OldWoodenSpoon's blog

This does not quite match the discussions I have read, and I am hoping someone might recognize what is going on here and point me in the right direction.

I recently spun off an all white flour sibling of my 18 month old whole wheat 100% hydration starter. The original starter has been fed 95% home ground hard white whole wheat flour, and 5% BRM Dark Rye flour at 100% hydration (50gm:50gm:50gm s:w:f) with excellent results since this forum rescued me and my starter back when I first joined. The sibling is about 6 weeks old and is fed on Pendleton Mills Mor-Bread (AP flour) at the same 100% hydration (50gm:50gm:50gm s:w:f) as it's older sibling. I have baked with it successfully twice before, both as the foundation for pate fermente, as well as for a poolish, in variants of Peter Reinhart's Pain Ordinaire and French Bread with Pate Fermente (old dough) from “Crust and Crumb”.

This all-white flour starter is a new experience for me, so I do not have reasonable expectations by which to measure it. It seems to me, though, to be a bit “odd”. At feeding time it has a consistency that is very fluffy, rather like well whipped egg white, and yet thick, much like pudding but with lots of gas bubbles in it. It reminds me of mareshmallow crème, and it is, of course, tenaciously sticky, clinging to anything and everything it touches, but it has a very pleasant fruity, healthy aroma. My whole wheat starter is pretty easy to break up and mix into the water at feeding, but this white starter is quite resistant to this action. It takes considerable effort to blend the water and starter at feeding, before adding the flour. It triples in volume easily in 4-5 hours, so the overnight delay befor morning feeding is a stretch at 8-9 hours.

This past Thursday morning I began the elaborations for a sourdough using 5% BRM Dark Rye, 5% Pendleton Mills Power (bread flour) flour and 90% Pendleton Mills Mor-Bread (AP flour), to provide a 30% prefermented flour inoculation to a final dough targeted for 72% hydration. The starter had been in the refrigerator for four days so I pulled it out the night before (Wednesday night), and fed it just before bed. The elaborations began first thing in the morning and I built the final dough that night (late), all from the same composition, ending up with 1500 grams of dough for two 750 gram boules.

For clarity, although it is not my point in all this, here are the essentials:

Total Preferment:

259 gm water

259 gm Flour    composed of the following:

            15 gm BRM Dark Rye flour
            15 gm Pendleton Mills Power flour
          229 gm Pendleton MorBread flour

Final Dough:

363 gm water

604 gm flour  composed of the following

            30 gm BRM Dark Rye
            30 gm Pendleton Mills Power flour
          544 gm Pendleton MorBread flour

15 gm Kosher Sea Salt (Coarse)

For the main build I combined the preferment, flour and water, but withheld the salt, and let it rest (autolyse) for 40 minutes. I added the salt and did two sets of 30 stretch and folds in the bowl at 30 minute intervals. After this second set of s&f's the gluten was beginning to shape up and the dough had come together nicely.

At this point things started to get interesting, but not in any good way.

After another 30 minute rest I came back to do another set of stretch and folds. To my surprise I felt the dough break down right under my hands as I worked on it. It literally fell apart, and the more I tried to stretch and fold it the looser it got. I finished the 30 strokes, gathered it in the bowl to rest, and tried to figure out what to do next.

I sensed that this was not a hydration issue, as the hydration seemed to be about right, but the dough was very stretchy and more sticky than any I have ever worked with. After 30 minutes I pulled the dough out onto my marble work board that I had wet down with cool water. I decided not to try to work in more flour, but this dough was so stretchy and sticky I could not be so stingy with water. Using wet hands and a wet bench scraper and the wet marble I tried to bring the dough together using Bertinet's wet dough technique. It did a little bit of good, but the dough remained essentially like highly congealed cottage cheese, and as sticky as any dough I have ever come up against. It was ugly sticky. I did probably 30 to 40 strokes of slap/stretch/fold/gather/repeat. It was after midnight and Friday was a work day so I had to put it to bed, and me too. I oiled up a dough bucket and managed to get the dough in. It puddled into the bottom of the bucket, and self-leveled. There was little evidence of gas in the dough. I thought it was dead. I put it into the fridge for the night, on the bottom, coldest shelf, cleaned up and went to bed.

On Friday morning I looked at the dough and it was still just a puddle in the bottom of the bucket. I left it in the fridge till afternoon when I could leave my desk to work on it. I pulled it out early and let it sit on the kitchen counter (between 66F and 68F all day) to warm up, and to see if it would come alive. After 90 minutes or so of letting the chill warm up, I could see at least a few nice gas pockets in the dough, but it still appeared very slack and loose. I heavily floured my bench and poured the dough from the bucket. I had to scrape it out to get it to let go of the oiled bucket, and remnants clung tenaciously to the bucket even then.

