Is it possible I'm overworking my dough
Hello,
after a good run of form my last two batches of bread have been a bit flat.
I was wondering if I'm overworking the dough
70% hydration. 8:1 starter ratio.
I've been chucking it in the mixer and leaving it for a good 20 minutes on 2. Trying to develop the strength.
Then I do four sets of stretches over about two hours. The stretches are very long. I lift one end of the dough and the other end is stuck to the bowl and I can lift and stretch a good half meter. I do that 4 times at 90 degree angles. And I do that four times over about two hours before leaving until my aliquot jar has doubled in size.
I then pre shape, leave, then shape. Whilst I don't detect any real breakdown here, the dough is definitely a little lax. Seems to have lost all the structure that's there after the first couple of stretches and even the shaping.
I might have to go back to 65% hydration cos I'm losing confidence a little. Am I overworking the dough in some way? Am I stretching the dough too high from the bowl? Should I just calm down a bit all round?!
Or is there no such thing as overworking the dough as long as you're getting the proving time right?
Any thoughts gratefully received.
There are so many variables in bread making (think flour type, temperature, etc.) and you don’t provide many details of your process. But in general, 20 min. in a planetary mixer seems very long for a small batch. I usually mix by hand, but If I use a mixer I rarely exceed 10 min. Full gluten development is not necessary or desirable if you plan to follow with stretch and folds. In addition, long stretches are not necessarily what you want as it may render the gluten matrix thin enough to allow the fermentation gasses to escape, which could cause a flat loaf. My rule of thumb is to stretch the dough just enough to fold over itself in the bowl, if that is where you perform them. I would suggest searching YouTube for some videos on stretching - there are many out there.
-Brad
Thank you for the insight on the long stretches. It makes sense except I'm bought to mind of the lamination process which literally spreads the dough out in a very fine layer. I wonder why that works but my long stretches don't. Wouldn't the gasses escape completely from that? Although I wonder if the process of folding it all back together re-traps some air. Dunno, just guessing.
I will cut back on the folds and the mixer and see if that helps. thank you
I don''t think that loss of gas would be a problem. The dough will re-fill once it is back in a compact mass.
70% hydration is quite high, and not all types of flour can handle that. Try lowering it to 65% and see how the texture of the dough changes.
Absolutely, that is what I will do tonight, thank you for your thoughts.
Curious to hear your results!
I'm also in a hydration quest - using BRM APF, I can produce really soft bread, I use about 68-70% hydration. Loaf height is not bad but not quite what I want either. I am mucking with hydration 1% at a time to see if I can get more height:)
Ha, good luck, I'm sure we'll both get there. Eventually 😂
What you write sounds to me like a property of the flour. It seems unusually extensible, and perhaps it's not able to hold up well over the time involved. You didn't say anything about the flour, not even if it's white, whole wheat, or what, so it's hard to say more. We don't even know if it's a US, UK, Italian flour or what. Flour properties, especially from smaller suppliers, can vary depending on the growing season's weather, etc.
The first thing to try in a case like this, or at least it helped me when I had a problem flour, is to lower the hydration, which you have already suggested. My problem flour made good bread between 58 and 62% hydration but was a disaster above 65%.
TomP
Very interesting.
I guess I don't mention it because I make the mistake of thinking that all flours are much of a muchness.
I use a 'very strong' white bread flour from Sainsbury's. But frankly, I often use whatever is on offer and, from your answer, I'm thinking that may be a little gung ho.
I often add 10-20% rye flour (white or dark depending on what comes to hand) and when that happens I get a much stiffer dough that doesn't actually stretch far at all which always worries me because I'm wanting lots of nice holes.
I always thought the extendible nature of the flour meant it was very well developed. But I think you're saying it may not pay in the long run.
I hear you and will pay some attention to the flour. More practice tonight!!
Best to find a bread flour you like and stick with it for a while so you get used to it in terms of how much water, how much mixing, etc.
In the UK, it is not normally neccessary to always use "very strong flour" (our terrible flour typing system!); sometimes known as Canadian flour or what the Italians call Manitoba flour.
I would just use a good bread flour. Having said that, it's worth having some very strong in stock to add if using a lot of weak or wholegrain flour.
Lance
I think that's what I'm going to have to do. Never really considered the flour, which is stupid!
Find one, stick to it, experiment with hydration etc. That's what I'll do!
The gluten formed in bread making is minimal. Exactly how much is used needs to be tested to determine. I should note I did not read all this. Enjoy!
Sainbury's bread flour (strong or not) will need to a lower hydration. 60-65% would be a good range. 70% can be done with good handling but won't be easy.
Also, it has added wheat gluten. Even with added gluten it comes in at 13.4% protein. They must have started of with quite a low gluten flour to be able to add gluten and bring up to a normal bread flour range.
Don't get me wrong. It does make a good tasty bread according to the comments at least. People like it for their bread machine, ciabattas, pizza bases etc. But I wouldn't say it was for high hydration. 70% hydration for 100% bread flour is getting quite high.
Very useful, thank you.
So if I wanted to make a 70% hydration bread, should I be looking at a minimum protein content on the label?
