The Fresh Loaf

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Floydm's picture
Floydm

In praise of white bread

Tonight I baked white bread.

White Bread

Nothing artisan or fancy about this, just good, simple home cooking. The kind of bread you eat right out of the oven.

I fudged the recipe. It was basically:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup very warm milk

2 tablespoons melter butter

2 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoons instant yeast

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix in the standmixer for 10. Let rise covered for an hour, shape, place in a greased pan, cover, allow another hour to rise. Bake at 350 for roughly 45 minutes.

White bread

Quick, simple, easy, and absolutely perfect.

 

 

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Shaping a batard video

I put together a video today.

Aside from the fact that I mumble quite a bit, it didn't turn out too bad, did it?

I dunno... what do people think: would more multimedia content on the site be useful? I tried to do a vid of me scoring these loaves too, but I ran out of room on the memory card. Still learning how to do this.

Oh yeah, here is what the bread looked like done:

french bread

Quite good.

What is the difference between active dry yeast and instant yeast (also known as bread machine yeast)?

Instant yeast is a little more potent than active dry yeast and can be mixed in with your dry ingredients directly. I generally find it easier to work with. Active dry yeast works just as well as instant yeast, but requires being activated in a little bit of warm water before being added to the rest of the ingredients. Failure to properly activate it will result in your loaf not rising adequately.

Can I substitute active dry yeast for instant yeast in my recipe (or vice versa)?

Yes. If you are substituting active dry yeast for instant yeast in a recipe, read the instructions on the package to figure out how to activate the yeast before adding it to the recipe and reduce the amount of water you add later in the recipe by the amount of water you proof the yeast in (i.e., if you activate the yeast in a half a cup of water, add a half a cup of water or milk less later so that you end up with the same total amount of liquid in the recipe). You may also want to add about 20 percent more yeast to the recipe than what is called for, although using less yeast and letting it rise more slowly will result in a more flavorful loaf. If you are substituting instant yeast for active dry yeast, you can reduce the amount of yeast you use in your recipe by approximately 20 percent. Be sure not to forget to increase the amount of water you add to the dry ingredients by the amount that you would proof the active dry yeast in, so that you end up with the same total amount of liquid in the recipe.

How should I store yeast?  

I buy instant yeast in large packages and store it in an airtight jar in the refrigerator.  Doing so, you should be able to get at least six months or a year out of it.  If you notice the potency starting to taper off, just add a bit more when you bake.

Can I freeze yeast? 

Sure!  Just be sure it seal it in an airtight container before doing so.  

What about fresh yeast?  What is it?

Professional bakers often use fresh yeast. If you encounter a recipe that uses fresh yeast, divide the weight by 3 to calculate the proper amount of instant yeast to use.

Many recipes in my baking books call for using a starter. I don't have the time/energy/patience to sustain a starter. Can I substitute yeast instead?

Absolutely. And vice-versa: you can turn a yeasted bread into a naturally leavened bread by omitting the yeast and including a starter. The flavor will be different, obviously, but in my experience it still can turn out quite good. You may even find you prefer your modified version to the original recipe. I don't know of an exact formula to calculate how much to substitute. I just assume that I'm going to need to add a little more flour and water (how much of each depends on whether it was a wet or dry leaven I am replacing) and enough yeast for a comparable size batch of yeasted bread. I usually figure around 1 or 2 teaspoons per loaf. Also be aware that yeast tends to move quicker than starters do, so expect to cut the rise time down by something like one half (or else reduce the yeast even more).

Yeast FAQ


The ambitious home baker inevitably gets the urge to try baking Sourdough. It's like... like... well, I'm not sure what it is like, but it brings a whole new level of of experimentation to the baking process. It's fun. And it tastes amazing.

I've tried it once before, a few years ago, but ended up abandoning my starter when my son was born. There were only so many organisms I had the time to nurture, and, alas, my starter did not make the cut.

I tried creating another starter a few weeks ago. This time I had more luck.

I'm sharing my experience, some pictures, and a bit of background on sourdough below.

I believe this article includes enough information for even an inexperienced baker to take a crack at creating a starter. But I invite more experienced sourdough bakers to share their tips in the comments section below (or submit their favorite links or books, or even to write an advanced sourdough article to post here.). I do not pretend for a minute to be an expert on sourdoughs or to have mastered this process, but I am having fun learning.

Background

Commercial yeast is a relatively recent phenomenon. For hundreds of years bakers have had to capture the wild yeast that lives in the environment in a starter and use that to leaven their breads.