Even on a heavily floured board this dough stuck to everything, and by the time I finished my hands, bench scraper, board, apron, everything had dough stuck to it. I divided the dough in half, and succeeded in herding each portion into somewhat of a roundish blob, but it wanted nothing to do with holding any shape at all. I used both well floured hands cup-like to gather the blobs and drop them into heavily floured linens in some small plastic colanders I bought at the Dollar Store for just this purpose. I set them to rise, stuck my La Cloche in the oven and set it to preheat to 525F, to let the oven warm the kitchen up and hopefully prod the “loaves” to rise some.

One loaf actually passed the poke test after 90 minutes or so without clinging permanently to my finger, so I started my baking. The first loaf held some shape, although it did flatten noticeably when I turned it onto parchment on the peel. I should not have slashed it so deeply, and that spoiled what shape it had. It behaved as if over-proofed, but I don't believe that to be true. The second loaf I scored only very lightly and with short cuts that did not go all the way across the top of the loaf. This loaf held shape somewhat better, and exhibited somewhat better spring in the oven, but neither loaf performed even marginally well.

I baked both loaves in succession, with the preheated dome on for 12 minutes, turning the oven down to 475F after 7 minutes and removing the dome at 12 minutes. I baked each for an additional 18-20 minutes after removing the La Cloche dome. Neither crust shows a very markedly bold bake, although both loaves finished with internal temperatures up in the 208F-209F range.

Here is a picture that will help visualizing the results.

The light coloration is, I believe, due to all the flour on the surface.  The crumb has good appearance, and shows some variation of hole size, but if you look closely you will see some darker areas of the crumb.  Those are quite gummy/chewey, and the whole loaf is quite heavy, even after cooling over night.  The loaves, under "normal" circumstances should be nearly twice as tall as this had they taken/held any shape, but they lacked any structural integrity.  Hence the very flattened profile.  The whole loaf on the bottom of the stack is the second loaf, which "sprung" about 1/2 inch higher than the other.

I have read Debra Wink's excellent and informative posts on Thiol degradation here. I have read the thread originated by foolispoolish with contributions by Debra Wink and Eric Hanner and others regarding transition of firm starters to white flour here, and the trials of many with super elastic dough.  My evidence does not seem to fit these cases very well, but I don't have the experience or expertise to judge it myself. It is a transitioned starter (whole wheat and rye to white flour), but not a brand new one. It is performing well between feedings, and appears to have made the adjustment to white flour satisfactorily, in the storage jar at least. It seemed to be okay in the first couple of bakes as mentioned above, and not until now, some 6 weeks or so later, has a dough from it just disintegrated.  I really don't know what is going on here.

So, I'm left trying to determine a course of action without any real knowledge of what I am fighting. Until I get better advice I am going to try Debra's recommendation to “feed through it”, in the hope that it is some kind of contamination or invasion and that in time it will be worked out as hers was.  I've started that regimen by reducing quantites to 10 gm:20 gm:20 gm (s:w:f) and will stay as close to three evenly spaced feedings a day, and see how it goes for 10-12 days.

Has anyone else been through this recently, or have any other thoughts, observations, suggestions, reccomended reading?

Thanks for stopping by
OldWoodenSpoon

Note: a follow up thread can be found here:  Follow Up to "Never saw a dough break down like this before"

It seems like everyone is baking Raisin-Walnut bread of one kind or another.  Me too!  With the holidays drawing to a close, we are generally "sweeted out", and wanted a flavorful loaf that is not full of sugar, to go with morning coffee and all.  This seems to fill the bill nicely.  The recipe calls for minimal sugar, and gains most of it's sweetness from the natural sweetness of the raisins.

I followed the BBA formula with only a couple of exceptions.  I am still trying to use up some powdered buttermilk from the fridge, so I substituted that here and adjusted the water accordingly.  Also, Mr. Reinhart does not instruct to plump the raisins for this loaf, but I prefer the results I get when I do so.  I soaked the raisins in about 1/2 cup of brandy and enough hot water to cover them over in the bowl.  I thoroughly drained them before hand-kneading them and the walnuts into the dough.  I hand-kneaded the nuts and raisins so they would not get torn up by the Bosch, where I did the main work of mixing the dough.

I baked the dough as two panned loaves, in 8.5" x 4.5" pans, prepared with my pan release.  The house has been much cooler these past few day, so proofing took an extra 45 minutes or so.  Baking, however, was done a bit sooner than expected, probably because I left my baking tiles in the oven.  The crust is not adversely affected, however, and the crumb is very nice.

As you can see, I did not do a perfect job of shaping these loaves for the pan.  The crumb does not seem to show the obvious lines you might expect, given the exterior appearance.

