Vermont SD, as baguettes of course
For as long as I've been an attendee at TFL University I continually see postings galore for both the Vermont SD and the Norwich SD. Which, in an odd way, had me keep my distance from them both. Until today. Mr. Hamelman's Vermont SD is the first, foundational entry in his book's entire section of levain based breads, preceding even the venerable Pain au Levain entries. I'd skipped over it before.
But I had an urge to get back to building one of his ubiquitous 125% hydration bread flour levains after my romance, still underway, with my bastardized rye version of the same. So now what to bake, what to bake? Well, here I am. As with other breads that I wish to make into baguettes, I did some diligent searching for evidence of this being made before as baguettes. This time there were a very few instances where someone in the distant past did so (drat!). I was on board anyway. Stubby baguettes are my thang, if you haven't yet figured that out.
This is a 90% bread flour, 10% rye flour dough with a 125% hydration bread flour levain. Clocking in at 65% overall hydration it leans toward the more rubbery side of things during the French Folds. 15% of the flour is in the levain. Next time out I'll give these loaves another shade of dark before venting them.
375 x 4 baguettes.
and the crumb:
Here is the formula at 1000g, and the way that I do it:
| Vermont Sourdough | |||||||||
| Jeffrey Hamelman | |||||||||
| Total Flour | |||||||||
| Total Dough Weight (g) | 1000 | Prefermented | 15.00% | ||||||
| Total Formula | Levain | Final Dough | |||||||
| Ingredients | % | Grams | % | Grams | Ingredients | Grams | |||
| Total Flour | 100.00% | 599.2 | 100.00% | 89.9 | Final Flour | 509.3 | |||
| Bread Flour | 90.00% | 539.2 | 100.00% | 89.9 | Bread Flour | 449.4 | |||
| Rye | 10.00% | 59.9 | 0.00% | 0.0 | Rye | 59.9 | |||
| Water | 65.00% | 389.5 | 125% | 112.3 | Water | 277.1 | |||
| Salt | 1.90% | 11.4 | Salt | 11.4 | |||||
| Starter | 3.00% | 18.0 | 20% | 18.0 | |||||
| Levain | 202.2 | ||||||||
| Totals | 166.90% | 1000.0 | 245% | 220.2 | 1000.0 | ||||
| 2 stage liquid levain build | |||||||||
| Stage 1 | |||||||||
| Bread Flour | 44.9 | ||||||||
| Rye | 0.0 | ||||||||
| Water | 56.2 | ||||||||
| Starter | 18.0 | ||||||||
| Stage 2 | |||||||||
| Bread Flour | 44.9 | ||||||||
| Rye | 0.0 | ||||||||
| Water | 56.2 | ||||||||
| Total | 220.2 | ||||||||
This dough is very workable at the shaping stage.
- 2 stage build of the levain. It will hardly grow and will only display frothy bubbles to indicate ripeness. Depending on ambient temp each build can take from 6-12 hours. I refrigerate mine if I'm not ready to start a mix.
- levain, flour & water to "autolyse" for ~30 minutes.
- Add salt and incorporate.
- I hand mix "everything" so: 150 French Folds, a 5 minute rest, another 150 French Folds. Dough into oiled container and covered. Dough will be rubbery during FFs and break apart and then come together several times. This is normal with a drier hydration on some doughs.
- Approx. 2 hour bulk rise. Letter Folds at ~minutes 50 & 100. Cover and retard for a total of at least 12 and up to ~18 hours.
- At some point after 1-2 hours or more, divide, pre-shape, rest 10 minutes, final shape, onto barely floured couche. Cover couche with plastic bags. Back into retard.
- Oven set to 480dF an hour before bake time
- Sylvia's Steaming Towel into oven 15 minutes prior to bake.
- Score and load dough into oven. 2 cups near boiling water onto lava rocks in pan after loading.
- Oven down to 460dF.
- ~13 minutes with steam. Then release, rotate loaves and continue baking until ~205dF internally.
- Vent loaves with oven door cracked for 2-3 minutes.
Caveats & notes:
- My kitchen remains at ~78dF at all times, as most are cooler, then a little more bulk rise time is suggested.
- I don't temp the water, the dough, the finished loaves.
- For the bulk rise I don't watch the dough, I watch the clock (gasp!). I know how dough performs in my environment.
- I do hand mix using French Folds (pinch and folds in the bowl for initial incorporation).
- I do use a couche instead of banneton and it rests on a jellyroll pan.
- The LFs are on the wetted bench with wet hands - no raw flour is ever employed at this stage.
- Bake directly from retard.
- My lava rock pan permanently resides on the lowest rack in the oven.
- I bake on a granite slab which sits on the rack just above the steam engines.
