Hamelman's oatmeal bread confusion
I just made Hamelman's oatmeal bread from "Bread" last night, and it turned out great! I love the format and depth of the book, but I was left with a question after my first bake from it. The "Home Baker" measurements mentions it makes "2 large loaves" and just over 4lbs of dough. Since it was my first time with the recipe, I halved it and ended up with just over 2Lbs of dough. The instructions below the recipe mention that 14oz of dough is the appropriate amount for a a normal small loaf pan 8.5" x 4.5" and 18oz for a larger 9.5"x4.5" pan, so I divided the dough in half, formed two loaves and panned them up for proofing in my two smaller loaf pans. The shaped loaves seemed very small for this volume, and after proofing they were still three quarters of an inch or more below the top of the pan. They would have made very dainty sandwiches had I baked them that way! I ended up placing the small proved loves side by side, seams together, in one large loaf pan and proceeded with baking, and got a normal sized large loaf.
It seems the text above the formula was accurate, and was contradicted by the instructional text below. My small loaf pans would probably have been more appropriate for 18oz of dough instead of the 13-ish oz loaves. Has anyone made smaller loaves with this recipe and happen to remember the pre-baked dough weight they used? Has anyone else had instructions-formula contradiction issues in the book? I love it, and will definitely keep baking from it, I am just curious what to expect!
Re: the bread
The bread itself came out beautifully despite the odd last-minute handling, and is very tender. It is a fantastic sandwich/toast loaf. The next time I make it, I might try substituting the oatmeal with Quaker's multigrain rolled grain cereal and see how it fares.
I made 2 large loaves using 91/2x51/2 pans. The way I understood was if I used 14oz. of dough for 'one' loaf in the smaller pan. I would use the rest for making rolls! There is some interesting discussion from Dan DiMuzio on powdered milk. I posted my slightly tweeked recipe of JH delicious oatmeal bread on my blog http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13537/jh-oatmeal-bread . This is one of my favorite breads.
Sylvia
That is not what I read in my book, page 234 (and on a few other loaf pan recipes). It says 18 oz for the 8 x 4 x 2.5 "makes a good fit" and a 9 x 5 x 2.75 pan will take 1.5 lbs. (or 24 oz.) As you divided a 4lb, 2.5 oz recipe in half. and in half again for 2 loaves, each dough ball would have about sixteen and a half oz. Less than the 18oz That you had thirteenish oz loaves means you scooped light. Twentysixish oz. is not far from 24 oz. Nowhere do I see 14 oz. mentioned. I can only guess that your kitchen elves were up to tricks flipping pages and resting their fingers on your scale.
Mini
My pan sizes corrected above.
Looking at the dough oz. mentioned I remembered JH mentioned that the 9X5 pans where commerical strap pans sizes...my pans are actually 91/2 X 51/2 sizes. I corrected their sizes above.
Sylvia
Seems I remembered incorrectly, as I don't have the text in front of me at the office. The final batch of dough I made was just over 2 lbs as expected by halving the recipe, and the resultant loves were basically 17oz each. Very close to the recommended 18oz for the small pans. The miniscule dough weight difference would not account for the size deficit in the pans I mentioned.
Thanks for the corrected numbers, but the issues remain :(
I did some calculations on the "home" recipe, and followed this formula here:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/14138/world-percentages-how-much-dough-make
Then I noticed something odd. This formula is for lean white bread and adjustments must be made for heavier ingredients (like bread flour, WW and oats.) Pan sizes do have big impacts on loaf shapes.
The calculation for a 8 x 4 x 2.5 inch pan comes out to just under 15.7 oz and this was multiplied by 1.146 to get 18 oz. This however was not done with the other pan size!
So the correction should be:
9 x 5 x 2.75 inch pan comes out to 27 oz or 1 lb 11 oz or 1.7 lbs
and then add (because this size is very common):
9.5 x 5.25 x 2.75 inch pan comes out to 30 oz or 1 lb 14 oz or 1.9 lbs
Then at the top of the page, Dough Yield should read: U.S.: About 24 loaves at 1.7 lbs each.
Take note that on the following pages 236/237 The same type of error repeats. U.S.: About 28 loaves.
Now to add this to the errata.
Hi there seki,
Despite your small error above, I too have experienced problems with the dough sizes that Hamelman recommends. I hate to say it, because I LOVE his book, "Bread" but have made three batches of the Oatmeal bread recently and have had to compensate. The first batch I made, I used his recommendation of dough weigts (18 oz. for a 81/2 x 41/2" pan) and each loaf was really small. I don't think it was my shaping because the next batch I made came out fine after I had adjusted the dough amount. Anyway, the last time I made the oatmeal bread I doubled the recipe and got 4 nice, tall 81/2 x 41/4" loaves. So if you make it again, use the final dough amount in two small bread pans and you should get a better result.
I also made Hamelman's Pullman Loaf. First I followed the instructions and placed the recommended amount of dough in the pullman pan, but after it (and one "small" loaf were not filling the pans properly, I added the "small" left over loaf dough to the pullman pan and it fit much better. I then made the same formula again in my pullman pan (using all of the dough) and it came out perfect.
I don't know if it's where I live, my flour and hydration amount or what, but from now on when I bake from that book I increase the amount of dough when I use a bread pan :-)
I use loaf pans all of the time and target 2.1lbs of dough for each pan (yes 33 ounces - but I am using 80% whole wheat or whole wheat and rye, and 20% white flour so these weigh more than most. The final loaf is about 90-92% of the starting weight and yes it is tall and over the rim due to high hydration (68%) and nice oven spring - and a loaf where the slices barely fit in the toaster. so perhaps 25 oz starting would probably be 20 ounces for lighter breads using more white flour. As above would make one good loaf and rolls with the rest if you are not seeing it the way you want. It's not hard to convert recipies to a higher ending weight for the dough given ingredient weights and hydration ratios are know. No matter, nothing like a fresh home baked loaf... :)