July 24, 2017 - 4:38pm
Ciabatta dense crumb. Why??
I baked ciabatta today using Peter Reinhart's poolish recipe from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice". It produced nice bread. Good crust. Great taste. However, the crumb which should be open was pretty tight.
Any ideas what I could do to get an open crust? I handled the dough as gently as I could. I thought it was a wet dough.
I am a bit confused.
Thank you!!
Jack
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I don't have that book, although I'm well aware that I should..anyway if you could let me know your method/timings/temps etc I'd be glad to try and help
Thanks...
I made a poolish last night. 11.25 oz. bread flour. 12 oz. water. 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast. Let it rise a few hours. Put it in the refrigerator.
Today I took the poolish out of the refrigerator a let it stand for about an hour.
Mixed the dough... First the flour (13.5 oz.), salt (1 3/4 t), yeast (1 1/2 t). Then the poolish. Added enough water to make a sticky dough. Cleaned the side of the bowl. A bit sticky... stuck a little to the bottom of the bowl. Mixed with a dough hook in my KitchenAid. About 15 minutes in the mixer.
Put the dough on the counter on a bed of flour. Folded it over (envelope style) and covered with a little olive oil and flour. Covered it and let it rest about 30 minutes.
Stretch and fold again. Cover with a little olive oil and flour. Let rise on the counter covered about 2 hours.
Gently divided the dough in thirds. With each piece, stretch a little and place on couche on counter. A little olive oil and flour on top. Covered.
Transfer to pan after about an hour. Bake at 500 degrees. Drop to 450 degrees. Bake around 30 minutes.
Cool.
That's it. Why do you think the crumb is tight.
Thank you!!
I made this bread a couple of months ago, and I definitely included more flour than necessary during the various times that Reinhart calls for that to be done, so I echo the other comments about that aspect. One thing you do not mention is whether the loaves "noticeably swelled" during the time on the couche (the phrase used by Reinhart in step 5 of this recipe). If not, then perhaps you needed more than the "about an hour" that you allowed. (This reiterates the "watch the dough, not the clock" mantra, which I am still learning.)
Work has been manic, I can't really add anything oher than what the others have said already! I've never used a poolish but if I was using a sourdough starter and felt my crumb was dense I would consider a shorter bulk ferment and longer final proof? Good luck anyway, would be great to see some pics when you've cracked it
that crumb looks to me like a much lower hydration than any ciabatta recipe that I've seen. They are all over 80% hydration, with some up in the 95-100% range (such as the incredibly popular version here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2984/jasons-quick-coccodrillo-ciabatta-bread). Do you have any idea how much water that you added to the point of "sticky"? If it was anything less than about 8 oz then the dough most likely isn't hydrated enough for the typical ciabatta crumb, especially with all of the extra flour and oil that you mixed in on the bench doing the stretch and folds. With the current temps and humidity here, I'm finding that even a relatively low 70% hydration dough can act slack and "sticky", so maybe you might want to try the recipe again while keeping an eye on that hydration level.
I'm also a bit surprised at the technique, since with this style of crumb, I'm used to seeing the procedure of kneading to full window-pane at the beginning, letting it rise untouched (so that you're not de-gassing it or adding any flour during the fermentation), dividing it and letting it proof without any further de-gassing, and then a final flip upside down to the baking surface just to re-distribute the bubbles as it goes in to the oven. I have to wonder whether the stretch-and-folds (which are mixing in oil and flour) aren't taking out too much of the gas, and there just isn't enough time resting undisturbed for the big bubbles to form and disperse again.
I hope one of the experts can help you out more.
Interesting about the hydration...
The recipe calls for between 3 to 6 ounces of water. I used less. Maybe the dough was not wet enough.
A note in Reinhart's book beside the recipe says...
"As you become comfortable with wet dough you may want to try increasing the hydration and stickiness of the dough. The wetter the better as long as it holds together enough to make the stretch and fold maneuvers. It is during the stretching and folding that the gluten has a chance to strengthen, resulting in the large holes so distinctive and prized in this bread."
Looks like my bread wasn't wet enough. I'll try it wetter next time. I want big holes.
Anybody have any other thoughts?
Thank you,
Jack
15 minutes in the mixer is excessive. Cut that in half and you'll see better results.
Mixing time really depends on the hydration level...the wetter the dough, the more mixing it takes to get the same level of development (which is why many use a double hydration technique for ciabatta...like in the link below). As in Jason's formula mentioned above...I would err on the side a greater development (greater mixing).
That said, there is a LOT of disparate recommendations out there, regarding mixing, degassing, shaping, etc....but I would agree that it looks like your example is underhydrated.
This video from Ciril Hitz at least has nice visuals of the dough and its handling and development (I think he may be a bit of an outlier with his aggressive degassing, but it clearly works for him)...and the visuals can come in handy in learning to deal with a tricky dough like ciabatta. Pay special attention to how well developed the dough is, which makes this whole thing possible...good luck!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFja1ShZFsA
The OP is using Reinhart's formula and it calls for half the mix time the OP used; moreover, the look of the crumb indicates too much mixing. The handling of the dough is of more importance to the crumb than is the hydration.
I stand by my recommendation.
will come up with a whole host of posts from every year, with most of them seeming to have issues with getting an open crumb with this formula, and most often suggesting using a higher hydration and a different handling of the stretch-and-folds.
The one that had the most detailed discussion that I first found is here:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2117/ciabatta-challenge-bba-recipe
I think you'll find that following the suggestions discussed in the comment string will be most helpful to you in creating a more open crumb.
I've never read any of Reinhart's stuff and I have no clue what his Ciabatta techniques are but I've made lots of Ciabatta bread from 80% hydration to 100% hydration. Doing the mixing in a stand mixer with the beater bar to start with until it climbs the beater bar. Then I remove the beater bar and put in the dough hook and turn the speed up high. The beater bar first saves time... but I can't get a good window pane test in my KA mixer in just 15 minutes.
My guess is if you mixed your dough in your mixer with a dough hook for 15 minutes... you didn't get proper gluten development.
Then when I read your final shaping technique after you divided your dough into 3 portions, degassed it with stretch and folds and put it on the couche and only gave it an hour to final proof... I figured that was the cause of your dense crumb. You should have not put it in the oven until your saw your dough double in mass, more like 2 hours after being degassed. You needed that extra time for the gas to reopen your crumb.
Folding your dough after the mixing process... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=myU0RBL91M4
Portioning your dough after bulk fermentation and final proofing... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d4NfYiVN_N0
I hope that helps...--