hypothesis: how to create a viable in taste, crust and crumb baguette in one day

Aim: To create the same day bake pooish baguette formula, with the following characteristics.

1. Pleasant flavor without a strong yeasty aftertaste

2 thin crispy crust

3. Open crumb

The formula

Totals

Flour 805g 100%

Water 529g 65%

Yeast 16g 2%

Salt 16g 2%

Poolish ( Fermented for one hour at 70°F)

Flour 493g

Water 493g (90°F)

Yeast 16g

Final dough (bulk fermentation one hour thirty min.)

Flour 312g

Water 36g

Salt 16g

Divide and pre shape (thirty min. rest)

Preheat oven 450°F

Shape and proof (Thirty minutes)

Bake

15 minutes full steam

Purge steam

15 minutes additional dry.

Those loaves have a great appearance, Will. How did the crust turn out? The crumb ... is on the dense side, don't you think? I still have not been able to create a baguette with the ultra large and irregular holes that seem to be the ideal. I've gotten closer and farther away, but I'm not there yet. One thing that holds me back is that a good baguette doesn't stay good very long, but I can't eat enough to take advantage of my bakes in that short time.

It's common for French baguettes to be made in less than a day. Here is an interesting blog post by Martin Phillip about baguettes:

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2021/03/17/all-about-classic-baguettes

That being said it was nice not to dense. I too, have trouble achieving the irregular open crumb. The next step I go too far the other direction, end with a gummy under proofing.

They look good for a fast turn-around baguette bake. I've tried many different formulas over the years, but I keep coming back to a loaf with poolish of about 14 hours overnight or else the crumb is always dense with shorter time quick direct loaves. The other differences is that you used much more IDY. The formula I use for 960 g dough (3 baguettes): IDY 0.4% total, IDY in poolish 0.1% (14 hours at 21C) with 33% flour in the poolish. That being said, I think you achieved good results with this experiment.

Your baguette s look amazballs! I am happy with what mine are, and were meant to be. Five hours mix to cooling rack.

I haven't made baguettes, but have had good results with batard shaped loaves along the lines of the spec you working on, Will.

I have an Italian book that is very good on biga and poolish techniques. I have found what it suggests to work well with both techniques. I think their poolish guidelines could help with your 1-day baguette quest.

Final dough additional flour should be 2x the flour used in the poolish
Fresh yeast as a proportion of poolish flour determines the time you need to ferment the poolish along the following lines:

1-2h	2.5-3%
4-5h	1.5%
7-8h	0.5%
10-12h	0.2%
15-18%	0.1%

Poolish water temperature in C should be according to this formula: Tw=70-Tamb-Tflour

I reckon that with 3% fresh yeast (1.5% dry yeast) you could get a baguette in a day using this approach and without any additional yeast spiking needed in the bulk ferment. And, from my experience, the crumb will be more open and uneven. Post if you get any joy with it.

Poolish water temperature should be according to this formula: Tw=70-Tamb-Tflour

Those temps are in Centigrade, are they not? And "1.5g dry yeast" should read "1.5% dry yeast"?

TomP

Yes, correct Tom.

Edited to fix

Some supporting info regarding temps:

Initial mixture temperature: 23-25 °C.
Fermentation temperature: 20-22 °C.

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/73378/il-poolish

There seems to be varying info regarding dosage. Somewhere I read dosage being prescribed by percentage of water used in the recipe. But certainly using too much poolish might result in a too extensible dough leading to flat baguettes and scores that don't open.

Same book!

The formula I am working with called specifically for 60% of the total flour in the poolish. It did seem like a lot of pre fermented flour. Cutting the poolish flour to approx . 30% of the total flour seems more reasonable.

Great looking baguettes Will! Those scores are perfect!

It is always such a hectic time. The end game of the final bake. After a long day/days everything can be destroyed in the last minutes. That is way I fall back on this visual helper. It also doubles as a flipping board. Smile...

Obviously the crumb needs work, but that's the complicated part, because now you need to figure out how to balance flour strength/absorption vs hydration, bulk vs proof, and tune the bake.

That is always the bug in the ointment. Being able to consistently get the crumb right. That goes for all bead, from highly enriched panatone to the baguette 🥖.

What tweeks to the test formula are needed to go from the Sicilian Filone bread crumb, to a Parisian baguette crumb. Keeping everything else static.

Thanks

Will F.

Gives confidence that I am close to achieving baguette nervana. Mean while these are super hero loaves!

Since all and all, I was pretty happy with the first run. In order to open the crumb, I decided to leave the formula ingredients as is. The changes are in the process.

I took care not to knead the dough like an Italian Nona with pythons for arms. I left the dough a bit rough with room for time and temperature to finish building the gluten matirx.
Two I cut down on all the timings, just slightly.
Standby for the results.

Continuing with today's theme, I tweaked the time and temperature for the bake. This resulted in baguettes of a much richer and pleasing color. Just a few shades darker than batch #1.

Bake temperature - 475° F

Bake duration - 20 minutes with full steam 20 minutes dry.

The crumb reveal to follow.

What terrific-looking loaves! Am eagerly waiting for the cross-sections pix.

I think I prefer the crumb from the first set better.