These two loaves are the end of my 2010 baking year.  Tomorrow starts a new year, and I have the rye sour working already for the BBA Pumpernickel to kick off the new year.  That is another story though.

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy New Year!
OldWoodenSpoon

I thought:  I have just enough time to bake one more goodie.  With both our son and daughter coming home for Christmas, what could be better than a celebration?  Since I just got the BBA off the bookmobile, why not use Peter Reinhart's celebration loaf, the Cranberry Walnut Celebration Loaf to be exact?  Well, mostly exact.  I did not have any real buttermilk, but we have some powdered buttermilk in the refrigerator, so I substituted that instead.  I bought the orange extract for this loaf, deciding I would like that better than the lemon, and I am sure I made the right choice there.  I also decided to soak the dried cranberries before making this up, so I put them in a bowl with about 1/3 cup of brandy and enough hot water to cover them, for about an hour.  I mostly drained them before adding them to the dough.  I should have drained them a little better.

This was not a overly difficult formula but I had some trouble with the hydration.  At first the dough came out quite dry and I added several (4 or 5) tablespoons of water before it seemed right. I later realized this was because I used powdered buttermilk, and failed to adjust the water.  At least I failed to acknowledge the water required, but I did add it since I got to the prescribed dough consitency.  Then I added the cranberries that I should have drained more thoroughly and it got too wet.  A scant tablespoon of flour brought it around and made me happy.  The cranberries and walnuts were a little trouble to get well distributed too, but in the end it seems to have turned out well.

It took several minutes longer than the recipe called for to reach the internal temperature target, but the loaf developed beautiful color by the time it was finally done.  The aroma while cooking was redolent of oranges and cranberries mixed in with that "There's bread in the oven!" smell I imagine we all love so much.  It was a great house to go to bed in last night while this loaf cooled.  Here it is:

Cranberry-Walnut Celebration Loaf

And of course, the crumb:

We could not resist trying a couple of slices this morning.  It has a delightful texture with a tender and creamy crumb, plenty of fruit and nuts, and if anything, a bit too strong an orange overtone to it.  I think I will reduce the orange extract next time, or at least measure extra carefully to see if it was my mistake.  It is not overpowering, but it is a bit strong to our taste.  Regardless, we are planning to make sure there is enough left over for turkey sandwiches on Sunday.

Merry Christmas to all
OldWoodenSpoon

On Friday night I baked the ciabatta from Rose Levy Beranbaums's The Bread Bible (TBB).  On Saturday I decided to try Peter Reinhart's recipe from Bread Baker's Apprentice (BBA) for comparison.  I am glad I did.  My results were success-failures.  I failed to properly shape the loaves from TBB, and as a result I ended up with broad, flat, spreading loaves with little or no loft/spring.  As a consequence of that I nearly over-baked them, although by appearance you would not think so.  I should have pushed the hydration more in the BBA loaves, because they ended up a bit "bready".  Here are my results.

First, Friday night from The Bread Bible:

As you can see, there was little true "spring" in these loaves, but the crust came out thin and crisp as it should, and the crumb is filled with holes both big and small.  I especially like the gelatinization of the starches that is evident here.  This bread is not perfect, but it is good to both the eye and the palate.  We have been slicing it big, then splitting it crosswise, and making very tasty sandwiches from this.

After these results I decided to try a comparison to broaden my experience, so I let Peter Reinhart challenge me.  Saturday night I baked the ciabatta from the BBA.  I have a couple more pictures from that bake than I do of the TBB bake above.

The shot above attests to how wet this dough was, although after the bake I concluded it needs to be wetter still.  Below are the (very) rustic loaves proofed, loaded on my "Super Peel" and ready for loading into the oven.

I baked these on my unglazed quarry tiles, as exactly according to direction as possible, even spraying the oven repeatedly during the early 90 seconds of the bake.

These loaves were not shaped perfectly, but they live up to "rustic" in character.

The folds are quite evident in my loaves, not that I think that is a bad thing.  It adds to the rustic character, and does not detract from the taste at all in my opinion.  The overabundance of flour, however, is another thing entirely, as the next shot shows.

This dough needed to be wetter, and the crumb attests to this.  The directions specify a variable amount of water from 3 to 6 ounces.  I used most of the 6 ounces.  In a sidebar Mr. Reinhart advocates raising the hydration even more, so long as the dough will sustain the stretch and folds needed to develop the gluten.  My loaves indicate this is not only a good idea, but necessary to achieve truly good results.

This closeup of the crumb shows how truly "bready" the crumb turned out.  It very much needed more water/less flour.  In addition, the small white "scrolls" in the crumb disclose my excess in flouring the dough between stretch and folds, and in shaping.  I was a bit too enthusiastic in "generously" flouring the dough between operations.  Controling this, too, will help me improve next time.

