Ankarsrum - dough roller positioning, arm pulsing, and what to aim for, help!
Hi all,
I'm new to the Ank, beginning to love it. The fact it could knead a 53% hydration "dough" has me sold on what it can do! However, I have a lot of trouble still with it. The issue is twofold (1) the Ank seems to be kneading the dough in *very* different ways depending on size of batch and roller position. This is the crux of my question (2) second, based on #1, the dough development seems all over the place. It could take 2 min or 8, it's pretty hard to judge other than by stopping and testing, and even that is a bit iffy given the drastic difference in potential kneading action.
I have attached 4 videos below showing the various kneading actions I have seen based on roller position (this is all with the exact same batch of dough: 60% hydration, 330g flour, mix (ring was formed then), autolyse 30 min, and then knead (ring became ball at some point as I was mucking with arm):
1. Doug forms a ring, the bowl moves medium speed, the arm pulses fully. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rDwJWlGaxmk Note that this was right before I started autolyse.
2. No ring, arm pulses fully. (I "freed" the arm completely for this). Sometimes it gets "stuck" and the dough is just sitting there wedged with bowl moving happily. When this happens I muck with it to help. https://youtu.be/sSSkkPWL4QA
3. No ring, arm pulses a little bit. (Arm locked 1-2 inch from bowl). https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KGAL_22coz0
4. No ring, no pulsing of arm at all. In addition, the video has the contrast between slow and fast bowl rotation. (Arm locked further away from bowl edge so it doesn't pulse). In this, the dough "slaps" against the scraper/knife and comes around. My personal take (with no data:)) is the this likely develops the dough least, as it's not getting stretched by pushing between the roller and the bowl. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UQ7u5Amp50o
(Barry's tip of increasing speed for small batches and Benito's tip on bassinage helped a lot. I've read a dozen threads and watched (probably) half dozen videos).
I still have this question after all the research. What is the best way? What should I aim for? How do you judge kneading time given the very different possible actions here?
(My actual goal is to be able to make sure ingredients are mixed (will need mucking with roller), then set the roller to a given position, walk away from the machine, and come back in a set amount of time to see reasonably deterministic dough development. That's really it, that seems pretty key).
Interesting issue. Most of the bakers I know who use an Ank use a much higher hydration dough.
I've seen this before with bagel dough in the Ank. And just about every mixer that I've seen or owned from KitchenAid to Bosch will do something similar with a hydration in the upper 50% to 60%. The larger batches won't bump around like that, but with a smaller, low hydration dough it is common.
The videos help greatly, but if you could give an idea of the formula (oil, whole grain etc.) you're using it could also help.
Dave
This was with Indian Atta (soft, low protein sifted wheat flour - sorta between a type 85 and type 110 I'd say) making dough for roti: 100% Atta, 60% water, 5% oil, 2% salt. It seems ultra low hydration but atta absorbs a lot less water than American/Canadian wheat. So it's basically a little bit more hydrated than it appears.
I've noticed the same ring vs ball behavior with 65% hydration & bob's red mill APF (similar: 100% APF, 65% water, 2% salt, 0.6% yeast) as well.
Not that it should change what you are doing, but Indian Atta flour is typically moderately high protein and is not sifted but ground especially fine, even the bran. Sometimes extra bran is even added. The fineness of the bran can make the flour seem to be sifted. Probably because of the extra fine grinding there is a lot of "damaged starch", which seems to be considered desirable for making good roti. The damaged starch will change the water absorption properties compared with more (US and European) flours.
Actually I remember sifting flour when I was kid actually for atta:) It was fun too. Nowadays, I guess you're likely right, I don't know much about flour production in india now..
After 2-3 years with my Ank, I now mostly use the dough hook. I feel like I get a very good view of gluten development with it. As with the roller, hook position needs to be adjusted depending on batch size, hydration, etc. since most of my doughs are large-ish (3 kg +/-) and high hydration, I tend to end kneading with the hook locked into a nearly central position after starting with default free range of motion. One downside of the hook is you really have to spend a few minutes breaking up your levain and other preferments as they tend to get stuck on the bar if they’re just dumped in whole.
Good luck,
Phil