Different regions in the world have different strains of yeast in the air. Hence the famous "San Francisco Sourdough": there is a strain of wild yeast that thrives in California which produces an excellent, extremely sour bread.

Dried commercial yeast is the most important development in baking in hundreds of years: home and professional bakers today can create a loaf of bread in a fraction of the time their ancestors were able to. And commercial yeast allows the baker to assure a consistency of quality that until recently was impossible for all but the most skilled. Its importance should not be underestimated.

But there is something wonderful about getting away from even that bit of modernization and baking the way past generations had to. For one thing, the wild yeast impart an entirely different flavor to your bread. And, because it is not as concentrated as commercial yeast, wild yeast also forces you to slow down and enjoy the process. The baking experience begins to have less to do with mass production and more to do with true artisanship.

The Basic Process

The basic process of creating sourdough is pretty simple. You start by mixing together flour and water to create a medium for yeast to live in. Over a series of days, you replenish your starter. This continues until you build up enough yeast activity in your sponge that it will support baking. Then you use it by creating a larger batch of starter. A portion of this you can bake with immediately, but another portion of it should be refrigerated for later use. In fact, the starter won't really peak in flavor for a few weeks, so it is worthwhile keeping it going. As long as you feed it more water and flour once a week, the starter should stay alive indefinitely.

There are many different recipes for sourdough starters. Some of them use a bit of commercial yeast to get things started. Others use raisins, honey, or potatoes, and different flours. They all share the same goal: to produce a lively starter capable of leavening a loaf.

My Experience

To start out I decided to loosely follow Peter Reinhart's Seed Culture formula from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. When my starter appeared to be suffering, I gave up on following his formula and followed my own intuition. Happily, doing so worked out well and my bread turned out excellent.

I began my starter Wednesday evening. I mixed together:

one cup rye flour
3/4 cup warm raisin water

Raisin water is just warm water that had been poured over a handful of dried raisins and allowed to sit for half an hour or so (I used the raisins in another loaf of bread I was preparing to bake). The white stuff you see in the folds of raisins is actually a yeast, so using raisin water is one method of increasing the likelihood your starter will take off.

I covered tightly with plastic wrap the Pyrex container with the starter and left it in our cupboard overnight.

Thursday evening I took a look: my starter had risen to the top of the container it was in! I definitely was off to a good start. I mixed:

1 cup bread flour
1/2 cup water
1 cup of the previous day's starter

The remainder of the starter I threw out (yes, I have a hard time throwing food out too, but it is necessary).

I noticed that, although Peter says "the dough will be somewhat softer and wetter than the Day 1 sponge," mine was definitely harder and drier than day one. Perhaps my flour was packed a bit too tight. No big deal.

Once again, I covered tightly with plastic wrap the Pyrex container with the starter and left it in our cupboard overnight.

Friday evening when I checked out the starter I was disappointed with the rise. It had risen some, but considerably less than after the first day. Hm. Well, I stuck with the program and mixed up:

1 cup bread flour
1/2 cup water
1 cup of the previous day's starter

and once again covered it tightly and put it in the cupboard.

Saturday I decided something was not going right. By this point, Peter suggests, you should be getting at least a doubling of the dough, with each day the dough getting softer, wetter, and more risen. I was seeing exactly the opposite: my dough was getting denser, drier, and rising less and less each day. Time for a few changes.

I did a few things: first, I added considerably more water and switched to whole wheat flour:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup water
1 cup starter

Then, instead of tightly covering the Pyrex measuring cup with plastic wrap, I covered it loosely. Many sites/books I've read have mentioned letting the starter breathe. I believe some of them even said to leave the starter totally uncovered. Well, at this point I was willing to try anything to rejuvenate this one. If it wasn't looking more lively in the morning, I was going to give up.

Good news when I came downstairs Sunday: my starter was moving again. It didn't double or anything, but it definitely appeared to be coming back to life, as you can see in the photo (the black mark is the level it was at the evening before). I'm not sure if it was the water, the whole wheat flour, or the air, but something worked.

It was now time to bake a loaf!

Before doing so, I removed one cup of the starter and add 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water to it. This I put in a jar and stored in the fridge to bake with the following week.

At noon I mixed together:

1 cup starter
1 cup bread flour
1 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water

I mixed this together for 5 minutes. It started to feel really tight, so I set the dough aside to rest and relax the gluten for five minutes. Then I poured the dough onto a heavily floured surface and kneaded it for 10 minutes. I had to add quite a bit of flour and keep my hands floured to keep from sticking, as I appear to have gone from one extreme, an extreme tough, dry dough, to the other, a very soft wet dough.