These recipes are for the same bread, but as I turned them out they seem to be from different planets.  Despite the lack of loft in the RL version I think I did the bestjob of that bread.  I got a much more true result, albeit altitude challenged!  The BBA recipe bears repeating as well, because with still higher hydration, and more moderation in that "generosity" between operations it will, no doubt, turn out a beautiful loaf.  I much prefer the bBA approach to shaping, and I like the rustic nature of the loaves once they are baked.

Two pairs of slippers: Two different ciabattas.  Too much fun!
Thanks for stopping by.
OldWoodenSpoon

Footnote:  For those not aware:  ciabatta is Italian for "slipper" and the shape of this loaf is supposed to evoke the image of a slipper when done correctly.  Hence the name.

My 30+ year old recipe card says this is Swiss Egg Bread.  I have no idea where I got this recipe, and I have looked it up by name on the web and found many versions that are similar, but none that are exactly the same as mine.  I do know that, whatever it's true name, this is a wonderful bread.  It makes excellent toast, which is my favorite.  It is popular with the neighbors for sandwiches and for French Toast as well.  I have been baking it every year at Christmas time and giving it away, for 30 years, and it has been popular wherever I have sent it.  I won't try to defend the use of Crisco in this recipe.   I bake it as it was given to me, and we like it.  I'm sure other fats could produce acceptable results.  Try them if you are averse to Crisco, or welcome a challenge.

In the original form the recipe below was stated by volume, but I have successfully converted it to weight, and I get much better results than I did when I baked it by volume.  Also, it is a big recipe that makes four 9" x 5" pan loaves if you use the full measure.   The recipe is very reminiscent of Challah and has similar consistency, and while I have never baked this as a stacked-braid loaf I think it would do well that way.

Here is the recipe I use, as converted to weights.

SWISS EGG BREAD
Makes 4 large ( 9" x 5" ) pan loaves

                            WT (grams)
PART I - The Sponge
WARM MILK                    1044  (I use 1 quart of whole milk)
ADY                                           9
WARM WATER                    79
SUGAR                                   24
AP FLOUR                           468

PART II - Main Dough
AP FLOUR                            1300
MELTED SHORTENING      188 (I use 1 stick of Crisco)
SUGAR                                       95
SALT                                           12
LG EGGS (6)                           390 (You will have to adjust flour based, at least, on true egg size)

Method
Poolish:
Scald the milk, then cool to lukewarm
If using Active Dry Yeast: Disolve yeast and sugar in the warm water and allow to proof
If using Instant Yeast: Add sugar and water to milk and stir to disolve sugar
                                 Reduce yeast quantity by 20% and mix instant yeast into flour
Combine milk, yeast and flour mixtures and beat with a spoon or whisk till smooth.
Cover and set aside. Allow to rise until light, about an hour or so.

Dough:
Add main dough ingredients, holding back 150 grams of flour. Stir, adding reserved flour, until it
clears the sides of the bowl. When the dough becomes too stiff to stir, transfer it to a well floured
surface and knead in flour till dough is tacky but not sticky. Knead by hand until dough is soft and
smooth, about 10-15 minutes. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl or dough rising bucket and
set aside to rise until doubled in bulk.

Shaping:
Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Divide each piece into 3 equal pieces. Shape each piece
into a rough log. Go back to the first and roll each piece out into a rope about 14" long.
Braid 3 pieces into each loaf, making four loaves. Pinch the ends and tuck them under
and place each into a 9"x5" loaf pan prepared with your preferred release. Cover and set
aside to rise until doubled.

Baking:
Brush each with egg wash of 1 yolk + 1 Tbsp cold water.
Bake in 350F oven for 40-50 minutes, turning after 35 minutes to brown evenly.
Remove from pans immediately and brush tops liberally with melted buter.
Cool on a wire rack.

As I said, this is a big recipe, and it produces 4 big loaves like this:

This bread has a very cake-like crust when you don't put too much flour into it, but it also keeps well.

Here is a crumb shot:

And this is a closeup of the crumb:

My personal favorite uses of this bread are for breakfast buttered toast with or without jam, and with cheddar cheese in a good old fashioned grilled cheese sandwich.

Enjoy!
OldWoodenSpoon

A few days ago our son announced he had bought a scale, and he needed a straight dough formula for non-sourdough (his preference) "french bread".  He has been baking "French Style Bread" from "Beard on Bread" for a couple of years, and he wanted a weight-based formula for a similar bread.  I gave him some tips on how he could convert his cups-and-teaspoons formula to weights by baking to volume and weighing everything, and I also gave him the flour/water/salt/yeast basic formula for a 65% hydration straight dough bread for a loaf of about 850 grams.  I have not heard back from him yet on what he chose to do or how it came out.  He did, however, get me interested, and thanks to the influence of my recent experience with the Rubaud flour mix, I've taken a new interest in spelt as well.  I decided to try putting them together.

