I just wanted to add a couple of observations about the 100% whole wheat sandwich breads I've been making lately.

First off, the epoxy method really does work. I've done it now by hand and by mixer and it really isn't that hard. I really like it. It seems to give the whole bread a better texture, and I'm getting whole grain breads that are soft enough for even my toddler to like it for PB&J sandwiches. And that's something.

Another thing is that I've noticed is that the whole wheat seems to stay softer longer than the white bread of the same type I make. I think that the epoxy method has something to do with that. If anyone else could comment on that, I'd really love to hear some ideas.

I find it all incredibly interesting.

I've recently started trying to bake bread. I've tried a few plain breads from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" and I feel like I'm getting bland bread. I find the bread even lacking in that nice yeasty flavour. I've done overnight fermentations in the fridge as well as out. 

Can anyone advise on what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks so much!

Normally, enriched doughs are made using baker's yeast and relatively short rise times.

I made a Greek celebration loaf using PR's BBA recipe pretty much.

The eggs went in and the fermentation times turned out to be like 8 or 10 hours do to the high percentage of wild yeasts, and a confluence of that and baker's yeast (not instant).

I am wondering if the eggs go bad in this scenario as in "do not eat".

Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks!

I've been baking with a home-grown starter off and on for a couple of years now, with occasional success, and I'm finally trying to get a little more serious and organized about it. I don't think I've ever used the same recipe twice, and I'm realizing that I'll never get better at this unless I stick with one method long enough to really understand what's going on. So my question is: can someone recommend to me a fairly basic procedure that I can just stick to for the next six months, until I get a better handle on this? I've seen a whole lot of names and techniques thrown around here, but don't really understand how it all fits together. Some considerations:

I bake at most twice a week, so the starter usually lives in the fridge, and I'll probably have to take it out and wake it up the day before.

I'm home often, but not all day long, so ideally I would start in the early evening, proof overnight, and then get up early and bake it.

I live in a place (Beijing) with enormously variable seasonal temperatures and humidity.

I am baking in The Little Toaster Oven That Could – that means bread pans, no stone, and more than 500g of dough tends to scorch on the top.

Sorry to jump in with "tell me how to do it please", but if someone could just say "use Horkelmeister's Bavarian Triple-Swizzle Method" that's all I would need, I can even google Horkelmeister myself. I just need to be told what to do until I get a handle on it…

Thanks!

Eric

Hi All.

Playing with different hydration rates, to get a loaf I'm really happy with.  Very puzzled by my latest loaf:

(clothespin for scale).

-as the size of this monster is through the roof, comparatively speaking, and the fermentation was much more explosive than previously; with the only variable I've changed, beside more time for this starter,***was a slightly higher hydration rate in the finished dough. 

You can see from the pics, while the crumb has, to my eyes, anyway, a nice mix in terms of openness, the loaf profile is very flat.  In truth, all the way through the bulk ferment/folding, to placing the dough on the peel, the dough was very, very "flabby," for want of a better word (I'm sure there's a baker's term for this).  I am confident this isn't due to a lack of gluten development, but would strongly suspect the hydration rate - is this a correct assumption?

Here's the particulars:

Refreshed the starter with 2 tbsp starter, 1/2c water, 1/4c white whole wheat (I'll call it "WWW") flour, 1/2 cup KA bread flour; allow to ferment to 12 hours, feed again, yielding an active, 100% hydration starter.

Day 1 of dough, 1 cup of this starter, 1c/5.5oz KA bread flour, 1.250c/10.4oz water; ferment for 4 hours.

Mix in 29.3 oz. KA bread flour, 3.7oz. WWW, 2.125c/17.7oz. water.

Rest/amylisation for 30 minutes.  Add in 2 tsp. salt, french fold/knead, bulk ferment 5 hours, folding every hour. Shape into boule, placed in floured banneton overnight, 12-15 hours.  Temper for 75 minutes (with other loaves, I temper up to 2 hours, or until 75% bulk; because this dough was going into the banneton already quite expanded, I didn't want to push the tempering time before baking too much).

I get a starter hydration of 101%, poolish hydration of 188%, final hydration of 76%.  Originally, I was getting 151% poolish, and about 70.7% dough hydration, but I wanted a wetter poolish, and to experiment with an overall higher hydration on the finished dough.

Previously, the dough went into the banneton considerably smaller in size - the bulk ferment yielded nothing like this size, and the finished loaf, even with a longer tempering post-retardation, was considerably smaller (about half-volume, by memory); but interestingly, the previous loaves had a much, much higher vertical spring (most of that, it seems, from what folks were saying, was apparently due to my baking the loaves right from retardation, without any tempering/final proofing). 

Any thoughts as to whether the hydration is the key, both to the explosive growth, and the lack of "hold" to the dough, and vertical spring?

Not really disappointed - the bread is really, really chewy (I like it like this), well-developed crust, and delightfully sour.  The only visual I'd hope for would be a bit higher loaf, but I guess, anticipating answers, I expected this, with this level of hydration.  It literally poured out, moved like a blob, on the peel, and it was a dash to slash and drop it on the stone, to attempt to slow the outward movement.  Perhaps a lower hydration?  Different slashing technique?  Different flour, or some wheat gluten?