After kneading, I returned the dough to a bowl and let it rise for
around 3 hours. It takes longer to rise because we aren't spiking it with commercial yeast. The yeast in the starter needs time to eat, reproduce, and grow.

(Rising time, obviously, vary based on how lively your starter is and what the temperature is. So just keep an eye on your dough and adjust accordingly!)

When the dough had doubled in bulk, I poured it onto a floured surface and prepared to shape it. Because it was a soft, Ciabatta-like dough, I decided to simply cut it in half and stretched them to make the loaves. I set them aside to rise for 90 minutes.

When they looked risen, I threw them in the oven, which had been preheated to 500 degrees. I also did the pan of water trick which I discussed in Lesson Three: just after putting the bread in the oven I poured a cup of hot water into a brownie pan which I had placed on the lower rack of the oven. This produces a steam cloud which improves the quality of the crust.

I baked these loaves at 500 degrees for 10 minutes. I then reduced the temperature to 450 degrees, rotated the loaves, and baked them for twenty minutes more, until a probe thermometer inserted into the center read right around 200 degrees.

Results
Yum, the bread was wonderful! It had a great crust, beautiful crumb full of irregular sized holes, and nice sourdough bite.

Last weekend I baked a second batch using the starter (one cup start, one cup water, and one cup of flour is all it takes to wake it back up). I had a pretty bad cold and couldn't really taste whether the flavor had gotten any better, but the starter was definitely still going strong.


The End and The Beginning
Here ends my totally subjective first article on naturally leavened breads. As I said at the beginning, I am still learning the terminology and the process too.

If you want to try baking sourdough for the first time on your own, I urge you to take a look at some of the sourdough links I'm putting together. Or read a cookbook: most bread baking books have at least one chapter on sourdoughs, and there are a number of books dedicated to them (such as Crust & Crumb).

If you are experienced with sourdoughs and want to share some of your wisdom, I'd love to hear it (as would other site visitors). Please add comments below.

When Yeasts Attack: A First Experience with Naturally Leavened Bread

chocoberrie's picture
chocoberrie

Ankarsrum Assistent Mixer: Advice & Tips for New Users

Hello friends!

After lots of researching and reading through Ankarsrum-related posts here, I compiled advice and how-to tips that new mixer owners such as myself may find helpful. If you have additional tips or info to contribute, please do leave a comment below!

--

Kitchen Aid vs. Ankarsrum

Tip #1: One of the biggest problems for first-time users is familiarity with their previous mixer, like the KitchenAid. Your visual experience will be different; with the Ankarsrum, mix by faith and not by sight. Mixing times in the Ankarsrum are much longer to develop the dough, but that's okay because it is much gentler and more like hand mixing.

For your first batch of bread:

  • Make a dough that is at least 800 grams in total weight. The mixer will do smaller batches, but larger will make things a little simpler. Start with a dough that is not too dry.
  • Put your flour (maybe mix in salt and yeast) in the mixing bowl. Then add the required water. If using a levain, mix it into the water in a separate bowl before adding to the dry ingredients.
  • Turn the mixer on, setting it to the slowest speed. Let it mix until the flour and water are incorporated, just to the point where the flour is no longer dry. 
  • Stop the mixer, remove the roller and scraper, and put the white plastic cover on top the bowl to prevent evaporation. 
  • Let the dough rest for 30 minutes, then continue mixing. You can manually move the roller and/or the scraper back and forth to get a better mix if you wish.

Tip #2: It takes some practice to get the “kneading mind set” of the KitchenAid out of your mind. It’s difficult to believe that the Ankarsrum’s gentle kneading is so efficient and effective. 

  • Between the KA and the Ankarsrum mixing the same cake batter, the Ankarsrum takes longer to make full contact with the dough. However, it produces the same result after the same amount of total time mixing.
  • The Ankarsrum is completely capable of handling the dough up to the bulk fermentation phase. Let the machine mix and knead; then remove the dough and put it in a clean bowl to bulk ferment in the proofer. (Though the Ank bowl will fit in the B&T proofer – it might be harder to tell how much the dough has risen in it.)
  • Consider using the dough hook with the Ankarsrum to get started; it kneads similar (but much better) than the KitchenAid. Eventually, move on to the roller and scraper; its kneading is efficient and doesn’t use as much friction on the dough. With time and practice, you’ll get used to it.
  • Always use the dough scraper (even if you’re using the dough hook and not the roller).
  • For high hydration doughs, use the roller (it’s good with very wet doughs). But if the bowl starts rocking, then you probably have too much flour and you should switch to the dough hook.