I put together what is, loosely interpreted, Pain Ordinaire...  Ordinary bread.  The formula is my own concoction relying on a basic hydration of 68%, and flour mix of 75% Pendelton Mills Power (Bread) flour, 10% BRM Dark Rye and 15% Montana Milling Whole Spelt (Thanks Stan!) flour.  I started with a 5 hour poolish of 160 grams of water, 160 grams of flour mix, and a scant 1/8th teaspoon of instant dry yeast.  Because the arthritis in my wrists has been bad lately, I assembled the dough, including the poolish but holding back the salt, in my Bosch mixer.  I mixed the ingredients for about three minutes, then left it to sit for 30 minutes (autolyse).  I then added the salt and "kneaded" the dough till it was well developed (8 or 9 minutes).  Considering the amount of spelt flour in my formula I think this came back to haunt me later.  I think spelt does not tolerate over-kneading well.  Here is the specific formula I used:

Flour  1158 grams     100%
Water  787 grams       68%
Yeast    17 grams       1.5%
Salt       20 grams      1.7%

Total Dough Weight:  2000 grams  (I planned for 2 1Kg boules)

After kneading I moved the dough to a dough bucket for bulk fermentation, noting that I had 2 liters of dough.  It hit 4 liters in less than two hours.  When that happened I decided to go ahead and shape the loaves and retard them overnight in the refrigerator to bake this morning. I hoped that strategy would slow down the yeast and help develop some flavor.  I preshaped the two boules and let them rest, then tightened them up and put them in my large round floured baskets, covered them with oiled plastic wrap and into the refrigerator.  I put them on the bottom, coldest, shelf in hopes of being able to hold them off till late afternoon or evening Saturday.

I looked in on them about bed time, four or so hours later, and they were obviously not very retarded!  I knew I was in trouble, but it was far too late to try to bake them before retiring.  Instead, I set my alarm for 6:30 AM, an inhumane hour for me for a Saturday morning.  When it woke me I got up, started the oven, and checked the bread.  Yup.  In trouble.  It had over proofed, even in the refrigerator.

Because of the size I baked them one at a time, directly from the refer with no bench time at all.  Even so, they fell badly when I slashed them.  There was some oven spring, but not a great deal.  I have a good deal to learn about spelt I'm afraid.  The loaves did not come out "bad", but rather, they look like their namesake:  ordinary. 

I got little oven spring because the dough had little left to give.  I got a great crust thanks to the roaster-pan-lid steaming method and a liberal spritzing with water before covering.  The crumb is dense, as would be expected from loaves that were over proofed and fell significantly on slashing, but supple and chewy.  Maybe even a bit "rubbery", probably because of the high gluten flour.  The flavor is very pleasant, and the poolish made a very positive impact.  I also like the flavor of the spelt and rye together.  It was not a disaster by any means, and it was a good lesson, but I look forward to trying again.  I will be much more careful of my timing next bake, especially if I use as much spelt flour again.

Here are some pictures to illustrate my points, beginning with the loaves.

And then the crumb shot:

As you can see, I even botched the slice, leaving a jagged surface.  And I did it twice.

This is not a candidate for the "Ugly Bread" thread, but there is plenty of room for improvement.  I'll bet it makes good French Toast for breakfast tomorrow or Monday though!

OldWoodenSpoon

I think I'll post these here, and then start a new "Ugly Loaf" thread in the General forum.  It seems I'm always posting loaves I'm proud of because they look nice (to me), so it is time to admit I'm human.  Really, really human.

I spent the day yesterday baking, and making a giant batch of Red Sauce for pasta and lasagna.  In and among all of that I also started a batch of sourdough bread to ferment overnight and bake tonight.  Tonight, my wife made us a lasagna for dinner from the red sauce out of the refrigerator, and I planned to follow that in the oven with my bread.  The sauce was cold, the cheese was not thawed out, and things took a lot longer than planned, so by the time the oven was free and up to bread temperature, my loaves were, shall we say, more than ready!

On top of that, I broke the bottom of my La Cloche baker last week (another story for another time) so I started experimenting with the inverted roasting pan for steaming.  Yesterday went okay, but I need lots of practice!  Today these over-proofed loaves bested me easily.  The first stuck to the peel, which was not big enough for it's over-proofed girth anyway.  It ended up in almost the middle of my baking shelf and I could not move it.  I pushed the second one in alongside as close as I could get it and told my wife "This is going to be ugly." in my best deadpan tone.  I was right.  Here's proof!