- Parchment paper facilitates the transfer from oven peel to baking deck.
- If the levain is from the refrigerator I add it to very warm water. The levain warms up, the water cools down and a happy medium is reached.
Darth Baker
Comments
Question for you: Since the look of your baguettes is so consistent (I swear you use the same pictures over and over ;-). ), is the crumb and flavour consistent as well? I would imagine that the flavour changes according to the ingredients used, but what about the crumb?
Everything that I post is copied from shutter stock . com. Here, like this one...
The flavor is always changing based on the flour combinations, so that semolinas taste nothing like white flours, etc. This bread, one of the few almost pure white flour breads I've made in a while has a crisp, somewhat thin crust and a sweet clean flavor.
Crumbs are all over the board too. Figuratively as well as literally! I've now long ago given up on pushing for that big open crumb, so I'm not concerned with what it looks like as long as it isn't a tightly woven texture and crumb. My toast butter doesn't really seem to enjoy finding itself spelunking in the vast caverns of an open crumb. But that too changes as the dough composition changes.
Generally I get a more open crumb on batards. I think that I roll my baguettes a bit too tightly and deny them a more open crumb. But truly, unless the expectation is much different, at this stage, I don't care. I do care about flavor and the presentation of the beast though. I will say that I do take pride in being able to get a consistent and generally handsome grigne on just about all of the breads. When I started in this silly biznez, who knew?
thanks, alan
As to the crumb, you bake for yourself and if you are happy with it, then who is to criticize? The flavour is what counts!
Lol - I get my yeast from a bakery nearby called 'paris bakery' (they are not french) and they are happy to sell big blocks of the stuff. Funny thing is that this is exactly what their loaves look like. It just makes you wonder why they stock quality yeast. Also goes to show (cuz I know Alan uses idy) that its the hands that make the bread that's most important.
Since you are taking the piss out of ugly loaves here's a classic multi-part series on 'expert village'
1. Into - https://youtu.be/aecLFkyM6ww
2. SF and bulk rise - https://youtu.be/dWf28mnztgA
3. My fav 'cutting and pulling'- https://youtu.be/8ow5b4WIGOY
....skip to
Finale and the biggest laugh - https://youtu.be/_hZrOThVxS4
Still, to this day, not sure if this is serious. If comedy its genius.
Ps - gorgeous loaves - your consistency is OOTW !
to run across one or two of these "Laurel & Hardy" comedy videos a while back. I almost had a stroke watching two of these just now. There ought to be a law, but at least the comments on them call these out for what they are.
I would say that for the first 4-6 months I used only IDY until I built my first levain using the "pineapple juice solution", the great-great grandkids of which are still toiling away to this day as my yeast slaves. These days I buy a 1 pound pack of the red SAF IDY which then sits in the corner of the refrigerator crying "please, use me". But it just about never sees the light of day, except for the occasional use for croissants or babkas, one of my wife's middle eastern concoctions, etc. I probably would be better off with the gold SAF in its place.
So many people will buy these poor quality "French Breads" from the supermarket shelves, which we just about never would. But that is just our TFL way of thinking, our equivalent of opening up a can of Spaghetti-Os instead of putting up a pot of boiling water for some type of pasta. But to a lot of folks, it is just bread and they are happy with it. I'm not going to look down my nose at them because their standard doesn't meet my own. I just don't want that on my dinner table.
I grew up in the densely populated Bronx where there were 3 good bakeries within 4 city streets of our apartment, probably another 5 or more within a radius of 1/2 mile. Along with a bagel bakery 3 blocks away as well. No shortage of good breads, cakes and pastries to cut my teeth on (or into). Back in the '50s and '60s supermarkets didn't have their own baking equipment so they didn't sell those sad "French Breads".
When I first came across Laurenzo's, that fabulous Italian supermarket I wrote about a few months back, and where I buy my semola rimacinata in bulk, I spied blocks of cake yeast sitting in their bakery section's refrigerator and bought a small chunk. But it sadly sat unused in my own refrigerator until after the "use by" date had come and gone.
Thanks, alan
and my jaw is still still on the floor! Is this guy for real???
At first I thought it was a joke but no this is real. Its kind of sad but also a good laugh especially the comments. Well good for him for trying but maybe better to describe the video as something else (dunno what but certainly not bread of any form)
OMG! I am soooo glad I was recommended TFL by someone before I stumbled upon that "expert". He would have forever ruined my desire to make bread at home!
Hmmmm, I stil haven't attempted the Vermont and Norwich Sourdough.... not that I'm reluctant. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.
Your baguettes, however, are more tempting! Admittedly, I need more practice with them. Every Sunday I sell my breads at our local farmers market but no "long breads". A small chunk of my customers are French, and I know they'd appreciate a well executed baguettes. Poolish and sourdough versions.