Thanks for any thoughts, all.

Paul

***Meaning, to me, anyway, more "teaching" of the yeast and bacterias to undergo, and complete, the fermentation cycle....at least from my brewing days, something I learned is that younger yeast will start off like gang-busters, but will typically peter-out when it comes to finishing off the last bit of available free sugar, or chewing off the longer or more branched chains of available complex sugars, to "finish," or "attenuate" the beer...successive generations of propagation/pitching/fermentation always prove better "finishers," up to a certain generation cycle, at which time the population tends to tire, requiring a new master inoculation/propagation, etc.  This was my experience, anyway.

Paul

Every Christmas Eve, I bake about 50 loaves of bread and deliver to friends and family.  I've been doing this for about 25 years.  I have a bad back, and I cant seem to take the long day of mixing and baking anymore, so I've moved to naturally fermented breads over the last few years.  Generally that's been a help as I easily have my dough ready for shaping and baking in the morning, pushing half the work into the day before.  Now, I'd really like to push the shaping to the night before as well, dealing only with baking the day before Christmas.

I'm currently working on this year's recipe, and plan on going with an onion pumpernickel.  I have the flavor profile under control, and my first test run went pretty well.  The 2nd not as good as I believe the dough overproofed and was too slack as it went into the oven; didn't get the height I was looking for.  Crumb was fine, just not an appealing final shape.

For purposes of discussion, I'm using KA flours, about 23% pump, 23% dark rye, 54% all purpose. 70% hydration. Starter was about 5% of flour weight.  This last batch I even raised the salt a bit to about 2.5%. (you can find the full recipe HERE )

I'm looking for suggestions to help the loaves survive a long (maybe up to 12 hours until the final loave gets baked) final proof and still look shapely coming out of the oven.  I also had a problem with the dough sticking to a well floured couche after such a long proof.  I'd rather not reduce the hydration much as I liked the crumb, but realize that may have to be the final solution.  I'm thinking of moving the all purpose flour to high gluten, or even clear, to survive that long proof.

While I'm no stranger to using a starter, there are obviously members here far better versed than I am.  I believe I might be able to add some strength by increasing the percentage of starter as well.  I'd really appreciate any/all suggestions.

--Warren

 I was getting tired of covering my mixing bowl with plastic wrap to keep the dough from drying out while it fermented.  For me, unrolling, tearing, stretching plastic wrap has always been like wrestling an octopus.  Besides, I hate throwing it away after using it for a few hours.  I wanted to find a dough fermentation bin that had a top that would keep in the moisture but wasn't airtight.  I was buying half sheet pans at my local Smart-n-Final and noticed what looked like the perfect containers. They were plenty big enough for folding the dough in the container.  They had smooth bottoms that would allow the use of a plastic dough scraper and make cleaning easy.  They had tops with little vent thingies that could be opened or closed.  Most amazing of all they were cheap.  They came three in a package for about $20.  The only problem was that I had to get three of them which I didn't think I needed.  I decided to wait until I had scouted around to see if I could find something comparable that I could buy just one of.   Some bins had convoluted bottoms that would make it impossible to scrape out the dough.  They had fancy lids that sealed so well that no gas could escape and complicated seals that would make them hard to clean.  The better ones cost almost three times as much so I finally got the set of three.

Here are some pictures.  The familiar book is in the picture to give an idea of how big they are.  The brand is Reynolds.  The largest batch of dough I've used it for so far was 6 lbs. 

Here's a close-up of the vent.  The almost readable word on it is "Casuals."

Does the age of flour effect its part in the proving or fermentation of bread?

After doing some serious experimentations with long room-temperature rises and enjoying them, I have concluded that I do like the flavor imparted from 8-12 fridge retardations. It just gets a twang-y zippy edge I don't necessarily get from non-fridged loaves. I do fear it creates a far-too-similar flavor profile in loaves, even ones with long pre-ferments, pate fermentees, or epoxys (or the combination of those).

Back to the point: I hear it suggested to proof loaves in the fridge in airtight containers. This is not practical for me, so I generally just throw the post bulk-fermented dough into the fridge (generally overnight). It comes out the next morning, and continues to grow throughout the day.

Getting the right proof level is tough. I worry that the loaves won't spring after this rigorous procedure, but they generally blow up. So I'm starting to think I might need:

8-12 hour fridge retardation

8-12 back to room temp (house is cold in winter, likely much shorter in other months)

1 hour proof? I need new linens so I've been slacking on proofs lately with noticable results but am not sure how I should do this with the loaves coming up from cold. How many hours do you guys generally proof on regular, unretarded loaves? I find my loaves are generally under-proofed as they are likely to blow up on oven-spring.

Your input requested.

Hi guys, sorry for asking so many questions.

 Just wondering, is there a link between the amount of ingredients and fermentation time. For instance, do I have to ferment longer for 1 kg worth of flour, 2 kg and 3kg or is the fermentation time equal?