The two loaves were overlapping "a little bit" in the middle.  They also spread out plenty when they hit the stone, and I could not get the roaster pan "around" them, so it sat on them, kinda, at the edges.  The results are worth a picture, and it says the prescribed 1000 words easily.  Many of them unprintable!

So, there it is in all it's glory.  An edible lesson.  Ah, the joys of baking.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll bet this never happened to you.
OldWoodenSpoon

The wood-fired oven project must go on hold till Spring comes.  It is located in a very wet area of the back yard and I don't have enough dry days left free to do anything about it, or to protect it if I press on.  So, it is under cover for the winter, and I'll pick up with building of the new dome once the rains have passed.  That could be January, or it could be May.  I'll just have to wait and see.

Here is the WFO then, bedded down for the wet.

It is not all a bad thing though.  We heat with wood in the house, and the kitchen heat from baking always helps keep it toasty, so I don't mind that much baking in the kitchen all winter.  It is the 100F and hotter summer days with 75F and warmer nights when baking indoors is a lot less acceptable.

So, I've been baking in the kitchen...  I have been intrigued by the work of Gerard Rubaud as beautifully rendered on Farine, MC's bountiful blog.  I only learned of him through the tributes to him here on The Fresh Loaf by respected bakers such as Shiao-Ping, David Snyder and others.  I have baked some real bricks in attempting to emulate their success, and finally decided to back off a bit, and take it a bit more slowly.  That's more my speed anyway.

Two weeks ago I backed way off, and completed a single instant-yeast, straight dough boule using only "the Rubaud flour mix".  Instead of re-describing it myself I gratefully stand on the shoulders of my predecessors here and direct you to the excellent work of David Snyder again, in the form of his tables for the blend of flours for this bread.  You can find them here:  Gérard Rubaud formula in a single table, FYI

The straight dough effort was a success, and thus I gained enough confidence to revisit it in sourdough.  I'm still holding back though, because at this point I am using my own "standard procedure" to prepare the dough at 72% hydration using the Rubaud flour blend instead of my usual, more mundane concoction.  Inspired, I made two boules this time, although only one survived intact for the camera.  The other will be acceptable only for crumb shots since we were eating it by the time I remembered pictures.  So, first, the pictures...

The one remaining intact boule

A shot of boule and crumb together...

And finally, a closeup of the crumb.

I mixed this dough as I do my usual sourdough, with an initial autolyse period of 30 minutes followed by 2 x 40 stretch-and-folds in the bowl at 45 minutes intervals.  I then did one tri-fold on a lightly floured board and was able to pull a very nice window pane so I put the dough into a bucket and into the refrigerator to bulk ferment.  I did not want it to go very sour because I wanted to be able to taste the flour blend, so after 6 hours I pulled it out to rest on the bench for about an hour before pre-shaping.  It had more than doubled after the six hours in the fridge.

I pre-shaped the loaves into two round boules of about 800 grams each.  In shaping I learned that this flour mix produces an amazing, pillow-soft, supple dough that is such a great pleasure to handle.  After 10 minutes of bench rest I pulled them tight and put them in floured linen lined round collanders to proof.  Because I planned to bake both loaves in my La Cloche clay baker I needed to serialize their proofing, so I moved one loaf back to the refrigerator for an hour to slow it down while the other proofed normally on the counter in my 68F kitchen.  This delaying tactic of cooling one loaf immediately worked perfectly this time.  It has not always been so successful, but this time it was.

After scoring, I misted each loaf while on the peel before slipping it into the La Cloche, baked at 525F for 10 minutes, then turned the oven down to 475F.  After 5 more minutes I quickly removed the cover on the La Cloche baker and continued to bake at 475F till done (internal loaf temperature of about 205F).  The overall baking time was approximately 35 minutes, with the first 15 minutes under cover, ie: with steam.

These loaves smelled wonderful when done!  None of my other bread baking has produced such a pleasing aroma in the kitchen.  I read in the noted sources that Msr Rubaud's bread is known for it's pleasing aroma and if my own experience is of any relevance it must be so.  It has to be something special in the combination and proportion of grains in the flour blend that makes it so.  The flavor was pleasing as well, but I was less struck by the flavor than I was the aroma.  My wife disagreed with me and thought the flavor was superb.  The crust came out thin and crisp, and crackled all over the counter when I cut into the first loaf, showering crust flakes everywhere.  The crumb is soft and tender, and almost has an "enriched bread" consistency to it, although there was nothing but flour, salt, wild yeast and water in the dough.  That the crumb is not more open is owing to my still clumsy handling, but I am getting better with lots of practice. I do wish I had let the dough spend the night in the cooler though.  I'm certain the not-quite-stupendous flavor is the result of insufficient development of the acidity.  It needs to be sour more, and then it will be better yet.  Make no mistake though:  it tastes great!