And what should it be? 15%?
The higher the protein the more water the flour will be able to absorb.
However, I think what is important is to find a flour you like and find the optimal hydration level for it rather than choosing a hydration then trying to find a flour to fit. If you like the taste of one flour then that would be the main thing then what is left is to be able to make the most of it when it comes to how much water, height and crumb etc.
I do think Sainsbury's strong bread flour can take 70% hydration however it would help if you increase the hydration slowly getting used to how to handle it. You can also try incorporating an autolyse so it has more time to absorb the water.
Thank you.
To be honest I've never really questioned whether one white flour tastes different to another. All the bread tastes pretty good whatever I use. I must start paying more attention.
I've just bought a Tesco Finest Strong Bread Flour (protein 14%. It was the highest on offer. Most were 12% or lower) so I'll see how I go with that. I'll stick to 70% hydration, try less mixing and stretching and see if that gets me more spring and air!
Not that I'm UK based; I just remember watching a "Bake with Jack" video where he used a "green" bag of Sainsbury's bread flour that had extra Vital Gluten added to it.... ummm this one, I think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFZ3V95rj1M
If its the same, it can take 70%!
-Jon
A perfectly fine 70% hydration loaf can be made using US all-purpose flours, which generally run around 10 - 11.5% protein. It will be stretchier and more sticky to handle than the same recipe using a bread flour but not so much that it would be a problem. You certainly don't need 15%.
TomP
13.6% protein is what I've bought so let's see how that works with a 70%.
Tom you mentioned this earlier...
"It seems unusually extensible, and perhaps it's not able to hold up well over the time involved."
I always thought the more stretchy the dough was the better. What does its elasticity have to do with how it's able to hold up over time? Might it be that a stretchier dough has to be proved for less time perhaps?
There's stretchy and then there's stretchy. I want dough that can hold its shape during proof. I don't mind if it spreads out some but I don't want the shaped loaf to turn into a pancake. You wrote about being able to pull the dough out to something like arm's length, IIRC. That seems unusually extensible to me. I would find it hard to build a loaf that wouldn't relax too much during proof. Of course, it would be fine if the plan was to use a loaf pan.
The few times I have had a real failure of the dough, it always started out too stretchy and got more so over time, and the dough would not develop much elasticity as it was stretched and folded. One flour's dough actually got more and more limp and lifeless over time until it was not fit to use. This is what I meant when I wrote about the dough not holding up over time.
That same dough produced good bread used at 58 - 61% hydration.
They are not exactly the same but we know that dough is going to relax over time. We've all seen that. My thinking is to build up elasticity enough that after some relaxation the dough will still be able to hold its shape. If you can't build up that elasticity, then expecting the dough to hold a loaf shape during proof is likely to be a forlorn hope.
According to these ideas you only need to be able to build elasticity during shaping. But if you haven't been able to do so earlier on, you won't be able to do so at shaping time. Of course there are always exceptions but that's the general picture as I understand it.
TomP
Some enzymes eat the gluten and they can transform a dough into a bowl of glue. It happened to me on a very hot summer afternoon when I proofed my dough outside. The dough had been developed with the mixer.
I had no luck with the combination sourdough-dough-mixer. By contrast the hand mixed doughs were not bad.
I think one needs to control the amount of LAB bacteria and enzymatic activity by adjusting the temperature, hydration, timing and the amount of mechanical mixing. Basically both the LAB bacteria and enzymes movements are helped by more water and more mixing. So the proofing needs to be shorter for a wet dough -- or lower the dough temperature. And the mixing of a wet dough needs to be shorter at a higher speed as long as the dough stays together as a ball while mixing.
I have moved to yeast dough making to simplify my task while learning. I still do experimental loaves with LAB bacterias from kefir or CLAS with the mixer.
This rings very true to my last bake where I put the dough in the oven on 'proof' mode (about 30 degrees with a little moisture). That may have put it out of whack.
In the italics you're saying more water and mixing produces more enzymes and if you overdo that you come up with an acid dough that doesn't hold together well when proving, right?
With the batch ferment, doesn't the aliquot jar always tell you when to shape? ie whether or not it's had a lot of mixing, stretching, it's a wet dough etc, doesn't the aliquot jar always indicate when it's ready to prove regardless of what you've done previously?
I guess that's why I'm a little baffled by the last two bakes. The aliquot jar tells me exactly when to shape so I would have thought there was no chance of the dough disintegrating because it hasn't been over-fermented. I wonder if, just because the aliquot jar has doubled in size, that doesn't mean the fermented dough won't be too acidic to hold together during proving and baking. Does that sound right?
First, I'd like to go back to your initial post.
"And I do that four times over about two hours before leaving until my aliquot jar has doubled in size."
In my experience, that rule needs to be adapted depending on whether one is doing a sourdough/high LAB content bread or a yeast bread. In the case of the yeast bread I can over proof by a large margin and still get good volume in the resulting bread.
With sourdough and LAB, I use a different criterion: I end the first proof when the rise is just passed its most energetic phase.
"I then pre shape, leave, then shape. "
And I may skip the pre-shape step as well to shorten the time before baking and have sone energy saved for the oven spring.
