd be curious how it worked for them... Reviews on his website seem a little mixed too.

in modified ways for the past 2-3 years since happening across the Scott MeGee video.  Eventually converting it to levain, which seems to be the only way I do it these days.  Once I got the hang of the shaping there was good consistency to the loaves.

thanks, alan

Alan -  Well done!  What is your convention for mixing a levain?  I don't find your seed starter quantity or your fermentation time/temp.  And how wide is that piece of flooring that you are using as a transfer peel/bread board? Looks like somewhere between 4 and 5 inches but there is nothing in the photo to use as a reference and there are no standards for the product.

Really nice color and not too much flour on the loaf when it was baked (which I find all too easy to do).  I think I may run a batch using AP flour and see how it turns out.  Will be interesting to see how much temperature rise I get with the spiral mixer and AP flour in a batch of ciabatta.  I like to develop the gluten at a fairly low hydration and put whatever water is left over into the bassinage (which is why I built my levain at 60% instead of 100%).

in the past I've been capable of a lesser amount.  As in this biga version from 2019...

 

I also neglected to mention that I use King Arthur AP flour.

The hand peel is indeed a piece of cheap-as-they-come laminate flooring, now in service since this journey began about 6 years  ago.  5 1/2 inches wide and cut down from the original strip.

You may not be happy with my levain maintenance and build pattern, as it is all over the board and undisciplined.  I recently refreshed this 100% hydration AP levain from its 4 week old hiatus, so this morning I took 200g straight from the refrigerator and then added 100g each water and flour.  I used the warmest tap water we had to begin warming up the levain.  It came in just short of doubling in ~4 hours.

And that is pretty typical of how I treat my levain, which I've used without a build after as much as 5 weeks unloved against the back wall of my refrigerator, although these days I try to get in 2 or 3 builds just to try and get into the habit.  As the levain had so recently been refreshed, I dispensed with the staged builds and went for the singular instead.

thanks, alan

I love the look and crumb of these. Interesting process and formula. I'm giving Daniel Leader's version a try tomorrow that uses a cold biga (one hour bench rest then refrigerate overnight). 80% overall dough hydration that has a room BF for 3 to 4 hours. New territory for me. I'll post the results. I noticed you didn't dimple the loaves before final proof..

Cheers,

Gavin.

a docked (dimpled) version of this bread.  So that is a new concept to me.  I've had more open crumbs before by taking the hydration up a few clicks, but this version is still quite light and airy, so I really don't see the point of trying when this nicely suits the bill.  

My biga version of this is at 40% pre fermented flour. And a sample of it can be seen in my reply to Doc just above this, although that one does have the olive oil as well.

thanks, alan

I actually use convection quite often as I find it does help promote more even browning.

When I bake in a dutch oven, I always have convection on.

When baking with steam, for example for baguettes, when steam needed convection off.  Once I remove the steaming gear, convection gets turned back on.

Benny

well, for certain there is no arguing with your results. Thanks for the tip, I will take it under advisement. For this first bread bake, I think I will stick to normal bake mode. 

 

I do the same. I don't think I get more even browning this way, but it happens quicker. Occasionally I even turn on the grill for a minute or two in the end for properly dark crust!

I’m surprised you are counting the oil in your hydration for your formula.  I’ve always been under the impression that oil is not to be counted towards the hydration level of the bread and my BreadStorm program also doesn’t count it towards he hydration.  Not sure it really matters that much anyway.  Potato ?...patato?

Ian, I always assumed that oil increased the hydration. But if that is incorrect, I’d like to learn. Always assumed that anything that made the dough more wet should be considered in the hydration.

Can someone clarify and elaborate on this?

Ian,

His text reads that oils at room temperature are "liquifiers", and "as such their weight is included with that of the water when computing dough hydration".  

Other bakers may have their own take on this, pro or con, but this is what the Bread book states.

I’m pretty sure The Bakers Guild of America stated that oil should not be considered a liquid.  I will have to see if I can find the article as it was from several years ago.  I know this is an often disputed topic.  I have never found the small amount of oil to impact the hydration either way.

My last 3 bakes used 3.8% oil. It makes a huge difference in the suppleness of the dough. It is a joy to handle, even at high hydrations.

But does oil make a dough feel wetter? When I consider hydration that is what I consider. It seems probable that even though the oil makes the dough more slack, it is also much less sticky. Therefore, ease of handling.

Hello, friends.

I am very happy to be able to join you all in another community bake. My first order of business is to thank Danny and Michael (M.Wilson) for supplying the starting point formulas. I am taking the liberty and sharing the Giorilli formula in the format I like to use. As many of you know from my semolina bread bakes, authentic Italian is right up my alley! Now I am not saying I am an expert all I am saying is, this is an area I like to explore. In addition to the transcribed formula, I have attached a video of chef Giorilli in action. Now back to my pre-bake research. Smile...

Bassinage: is a method that first develops a dough to a rather high gluten-development and then slowly incorporates more water into it. This greatly improves the fresh-keeping and softness of the crumb while not significantly prolonging mixing.