Next time I revisit this I shall try the multi-stage build again as Msr Rubaud himself makes it, but probably not yet going all the way to the firm starter he uses.  I still feel the need to sneak up on that more slowly for a while, and in a much smaller batch of course.  That way I get to bake more often.

Thanks for stopping by.
OldWoodenSpoon

Well, my last post was all about my new WFO, and I said I would keep everyone posted on how things go as I complete the oven and learn to bake in it.  Some of the lessons have been hard to learn.  Having finally recovered (mostly) from the internet connectivity disaster my ISP wrought a couple of weeks ago, I'm now able to post some progress. 

I did bake in the oven, on September 29th.  I got three very nice loaves of Beth Hensperger's Pain Ordinaire, from her book "The Bread Bible".  I chose this recipe because it is a straight dough that can be completed start to finish in about 2-2 1/2 hours so it made my timing very simple for my first wfo bake.

This bread was very exciting, if only because it came out of the WFO and confirmed all of my hopes for how the concept of a wood fired oven would perform.  I was pleased with how well I was able to coordinate the dough and the oven, having both ready at nearly the same time.  Truth is I rushed the bread.  It could have used another 20-30 minutes to rise, but I wanted to bake!  The results were not at all bad, and the bread came out very well. (I took and processed these shots myself, so blame me not my photographer-wife!)

We ate two loaves, and I gave one to the neighbor that helped me so much in finishing off the dome build a couple of weeks earlier.

That, though, is the end of the good news.  In fact, it was the end of the oven (sob).   I said the first bake was on Sept. 29th, and on October 2nd we pulled the oven down.

The above is a shot from inside the dome of one of several through-cracks in the dome.  And here is the outside.

They were not originally this wide, but I was expanding them so I could patch them, then I found the through-cracks, and the roof fell in, almost literally.

These pictures speak pretty well for themselves, and I have not much to add...

And finally...

What can I say, but that it was my fault.  We did a good job of building the dome, and I ruined it by over-firing it in one of the very first "small drying fires" (see my earlier blog post for the original admission of this sad truth).  I called my neighbor that helped me put it up and he came over and helped me pull it down.  His words of greeting were, "So, when do we do it again?".  My answer was "Soon!" and my wife's was "Start today!".  We did, but the starting was in cleaning up the mess and hauling away the first try.  I have a huge pile of busted up oven dome in a ditch behind the woodpile.  The winter rains will melt it down and I'll add it gradually to the garden where clay and sand will be welcome additions to the complete lack of topsoil around here (It seems like everything growing around here is in hauled-in soil).

So, I began again.  I learned from my first oven that this time I want a chimmney because I am tired already of getting covered with soot just by going near the oven door.  I also learned that my clay-sand mix was way too short on clay and long on sand.  I learned lots of lessons about patience in waiting for natural drying (no more "drying fires" till the oven is already dry!) and about how it is not as hard as it seems to put one of these domes up.  Next time I'll be better prepared, and more relaxed about it.  There is much less need to hurry than I thought the first time out.

I spent a couple of weeks researching design options to add a chimmney, on materials, and on trying out mock up designs to see how they looked and how they fit my somewhat odd eliptical basic shape.  And now I have started to rebuild, beginning with a new, square arch.  I concluded that the square arch, while much less romantic, is (imho) more practical in form, function, and fits my skill set better.  I can build a square arch that will stand.  My track record for the curved arch is less sterling, to say the least. So here I go again, rebuilding my wood fired oven from (almost) scratch.  I have had to partially reset the oven floor, but not entirely.  I have moved everything forward toward the mouth of the oven to preserve space inside for baking.  Here is what I have so far, beginning with the new arch vertical columns.

Next I added the top row of cap-bricks on the arch as you see here.

Finally, so far, I've started cutting and laying out the "inner firewall" that will be the face of the oven itself.  I'll post more about this later, but for now I'll just say that when I saw the concept it made instant sense to me, and using the basic idea I was able create a plan that gives me a chimmeny, an insulated gap between the heat sensitive front arch structure, and a solid face for the dome itself.  As I said, more on all that later.  For now, here is what it looks like  (from the back, inside-the-oven view) with the bricks cut but just laid in place for now.  Mortar will come this weekend.

So out of the disappointment of my first failure I press on, with determination to be more patient this time, and to end up with an even better oven.  Mean time, I'll just keep baking in the kitchen!

Still hanging in there
OldWoodenSpoon

Okay, after all the compliments and enthusiasm over my new WFO, it is time to tell the dirty details of something I only just touched on in my earlier blog post:  the little matter of too much fire too soon, and the problems with the doorway arch.

