Beginning bakers - trouble w/high hydration doughs?

This is a can't miss formula and I'm pretty consistent with the scoring of my baguettes, regardless of the formula, with a few exceptions ;-) ...

alan

which is the length of my jelly roll pan and depth of the oven.  410g is a bit on the either too heavy or too light side for these.  Coming in somewhere between a baguette type of bread and a batard.

I don't have a true oven peel either and also use a cookie tray.  The one difference from what you outline is that I slide the parchment with dough off the peel and into the oven.  You can see the whole process here.

With the exception of an IDY dough like the Bouabsa at 75% hydration my recommendation, as above ,is to start with something below 70%.  Thanks to the popularity Tartine and Forkish style breads, I guess, most folks want to "master" higher hydration doughs without going through the step-at-a-time process of understanding dough handling better.  To each his own, of course, and it isn't my place to say what anyone else should or shouldn't do.  But I see an awful lot of posts on TFL these days with frustrated newcomers.  I can only express my semi-learned opinion and leave it at that.

thanks again, alan

And at 25% whole grains, that's about in my comfort zone.   My formula book was getting to be on the unwieldy side.  I decided to take my favorites and place them up front for easier access.  Both breads in the text are up front.

Thanks, alan

It's the "flavor" of the month, but for a decade or more now.  I certainly have nothing against high hydration doughs, but they just seem to be the cat's meow with so many starry-eyed new bakers.  And with the dominance of Dutch Oven baking, it seems to be one way to obtain those goals.

"Essential" to keep in any baker's arsenal as I also maintain them in mine, but the emphasis on them and getting open crumb large enough for a mouse to fall through, just isn't what early learning bakers should be aiming for.

At least that's one chipmunk's opinion.

alan

differing ways, of course.  And what you wrote is exactly how it is intended as written, although not what i actually do.  

There are also a number of folks who opt for a 3 stage set of builds, and I think that it is more of a professional baker thing to do.  And when they do, I believe that they have a different method, going from really small first and second builds to a really big third build.  Chad Roberston and Ken Forkish to name just two.

I'm merely providing a simple scenario for the two stage here.

Now, I'm fairly unconventional.  I keep a vat of a few hundred grams of AP levain in the refrigerator - you may recall my recent post about not having refreshed it for a number of weeks and scooping directly out of that.  When I feel as though I want to or need to refresh (not do builds) I'l just scale some round number amount and then do a 1:1:1 or 1 : 1.5 : 1.5 or 1:2:2 .  I'm not picky as I just want enough goop to have sufficient amount for a next dough, whether that day or another.  I could never get away with this scheme in a real world bakery environment.  I'd be run out of town on a rail.

The anagram for my name is anal, but when it comes to levains and builds I'm anything but (or butt)!   My 100% AP levain seems to look after itself pretty well, wanting little from me except the occasional TLC. 

I don't pay attention to the DDT after mixing.  My apartment is a relatively constant 78dF give or take 2 degrees.  As I mix by hand, I don't consider the temperature rise that mixing friction creates.  The dough rests on my countertop between every French Fold and during the 5 minute rest between sets of folds, so the counter itself is also a contributor to the ambient temperature. 

I pay no attention to the rise in the dough.  In complete opposition to the vast majority on TFL, I watch the clock, not the dough (gasp).  I couldn't even tell you how much it rises, but when I do countertop letter folds the tactile feel of the dough informs me of how it has been progressing.  

If a formula calls for i.e. a 3 hr rise, and it comes from chilly Vermont, I give it 2.5, let's say.  If it comes from Albuquerque New Mexico, I give it a few more minutes.  If a formula calls for adding the levain after the autolyse, and I add it along with the autolyse, which I now do almost all the time, I give it a shorter autolyse.

I don't temp the dough at any stage and I don't temp the bread when it looks ready to emerge from the oven.

I take the dough out of retard less than 5 minutes before I score it and place it in the oven.  I only follow the "rules" as far as the amounts of ingredients go, and then not always.  For example, I know that high hydration doughs do not do well in my hands when forming baguettes (Bouabsa exclude, for one), so I'll lower the hydration. a few clicks.

Well, I hope that clarifies things for you ;-) .

is that we are free to roam far afield from the original without necessarily losing sight of it.  It always helps when starting out with the original author's intent, and then taking flight from there.

Mr. Hamelman often works with 125% hydration levains, both rye and white flour, and in this case 60%.  And for a time, and just for the fun of it, I used to keep one of each 125 bubbling away in the netherworld section far back in my refrigerator.  But I eventually decided to stop, and also to convert his 125% levains to 100% levains in some formulae.  I'm certain he has taken no offense!  One of the curiosities for me is that when he changes the levain hydration or flour type he doesn't explain why.  Why is a 60% rye levain used here rather and a 100% AP flour levain?  There has to be some explanation of his decision but it is not part of his writings, as far as I can see.

I've kept the overall total dough percentages as was written by Mr. Hamelman, just re-arranged some of the "furniture" within the formula and the methodology.

Timings on builds are dependent on the activity of the levain starter, the type of flour and the ambient temperature.  Generally I find at Chez Alfanso with a steady ambient temperature of 78-80dF that each of the first two builds with a white/AP flour at 100% hydration takes 6-8 hours.  

But of course you can do a single stage build rather than two or three.  All part of the free to roam.  You can do that in almost all cases where there isn't a specific reason for multiple stages - like the Detmolder technique.  A three stage will generally yield a more robust final levain, but I haven't found running a single stage build to be detrimental at all.  I'm doing that right now.  And most times that is what I do, a mere single stage.  I'm much more aligned with controlling time and temperature, hence scheduling to fit my personal desires, than to being a strict adherent to the author's formula and methodology.

If you wish to stick with his 60% hydration levain and steps, by all means, do so.  If using my formula above, then just calculate down the levain from whatever starter you currently nourish and then adjust the remainder of the formula - or much easier - just follow his version in the book! 

And as I've mentioned on TFL many times, find a formula you like, and then change one or more things about it to suit your interests/tastes/curiosity and call it your own.

Good luck, have fun and expect some frustration at shaping and scoring.  But don't get bummed out if doesn't turn out Instagram perfect.  It's all part of the learning process to get to where you eventually want to be.  And remember - even ugly bread can be delicious.

alan

Richard Bertinet has a video out there on French Folds which folks seem to reference.  It is a good technique for developing gluten, but has it's limitations in that you really can't get away with it for anything more than maybe 2-3kg of dough, just too much dough to handle easily.  I try to mix mostly everything by hand and this is what I do, and how I do it, and a picture (or two) might be worth a thousand words.

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This was done in my early days and I've long since tamped down the number of French Folds to mostly limit them to 2 sets of ~40-50 with a 5 minute rest between.  This dough is all AP flour at 75% hydration, hence the amount of "sloppiness" to its initial structure.

It is not necessarily better than other ways of mixing, just the way I enjoy mixing the dough and with few exceptions, do FFs all the time.  Might not be your cup of tea, especially if you are dealing with more than, say, 3x this much dough.

I'm one who has the habit of swimming agains the tide and tend to keep my distance, for both good and bad, from the popular or trendy.  And so I was reluctant to try a Hamelman formula, but eventually knuckled under and I'm so glad that I did.

Likely this type of rye will just not satisfy your wife's "needs", but a few months ago we had a CB on Deli Rye breads.

Alan