The idea is that there is a race between gas production and gluten degradation when LAB bacteria are very active in a sourdough. There is no such degradation of the gluten in a yeast dough.
There is something I learned about mixing. If my memory is good dough has two regimes: it is a fluid under small stress (mixing at low speed) and it behaves more like a solid when under high stress (slap & fold). I think one wants to go through the slurry phase very quickly so as not to get an overproduction of enzymes. The slap & fold technique develops gluten with a minimum amount of mixing. When using a mixer, one wants the dough to be a ball that is slapped by the mixer and not a slurry. I have to run the mixer at maximum speed for short periods to prevent the ball to become a slurry after adding a spoonful of liquid. I use a Bosch type mixer.
Such a helpful post, thank you.
I didn't think anyone using a mixer got anything other than a slurry when working with a dough hydration of 70%! Mine's always a slurry and never reaches the 'ball' stage unless I am doing a 65% or, as you say, I'm mixing on a very high speed. However I don't like doing the high speed thing simply because intuitively it feels like it must be bad. It's pretty violent!
It's fascinating to understand that mixing and slapping can produce two different results. Maybe I need to stop being lazy and return to hand stretching in the early stages.
Important for me to add here that once my bread has been shaped I then put it in the fridge overnight and I wonder if this is degrading the dough further.
I am thinking my use of the aliquot jar always means I fermenting for the correct amount of time (I shape once the aliquot jar has doubled) but maybe I need to shape much earlier if I am going to retard in the fridge overnight.
One last thing I'm learning. My starter may be too acidy due to using too much starter in the first activation. I'm never too precise but sometimes it's one third starter to one thrid flour to one third water. I will try one fifth as I've read. That might help keep the integrity of the dough.
Any thoughts on the above are most gratefully received and thank you for the enlightning post
"However I don't like doing the high speed thing simply because intuitively it feels like it must be bad. It's pretty violent!"
There is no other way than to test factors one at the time and keep notes. The starter needs to be acid. It's what happens during the mixing that needs to be managed. People routinely refrigerate dough for up to a week without issues.
Great story Richard,
I shall be firmer with my dough and see what happens.
I guess you're saying with a mixer the aim is to get the dough onto the hook in a ball so that it can be pounded around the edges of the pan, right? It sounds like you're saying a dough hook forcing its way through a slurry isn't having the desired effect and not building strength and structure. So if using a mixer I'd need to find a speed suitable for the hydration ie able to pick up all the dough in a ball.
Is that correct?
Hi Benjamin
"I shall be firmer with my dough and see what happens."
Right. I use all the necessary force, but no more than is necessary, depending on the actual state of the dough. That's for a wet dough. I am using a Bosch type mixer. I have not tried that technique with a hook.
Both Richard Martinet and Jeffrey Hamelman show how one needs to be tough with the dough :-) . So I am following their example when I use my mixer!
You feel it is brutal. I agree it sounds brutal on a small counter top appliance with a short arm, but consider that industrial mixers have arms maybe four times as long and thus do the same job at a much lower RPM.
"I guess you're saying with a mixer the aim is to get the dough onto the hook in a ball so that it can be pounded around the edges of the pan, right?"
Right,
"It sounds like you're saying a dough hook forcing its way through a slurry isn't having the desired effect and not building strength and structure."
I feel that gluten fornation is slower in a slurry, and it requires a longer mixihg time compared to mixing a ball. I might be wrohg. I have in mind the Norwegian or Swedish mixer here. My emphasis is on the fact that mixing the slurry increases LAB bacteria and enzyme dispersion and activity, and also increases the dough temperature.
"So if using a mixer I'd need to find a speed suitable for the hydration ie able to pick up all the dough in a ball."
That's what I do. I start mixing at a slow RPM and I watch the formation of an initial ball. After about 100 turns the ball may start to fluidize. When I see signs of fluidization I increase the speed gradually until I get back a ball and then I dial a lower RPM. That's a feedback control loop.
Having received some very useful advice on this thread, the bread I post above I am a lot happier with.
The key takeouts from the thread for me were...
1) pay attention to the protein content of the flour I am using.
2) If I am using a stand mixer to make the dough, pay attention to how that is working.
Either one of these things could have been responsible for the better outcomes above. Or a combination of the two. But what I learned is that a flour with a protein content of 14% absorbs MUCH more water than a more 'normal' flour. In fact, so much so that actually I found handling the dough a little tricky not because it was too wet but because it was almost too dry to stretch. I will deffo move up from 70% hydration to 75% using the same flour for my next batch. And maybe even 80% if 75% proves manageable. A wetter dough is more desirable for me.
I also learned that it is possible to get a good 'ball' of dough in a stand mixer and that if you do so, it takes a lot less mixing to get a silky dough. I do wonder whether the stand mixing will behave as well as it did once I go up to 75%. My experiences tell me the wetter the dough, the less likely I am to achieve a ball. But certainly I am no longer afraid to crank the speed right up to get that ball formed, especially after the story of beating dough with logs!
Anyway, thanks to all for the contributions. They are always helpful, insightful, respectful and that's what makes this such a great forum.