Cannot get window pane, please advise
After the dough was stretched to about 1mm thick or a bit thinner, it just ripped apart, almost snapping. My suspect is I might have over ferment the dough but I really have no idea if I was right and needed some opinion.
Today I was doing a 70% hydration 100g dough and mixed a dough using 20g preferment (10+10 wholewheat and bread flour, the other 80g is bread flour) at the same hydration rate and a pinch of yeast with all the salt in the recipe (2.5g) to retard it a bit. I let it ferment on the counter for about 5 hours; temp here is about 28C +/-. The preferment had a slight hint of tangy taste & smell but mostly salty at the time it was mixed into the autolysed dough with 1g yeast and 4g oil. I let the dough rest about 30 min then S&F at 15 min interval for about 4-5 rounds (had a tight schedule so I tried to rush things a bit) and I still couldn't achieve window pane.
Right now I pre-shaped it and put it in the fridge to slow everything down before I decided what to do with it. I'm weighing between do some more S&F in case gluten is just under-develop but risk having gluten ruined even more had it already been over-ferment or just retard everything in the fridge till I have time to bake it tomorrow morning, about 16 hours from now; I'm kinda lean toward the latter since it seems to be safer?
Any suggestion or idea where I have made mistake(s) will really be appreciated.
If you got it to 1mm thick, it shows decent gluten formation. I don't see a problem really. Enjoy!
That was a relief to hear actually. Since I had seen & been able to stretch it thinner than that before when everything went fine, I thought that was the standard/minimum. Part of my worry came from the fact that I just made a total disaster inducing over-fermentation to the dough last time and the dough was tearing very easily, so it haunted me a bit.
In the end something came up and I didn't have time to bake it yesterday anyway and it had to be kept for 24 more hours and baked this morning instead. It turned out to be fine and I was satisfied with it. :D
Does S&F mean "stretch and fold" or "slap and fold". There is difference.
Stretch and fold for 4-5 rounds will not develop gluten in a 70% hydration dough. A tight schedule usually does not result in good bread. Bread cannot be hurried.
It sounds like you need to do more kneading next time. Or slap-fold for at least 10 minutes.
Sorry, it didn't occur to me it'd be ambiguous; I meant stretch and fold. Also, I never know stretch and fold wouldn't work as well with lower hydration dough. This is new to me.
I had always made a higher hydration dough before despite my lack of experience and 4-5 rounds of stretch and fold kind of worked; but this time I thought maybe I should step the hydration down so as to be more appropriate to my level of skill and I did everything else just the same. At least I got to learn new things, thank you!
In the end, something came up and I had to postpone the baking for 24 more hours but it turned out okay for me. Here's the pic:
IMG_4651.jpg
Looks great!