Beginning with Ankarsrum (I messed up my Shokupan Recipe)
I screwed up my usual Shokupan recipe with my new Ankarsrum this morning. I've always made this in a KA before, so mixing in the Assistant was a very new process, and I royally messed it up. The recipe usually does take a long time to start clearing the bowl in the KA, and I had read and seen videos that the Ank took a long time to fully develop, so I went a long time with the roller/scraper, but it never started fully clearing the bowl and was very very sticky. I was able to get a good windowpane at one time and the dough was very extensible, but it remained sticky, smearing on the side of the bowl even after quite a long time. In a bit of a panic I messed up further and switched to the dough hook and tried that, but again the dough just kept sticking to the hook and smearing on the sides of the bowl, never cleaning the sides at all, and I ended up letting it go so long that it overmixed, getting even stickier and no longer producing a window pane and losing most of it's extensibility. I know I'm probably misreading signs as to when the dough is ready. It's about 71% hydration all told and it always came together into a smooth ball eventually in the Kitchenaid, so I was confused. I'm a relatively new baker as it is, unfortunately my KA has some serious issues, and I hadn't really perfected the process there I don't think. The other thing was I had made my Tangzhong a few days before, but that never really caused a problem for me previously. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated as I adapt to using this new machine.
The dough ingredients are:
174g Tangzhong Flour(20%)
348g Tangzhong Water(40%)
696.2g Bread Flour(80%)
180g whole milk (3.5%)(20.7%)
150g egg, whole(17.2%)
43.5g butter, salted(5%)
87.1g sugar(10%)
16.8g Salt(1.9%)
5.5g Instant Yeast(0.6%)
First , congrats on the Ank, I hope in time you will love it. My suggestion is that you stop and check the dough from time to time, and not wait for it to "clear the sides" The way the Ank mixes is different than the KA, so clearing the sides is not really a good indicator. I don't know that it takes very much longer, and instead, I would start checking at about the time you kneaded in the KA, and every few minutes later - the timer will be your friend so you don't have to stand over it watching it each time. BTW, I used the dough hook just once, then put it back in the box. Some use it, but others prefer the roller and scraper.
I really appreciate your advice. I'm pretty certain I was reading the wrong cues. That and my unfamiliarity with the Ank lead me to overdo it. I'll probably stick to the roller until I know more about how the machine works in practice.
You may want to pause your mixing allowing the dough to relax and absorb more of your liquids. I'm always looking at the consistency of the dough, rather than it pulling away from the sides.