Saturday morning I got over enthusiastic throwing wood into my "small drying fire".  My wife admonished with "Isn't that a little big?", to which I replied in my best know-it-all tone "No honey, you should see a big fire!".   Then we noticed the cracks, and the top bricks of the arch sagging from thieir proper position.  After much running around for steel buckets, fireplace tools, water and my heavy elbow-length gauntlets (it was really hot in there) I shoveled the live fire out of the oven as fast as I could and doused it with water in the bucket.  It was too late though, and the damage was done:

The crack is not all that bad, but the brick problem is another story.  A couple of days earlier we had noticed these bricks had come loose.  When I investigated, the mortar and the bricks had all separated from each other and the mortar was just loose slabs between the bricks.  This next shot makes it easier to see both the loose mortar and the keystone brick dropping through the top of the arch as well as a head-on view of the crack.

I hoped the insulation layer would secure things together, but the heat expansion in the dome proved I was just wishful thinking.  Something had gone wrong somewhere and my arch was coming apart as I stood there.  You can see the tops of two bricks I wedged into the arch to hold things up while the oven cooled off and I figured out a plan.

Here you can see my solution, if you look carefully.  I hope we can get a better shot of this tomorrow when the light is better, and I will edit that shot in here if we are successful.  However, if you can see it, my solution was to break another rule about ovens:  I installed a metal arch support in the form of a hoop shaped to fit inside my arch.  I made the hoop loose fitting, and then loosely packed a wood stove door gasket made of a fireproof, non-volatile glass fiber between the hoop and the brick to take up the slack and provide compressible space between the hoop and the masonry.  These materials expand at different rates and to different extents, and I have no idea if this will work or not.  Since my alternative if it fails is to rebuild the arch, and my alternative if I don't try this is to rebuild the arch, this is a free chance to get lucky.  As you can see in this shot above, I pulled all the old loose mortar out of all the arch joints.  That's all it took too:  I just grabbed it bare-fingered and pulled each wedge out in one piece.

While working on all this and running around I noticed something I now call "probable cause".  Earlier, I blamed this whole incident on too much fire in a green oven, too soon.  The next shot proves I could be wrong about that.  It certainly was contributory, but I'm not sure it was the cause at all.  I think I made a bigger strategic error earlier in the building process, in how I joined the arch and the dome.  If you look carefully at this next shot, especially at the very top brick, you will see it is tilted up to the right.  This brick was dead-level when I built the arch.

Here's what I did and what I think happened:

- When I mortared the arch originally I only mortared the front 75% or so of the wedge-shaped gaps.  I left the rear 25% empty so I could tie in the oven dome itself.  This was, I believe, the fatal flaw.

- As planned, I built the dome and filled in the rear-most 25% of these mortar wedges in the same pass as building up the dome, effectively making those parts of the arch an integral part of the new dome.  I also added a layer of oven mud over the top of the back 25% of the arch as well, thoroughly integrating the arch and the dome.

- I sat back and watched it all slow-cure as I kept the dome and the dome-arch joint draped with moist towels for three or four days, and then under cover of dry towels for two or three more days, all to slow down the surface drying and let the inner clay keep up better.  During this time the new dome showed some stress cracks from drying, which I worked over with the back of a spoon as much as I could to try to iron them out.  Honestly, it did not help much, and my overzealous drying fire on Saturday morning brought them all back.

Now, look again at the tilt up-to-the-right of that top brick in the shot above.  I believe the oven dome shrank significantly in drying, and because the doorway arch was so throughly integrated into the dome, the dome squeezed the arch in on the sides and down on the top at the back edges of the arch bricks, popping all the mortar loose and opening up bigger gaps between bricks than were there when I built the arch originally.  When the arch alone was complete, the inner surface was continuous, with the inner edges of each brick neatly and firmly in contact with the edges of it's neighbors.  Now it looks like carved jack-o-lantern teeth.

The fact that I built too hot and too large a fire on Saturday only brought all this to the fore sooner.  I now believe I doomed this arch when I tied it so tightly to the dome of the oven.  Nothing I read told me I should do this, and it also did not tell me I should not.  I learned that part myself.

I installed the new metal arch support today, and also re-mortared the arch.  Now I will give the fresh mortar in the arch a couple days to dry out and go back to small (yes, really small!) drying fires to slowly cure the oven dome and all, and see how it goes.  When I am finally able to really heat things up I will find out if my metal arch is going to be a help or the final straw that destroys the doorway arch.  Then I will know what the next chapter will be.

Thanks for listening, and stop by again.  I'll continue to post my progress, positive and negative, right here.

OldWoodenSpoon