 

 

Thanks Will for taking the time to put Giorilli's formula into an easier to read format and for the added details. This will really help others.

I'm aware this formula may be difficult for a US audience to follow. I'm not sure what flour(s) I should be recommending and depending on that choice increasing the final hydration may be appropriate. The video is a good way to see what one should be aiming for with the final dough.

Hi Michael,

Not my place to state what type of flour should shouldn't be used by anyone else, but I've always used AP for ciabatta.  Whether off the supermarket shelf (Gold Medal/Pillsbury) or King Arthur AP with 11.7% protein.  I've also used the KA AP in combination with Tritordeum flour at 50/50 percentages with consistent results. 

If one wants to remain true to the formula as written by Signore Giorilli, no issues by me of course.  

I did want to state that I find plain old AP flour is my go-to flour for ciabatta.  Therefore, it should't be a necessity for one to seek out a high gluten flour to produce a good ciabatta loaf.

alan

I don't quite get this. The video clearly shows Panettiere Ponsford, adding a low hydration biga to his mix. Yet the formula below the video calls for poolish? 

Panettiere Ponsford-ciabatta

This formula uses a rather interesting technique I have never seen before, (I know I should get out more.) The 24hr. biga stats with mixing 1/2 cup water with 1/8th teaspoon of IDY. Then only 1/4 teaspoon of the yeast mixture is used in the biga build. Very interesting indeed! 

Eureka

This Daniel Leader’s recipe from “Local Breads”.

This ciabatta is 80% hydration and was very sticky and a challenge to knead without mixing in too much additional flour. My bench scraper got a real work-out. The biga was prepared the day before and refrigerated after a 1-hour bench rest until the next morning. The biga had doubled in volume and smelled mildly acidic.

I mixed the dough to incorporate the ingredients, then turned out onto the counter to knead for about 15 minutes. The dough was glistening, creamy and extremely elastic. Place on a Couche covered and fermented at 21 to 24 C until inflates x 3, 3 to 4 hours.

At 3 ½ hours dough looked ready and was extremely light and fluffy. I turned the dough out onto the floured countertop. I lifted and stretched the dough onto my peal covered with parchment paper. As I docked the dough with my fingertips, the dough flattened out more than expected and I wondered if I was too aggressive. The loaves were proofed at room temperature for 30 – 40 minutes.

The loaves were baked in a pre-steamed oven at 246 C. I used the parchment to manoeuvre the dough as it was so fragile. Steam for first 10 minutes and baked for about 30 minutes, until light and golden crust.

Lesson learned: I will reduce the BF to 2 1/1 to 3 hours as I felt the dough was a little over-proofed

IMG_5546.jpeg
IMG_5544.jpeg
IMG_5543.jpeg
and caused the partial deflation (I think?). I was also surprised at the amount of IDY and may tinker this down.

Taste test: A very nice nutty-sweet taste with an outer crisp, yet chewy crust. The crumb as not as open as I expected but still nice with irregular small holes. I can't believe that white flour could deliver such a beautiful flavour.

Cheers,

Gavin.

I forgot to include the formula. I recalculated for a 556 g single dough to test the formula. I used a white flour of 12.5% protein. There is 16.5% flour pre-fermented in the biga.

Book Recipe

 

 

Overall Formula

Baker's %

g

White Flour

100

303

Instant Yeast

2

6.05

Water

 

80

242

Salt

 

1.7

5.15

Total Yield

183.7

556

    

Biga

 

 

 

White Flour

100

50

Water

 

65

32

Instant Yeast

2

1.00

Total Yield

167

83

    

Final Dough

 

 

White Flour

 

253

Biga

 

 

83

Water

 

 

210

Salt

 

 

5.15

Instant Yeast

 

5.05

Total

 

 

556

 

Gavin, you’re probably right that it was a bit overproofed.  It sounds like the flavour was great so just a bit of tinkering on the yeast and bulk/proof might do the trick.  Seems like a very successful bake though overall.

I've been thinking about the over proofing, especially since I was expecting better volume. I rechecked Leader's formula in the book and his ingredient said "instant yeast". Misleadingly, I assumed that meant instant dry yeast. I thought it was a lot at the time, but not having made this before I just with that amount that I think resulted in a much faster proof that I was prepared. I have never seen fresh yeast referred to as instant yeast before. I will bake this again to confirm my suspicion.  

Cheers,

Gavin.

I’ve never heard fresh yeast being called instant yeast either Gavin, but that would make sense as to why your dough got overproofed.  Your next iteration will be better for sure with that adjustment.

Benny

heard of being called fresh or compressed but never instant. There is something to be said for standardization of terms.

I recently was given Leader's "Living Bread" book. I've only tried one recipe so far which is a 41% Emmer recipe. He uses an LM starter, but tops it up with 0.6% IDY. It did not make a good bread; I think the LM was probably "drowned out" by the IDY and the bread lacked flavour and had a dry crumb.

