February 14, 2022 - 1:22pm
Making baguettes with french T65 flour
Hi everyone - hope everyone is doing well in these covid times. I am still baking but not as much as I used to. Recently I was able to purchase some french T65 flour and thought I would give it a go. I don’t often make baguettes either and my efforts to date are average to say the least 🤣. Any way I am excited to try this flour out and after a quick look at past posts I have a c ouple of questions.
what proportion of T65 flour should I use?
what hydration do you suggest - the flour I use here in NZ is fine at about 73-75% but I eyeball the dough and adjust according to the flour mix I am using.
I will do a yeasted version for this even though I rarely make yeasted breads.
Leslie
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I hope you find the flavor that I experienced. Danayo was right about it ruining your taste for other flour. The T65 I used worked well at 72% hydration and comes together with minimal mixing after a 20 minute autolyse. It still felt like a sticky, weak low protein dough that had to be handled with care. I had heard that the burnt ends were the best part of the baguette and I never found that to be the case until I used the French flour. I look forward to seeing your bake.
Don
Did you use 100% T65? This is the flour I bought.
Is more traditional with all white flour and IDY. The flour I used most certainly did not require any flavoring added to it. Janedo says that a small fraction of rye or corn flour is sometimes used in France.
Don
with IDY so will try that first - I am excited to try this flour and see the difference in flavour
thanks
Leslie
Don’s 72% hydration didn’t work for me. We think it is his humidity vs mine. I imagine your humidity is similar to mine. I suggest you start off a little drier. Once the dough has fully absorbed all of the water, you can adjust if necessary. I wouldn’t start any higher than 67-68%. The T65 That both Don and I use is delicate, but the flavor is outstanding.
French T65 is special…
so now I will definitely make this lower hydration especially given my past efforts. The humidity is all over the place this year. January was really hot. 30°C every day but then we had a couple of tropical storms come through and although it was cooler the humidity was horrendous. now it is a cooler more normal 26°c and less humid. so I will err on the side of caution
thanks Danny
Leslie
You can try it as a 'trad' of 100% T65 - as Fabrice does in this video (has subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5B_nYulA7E
The hydration is fairly low - around 66% (without taking into account the liquid levain).
In the video uses a levain as well as a commercial yeast, and also shows options with 50:50 T65/T80 and also 100% T80.
-Jon
The video is outstanding… That guy can really handle French flour! hadn’t seen this one before. Sent the link to other bakers that may be interested.
it has made me rethink my plan so I will try the recipe as per video. I found this flour when I was looking online for kamut and saw this. the cost of the flour was ok but the shipping was horrendous so not something I will do very often at all. 😊
so now I need to refresh my starter and plan my bake
thank you Jon
Leslie
I've used that recipe and can really recommend it!
Lance
thanks Lance
Leslie
The video seems to rely on yeast with a sourdough flavor component in the traditional version. The T65 dough looks even more hydrated than my dough and the bulk fermentation is way more gassy than anything I have seen before. The pre shape and minimal rolling on the final shape is a good thing to emulate with this flour.
It is not easy to make a sourdough baguette that doesn’t turn out like sourdough bread in baguette form. I prefer them with yeast and white flour only because the crust is not as tough and the crumb is less chewy. You could make two batches with 500gr flour in each which will yield three batons that are the right size for a home oven.
Good luck with your bake
Don
in the past I have only ever attempted IDY versions. I was contemplating doing 2 batches anyway so maybe I will do the IDY first and see how it goes then attempt the SD version after that. 🤞🏻all goes well! I will post my efforts, good or bad 🤣
Leslie
You’re so lucky to have found this flour, from everything that Caroline, Don and Dan have said about it, you’ll have the most delicious baguettes!
Benny
I am almost scared to try actually baking with this flour but hope I have learnt enough to do it justice. my baking has been reasonably good lately so fingers crossed! shaping will be one of the big challenges. :)
Leslie
This is a very belated post prompted by MTloaf asking how I had got on. Today is cold and grey and its 10:30 am and still only 8 degrees C. Winter!! So I dug out the photos and here goes.
Sadly I could not find my notes when I went looking - very frustrating as now I cannot do a repeat. Hang on, just re-reading the responses to my orginal post I suddenly remember yes I followed Fabrice Cottez's formula and method!! yay.
Mid February, warm and sunny! My first attempt, scaled down to make just 2 smaller baguettes
I found my spreadsheet with quantities so 10 days later I had another go, according to my spreadsheet I used 100% T65 flour, Water 66%, Salt 1.8%, yeast 2% and levain 10%. So assuming that is what I actually did
Looking back I think I was happier with my shaping but still disappointed with the crumb. I still have enough T65 to have another try so maybe I will try and push the fermentation a little bit longer. Such a frustrating type of bread to master.
Lesson learned - Keep all the bread making notes!! I had a major cleanout not so long ago and suspect my baguette notes were thrown out at that time. Going back over these two bakes has just shown me how important it is to keep your notes, something I have stopped doing. So from now on, it is back to recording bread making notes in a notebook!! You just never know when you will want to repeat a bake or modify it a bit.
Happy baking everyone
Leslie
Leslie, how was the flavor and texture?
the texture was good from memory but I think I was a little disappointed with the flavour. the next time I will try a longer autolyse and see what difference that makes
Leslie
I think you are almost there, Leslie - maybe just a few more tweaks to get the crumb you want. +1 for Fabrice's recipe - I have used it and it is the best baggie recipe ever for me.
Here is a crumb shot of one I made a while ago:
- not perfect, but I am no baguette expert!
PS - love the ghostly green glow in your second pic!
Lance
it’s just the colour of the container I was using. Your crumb looks good to me, I guess it just takes lots of practice to get that elusive crumb :)
thanks Lance
Leslie