You guys are not making it easy for me to lose a few pounds.
Tartine Bread
- Thread starter Sullybob
- Start date
Today's project (started last night) is a 50% whole wheat loaf made with a biga, which is an overnight pre-ferment of half the flour with a tiny amount of yeast. This recipe also came from Ken Forkish's book. All went well, though I had to stick the dough in the fridge for a couple of hours due to an unexpected errand. I used half the dough for the boule, and am right now baking a pan of focaccia with the other half.
Oven spring seems to me to be a bit less than the white loaf I did a couple of weeks ago, but that's to be expected. I'll take pics of the crumb after I cut it. I'm getting pretty comfortable with the technique, and just need to better work out the timing for the rises and baking around all of the other stuff that needs to get done.
Oven spring seems to me to be a bit less than the white loaf I did a couple of weeks ago, but that's to be expected. I'll take pics of the crumb after I cut it. I'm getting pretty comfortable with the technique, and just need to better work out the timing for the rises and baking around all of the other stuff that needs to get done.
The crumb....
And the focaccia....
And the focaccia....
- Thread starter
- #224
The crumb looks pretty good on that boule Bob, I'm digging the big air holes. How was the focaccia? It looks like it might be a little dense.
I believe that one way to get better at baking bread is to bake a lot of bread and analyze what went right and what didn't go right. You will learn so much, or at least I did.
I believe that one way to get better at baking bread is to bake a lot of bread and analyze what went right and what didn't go right. You will learn so much, or at least I did.
Thanks, Shawn. The focaccia was actually quite good. It didn't measure up to the pan I made with the all white flour, but it was still pretty tasty.
Two loaves of yeast-leavened white bread are in the bulk ferment stage.
No pics of the resulting loaf and pizzas, but suffice it to say that they're gone. I made a mistake baking the boule by forgetting to press the button on the kitchen timer after removing the lid from the Dutch oven after 30 mins. I got back to the oven about 25 mins later (instead of 15), and let's just say that the crust was pretty well caramelized. I don't call it burned simply because despite the (really) dark appearance of the loaf, it didn't taste burned. Go figure. The crumb had good air holes, and made a great cheese sandwich. Tonight, I'm going to set up a preferment of either a biga or poolish (I haven't decided which, yet) to do more loaves with white flour tomorrow. I'm sticking with the white flour breads for now, just to nail down the techniques before adding whole wheat into the mix.
One of mine from today!
Beautiful loaf, Dave. 
Poolish is is mixed for tomorrow (500 g white flour, 500 g water, 1/8 tsp yeast).
Poolish is is mixed for tomorrow (500 g white flour, 500 g water, 1/8 tsp yeast).
- Thread starter
- #230
You guys are killing it!
Bob, I prefer my bread to have a deep dark caramelized crust, bordering on burned. It adds a lot of flavor and texture to the bread. I like your idea of practicing one loaf until you master it before moving on, it's like 3017'ing soap but for bread.
That's a good looking loaf Dave!
Bob, I prefer my bread to have a deep dark caramelized crust, bordering on burned. It adds a lot of flavor and texture to the bread. I like your idea of practicing one loaf until you master it before moving on, it's like 3017'ing soap but for bread.
That's a good looking loaf Dave!
Two nice loaves from the poolish method. Here's the top and side view from the first.
This is a wetter dough than the standard "same day" white bread loaf, with 75% hydration vs 72%. As a result, it was stickier and more difficult to manage (including sticking to the brotforms. The poolish itself was just a hive of activity, so the bulk fermentation and proof were each about an hour shorter than usual. Oven spring was great.
This is a wetter dough than the standard "same day" white bread loaf, with 75% hydration vs 72%. As a result, it was stickier and more difficult to manage (including sticking to the brotforms. The poolish itself was just a hive of activity, so the bulk fermentation and proof were each about an hour shorter than usual. Oven spring was great.
- Thread starter
- #232
Those loaves look great Bob!
The flavor of the bread is subtly different from the same day fermentation, tasting less bitter. I'll wager that the pre-fermentation mellows things a bit. In my reading, I found that using a poolish makes the dough more extensible, and that was my experience. The dough had really good stretch without risk of tearing. I understand now why hey recommend this technique for pizza doughs.
Those of you interested in the Dutch Ovens might like to know that Amazon has Emile Henry 4.2 quart ceramic Dutch ovens for something like 45-60% off depending on color.
Two loaves of 50% whole wheat bread made with a biga were very successful today. I think I've finally got the hang of this.
I have an Emile Henry casserole dish that is fantastic, and picked up a black 4.2 quart Dutch Oven yesterday for $75 shipped. They normally run $175.
I saw that. If I hadn't just bought a Japanese knife I would have been in on that deal.
Scheduling finally was favorable, so I made a batch of Forkish's Overnight White Bread. This is 1000 grams of all purpose flour, 780 grams of water, 22 grams of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of yeast. The remarkable thing to me is that all of the recipes have the same four ingredients. Flour is always 1000 grams total and salt is always 21 or 22 grams. Water and yeast are the only things that vary in their amounts.
The overnight white dough is pretty wet, 78% hydration, and the warm weather goosed the yeast, filling the bowl after just 10 hours of bulk fermentation, rather than the predicted 12-14. I used both the cast iron and Emile henry ceramic Dutch ovens, and both did really well. The ceramic gave me a more evenly browned crust than the CI, but I wouldn't turn my nose up at either.
The overnight white dough is pretty wet, 78% hydration, and the warm weather goosed the yeast, filling the bowl after just 10 hours of bulk fermentation, rather than the predicted 12-14. I used both the cast iron and Emile henry ceramic Dutch ovens, and both did really well. The ceramic gave me a more evenly browned crust than the CI, but I wouldn't turn my nose up at either.
Two more loaves of white with a 10 hour bulk fermentation and one hour proof. The loaf on the left came from the Emile Henry and the one on the right came from the Lodge cast iron.
Similar threads