Anyway, keep up the great bakes! :)
Mr. Z
for these French ex-pats, they'd probably be happy to see anything equating to a French bread on your weekend shelves. Most of the baguettes that I bake weren't posted as such, but typically as batards or boules. As with this Vermont SD, I just like attempting to make them into baguettes. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any that I wasn't able to make in this shape. So you may wish to try your hand at reserving a small chunk of some existing formula and try to roll them out as baguettes. My versions of baguettes fall a number of inches shy of a true baguette, and if you tried the same, I'd bet that your customers would still appreciate them.
thanks, alan
I can't wait for you to show us the crumb ... Your work never fails to amaze.
Crumb shot added. I'm not big on killing a whole bread for an interior picture, so this is what today's toast piece looked like - before toasting.
alan
That had ti make some fine toast.
more about the flavour - I can't deny that there would be a whole lot of satisfaction in getting that look and crust as a regular result, regardless of what flour blend or recipe you choose! It's a great thought to be able to get a variety of flavours and crumb while still maintaining that yummy crust...
Now I need to go and check out the video instructions to see what I need to change in my procedures ;)
Kudos - and thanks for showin' off --- I mean, "sharing"!
Best,
Laurie
who might possibly be responsible for JFK's death, can out baguette any French Fresh Loafian or French Canadian on this site or anywhere else for that matter. I don't think this pisano is even breaking a sweat yet. For heaven's sake or Mary Mother of God for that matter, what is wrong with French Baguette bakers that Tony Defao's personal baker can smoke the Frenchies everywhere. I find this disturbing in that French bread baking may be lost forever and exciting and weird kind of way that Don Baggs took over the entire North American Baggie Turf without even a whimper from a French man or woman baker to be heard anywhere. I say buck up and show this Italian, if dangerous, interloper that the Italians may have taught the French all they know about bread but it was the the French who were the ones who taught everyone else!
As I recall, it was Ted Cruz' father who was lurking in Dallas back then, passing out leaflets with LHO. I was in 8th grade.
On my way back to home room after the last class period of the day we passed by the office of Mr. Evanson, our principal, who had a mighty long face on. At home room, our teacher Mr. D'Amico, an older very proper gentlemanly sort, was sitting at his desk looking down, a saddened face and with his hand tucked into his suit jacket and over his heart as though he was on the verge of a heart attack. An hour ahead of Dallas put us right at the end of the school day by the time the news started making headway. Being too young to really grasp the situation, and the school being mum on it, we were pretty clueless as to what happened until we got off the school bus at our stop. That was a long weekend. It was the first time that I recall that all TV programming was cancelled for those few days.
who was not hot other than she was mad as heck all the time, got a weird look on her face when informed of JFK's death and broke down in tears which sort of threw everyone off key. Later she got back in the swing of things to stand on my desk while smacking me over the head with a metal ruler for being ....eeeeerrrrr.....unruly. My Mom loved this fine teacher and when I told her this story many, many years later she thought I made it up and that the good sister could never do such a thing. But, with a twin in the class and an eye witness who confirmed it, my mother immediately got the exact same face that Sister Furness had so long before on hearing JFK's death. Weird!
Beautiful baguettes Alfanso, as always! Is there that Vermont SD recipe kicking around somewhere on this site?. I've heard about SF SD, and Alaskan SD, but not Vermont SD. :-)
I am curious, your baguettes usually don't have pointed ends. Is there a reason you roll them that way, or it just happens?
No reason for the pointed ends. Just a wild hair, I guess. And I suppose that I should be more consistent in this area.
The Vermont SD is the creation of Jeffrey Hamelman, the head baker at King Arthur Bakery in VT. His book on bread, Bread, is considered a classic although geared more toward the professional baker than the home enthusiast, as most of us are. However, one can "normalize" his formulae for home use through a lot of what he preaches and his pared down versions of his breads. I only bought a copy about 6 months ago myself after having filched a few formula from poking around the Web.
04/26 - I moved the formula and notes to the main entry.
For any of these terms you are unfamiliar with, there is ample detail available by searching the TFL site for further info.
Thank you for sharing Alfanso. I'll need to try that; first have to get some rye flour, as I haven't baked with any yet.
Since your retardation is pretty long, I assume you retard in the fridge, right on the couche? Do you cover it with plastic to prevent the dough from drying out?
and rushed my reply, but since cleaned up the text and notes above. This should describe "everything".
and bookmarked...for now I participate in Maurizio's SD baguette community bake with a 65% hydration version as per your comment in different thread but I am sure I will re-visit this post soon again...thank you for sharing. Kat