So I will be very careful with his recipes in future; I believe he has modified the so-called "authentic" recipes he has collected, often by increasing the yeast amount because he thinks this will work better for amateur bakers (it could also be for IP reasons!)

As another example, his latest book has a ciabatta with a rye starter, but he also adds 1% IDY to the final dough. This is equivalent to a massive 3% fresh yeast!!!

And to clarify, he refers to the yeast he uses as "dry instant yeast" - no confusion there.

Lance

See THIS LINK for compilation of all of my Ciabatta bakes.

Bakes 1 & 2 used Hamelman’s Poolish formula listed in the original post. I haven’t baked Ciabatta in a long time and the results bare this out. The breads had a super thin crust and a super soft interior. That suited me to the max. The taste was ok, but I would have liked a much more complex flavor.


The black specks in the image below are black olives. 5% was used but the increase in flavor was disappointing. Chopped green olives, maybe as much as 10%, might have been a better choice. 5% olive oil was added to the second bake. It softened the crumb and enhanced the bread, IMO.

Bake 3 - After the previous two bakes I started exploring the possibilities of using much less CY with an increase in flavor in mind. This lead me to John Kirkwood’s formula that used a small amount of CY in the Poolish only and none in the Final Dough. His Poolish ferment temp & timing didn’t work at all for me. After following his directions to refrigerate the Poolish for 12-14 hours it had not risen at all, so it was left on the counter to mature before mixing into the Final Dough. The bread produced the typical Ciabatta crumb and the flavor had more character, but improvements were needed. To tell you the truth! I like Allan’s crumb better than the typical holey version. See Alan’s crumb shot below.

Bake 3 Images 

Bake 4 - As a former fan of Ciabatta with Poolish, my recent studies revealed that the original Ciabatta used a Biga. It is my understanding that the Poolish is French and the Biga is Italian. With this new knowledge the Biga version became the focus...

A response by Debra on a recent and timely post concerning “ How to make a starter maximized for yeast” taught me that white flour, low hydration, frequent builds, and moderate temps would move my starter in that direction. And so it was, 50% hydration, all white flour, temps in the low 70’s (F), and 3 feeds a day for several days. Not a Lievito Madre, but inching closer. I’ll be leaning on Michael as LM evolution evolves :-)

Michael tells me that a Biga can be either SD or CY, but must be low hydration.  SD was chosen because flavor was the main focus. I had a mature SD Biga and hadn’t found the perfect formula, so Abel’s 90% Biga was adopted and tweaked. The SD Biga used 76% Pre-fermented flour, 75% hydration, and 2.2% salt. The flavor was much more complex and ramped up noticeably (slightest hint of acetic), crust was nice, but not as thin as CY, and the crumb required a little more chew but not much more. IMO, it was a definite hit and will be further refined in the near future.


It is interesting to note that of the 4 bakes this one was the only one that got the “finger polk” treatment. All others rec’d no deflation at all.

Here is the spreadsheet for Bake #4 - Note, the original Giorilli (CY version) was tweaked. See video link for original version.

OH! I also like Alan’s floured “stretch marks” on the crust, so I copied him.

Danny

Doc suggested Ciabatta for the Community Bake. Good Call.

 

Wow, lot’s of interesting discoveries already.  Dan I too like the look of the stretch marks on the crust in Alan’s and your 4th bake.  They look like bark from a tree trunk and is a really good look.

So did you think that the finger poke (docking) did anything in particular to the crumb?

Benny

Finger Polk - definitely! It seems to hvae more evenly distributed the holes. The dough quickly sprang in the oven and filled in the indents.

The flavor of Bake #4 is special. It is probably my best tasting Ciabatta ever.

my ciabatta protocol have all been listed in my post above.  

  1. the three S&Fs in the BF tub, decreasingly going from aggressive to gentle, the first immediately after the dough being poured into the BF tub.  Then leaving the BF untouched for the final 40-60 min.  
  2. folding the (un-floured top side of the ) dough over onto itself when first dropped out of tub onto the well floured bench and then squaring it away.  
  3. creating the barrel shape as Scott MeGee does to provide a uniform less amorphous final shape. #s 2&3 ensure that when the loaves are divided, they will shape short enough for #4.
  4. roll the loaves over off the couche and stretch when moving from couche to baking peel.

Your sliced loaves for bakes 3&4, are the best looking and have the final appearance that I strive to achieve.  Rolling the dough over before placing it onto the oven peel, regardless of how the shaping is achieved, seems to ensure that any larger gaping holes typically found at the top of the loaf, are reduced in size and the overall crumb is more uniform.

To us, it is clear that a direct dough without pre-ferment is fairly insipid tasting, and although certainly quick, not worth the personal effort.  I understand that folks love the Jason ciabatta formula because it's easy and does the job, but it holds no interest for me.  The preferment is the key to flavor, and I've latched onto a levain version although I also like the biga version as well.

Nice going and I like seeing the 4 bakes stacked on top of each other for easy visual comparison.  Up up and away!