If you have preconceived notions of how a mixer's action should look, it may not look like the roller is working, but it is, and it reaches the same degree of gluten development in less time than the KitchenAid. The roller does a lot of unseen work; toward the end of gluten development, the action will include stretching from the scraper while twisting and squeezing. One way to help understand how well it mixes is to add a bunch of seeds to the dough after you've mixed it for a few minutes. In the Ankarsrum, it doesn't take long for them to be evenly mixed throughout the dough; whereas it takes much longer in the KA, and sometimes they don’t get fully incorporated and will need hand mixing.

Tip #3: The dough will develop and look different because the Ankarsrum is engineered differently than a planetary mixer like the KitchenAid. If you are frustrated trying to learn the Ankarsrum, forge on! All you need is a short period of adjustment until you get used to it. Be patient and read the Ankarsrum manual carefully.

  • After mixing, the dough tends to be a bit sticky, but it’ll become beautifully soft and stretchy after a couple of stretch-and-folds.
  • The Ankarsrum is engineered very differently from the KitchenAid. You don’t have to watch the machine and the whole dough the entire time. No babying here – just turn on the timer and walk away. You don’t have to worry about overheating the unit or stripping gears, and it won’t move or jump around when mixing at higher speeds.
  • Autolyse will reduce mixing time and make the dough much suppler for the roller or hook.
  • Depending on the dough, you can let the Ankarsrum mix continuously for 4-8 minutes without worrying about overheating the dough. This means you can really develop strong gluten!
  • The 'recipe book' that comes with the Ankarsrum recommends 10-15 minutes mixing time for most of the recipes. Try making a small batch of dough and watch it develop to see at what point it gets to where you like it.

We are often advised to watch for the dough to release from the sides of the bowl as an indication of gluten development. However, this isn’t a sign you’ll see in the Ankarsrum unless your dough is quite low-hydration. 

  • When mixing at 2-3 o’clock, you’ll start seeing the dough release from the center of the bowl more and more. You won’t necessarily see the dough looking smooth because of the grooves in the roller.  
  • It is helpful to periodically stop the machine and do a windowpane test to check for gluten.  Do this often when you’re starting out and you’ll start to see what the dough looks like in different stages of gluten development.  
  • Once out of the bowl, do a letter fold or a few slap-and-folds and you’ll see how smooth the dough actually is.

User Tips

The tension knob on the arm: The arm should be able to swing toward the center of bowl with a light pull. You want the roller to stop just short of the edge of the bowl. 

  • If the tension knob is too tight: The roller will stay towards the middle of the bowl, and not squeeze the dough against the edge of the bowl as it goes around. 
  • If the tension knob is too loose: The roller will squeeze the dough so much that it will climb up and over the edge of the bowl.

Positioning of the dough hook: The screw at the bottom of the hook mounting hole adjusts the clearance between hook and bowl bottom. If the hook is too close to the bottom of the bowl, adjust it to the manual's recommendation of 4-5mm (~⅙-⅕in, close to the thickness of a stack of 3 US quarters). Make sure that the dough hook does not touch the bottom of the bowl.

Positioning of the scraper: The scraper should touch the side of the bowl from the bottom to the top, and should rest on the bottom. How low the scraper sits in the bowl can be adjusted by twisting a screw at the bottom of the hole that the scraper arm sits in.

Getting the dough out of the bowl: Use the rigid spatula that came with the mixer, or a flexible, generic dough scraper. 

  • For stiff doughs: Dust a bit flour on and around the dough, then use quick little scrapes to pull the dough into a ball. You should be able to lift the dough out of the bowl with your hands. 
  • For sticky doughs: Mist the dough and bowl with water. Lay the bowl on its side and use the spatula to pull the dough together and scoop it onto the bench. Laying the bowl on its side will help with stiff doughs too if hand strength is a problem.

When in doubt, use the dough roller over the dough hook. The dough roller can handle high- and low-hydration doughs, and everything in between. The dough hook is better suited for lower-hydration doughs; it doesn’t move in the bowl, but the spaces in the hook grab the dough in a taffy-like stretching motion.

The dough hook may be more useful for doughs that are 78% hydration or higher. Although it doesn’t rotate like the dough roller, you can move the dough hook back and forth toward the center of the bowl. In general, when the dough forms a beautiful figure-eight pattern around the hook, this means it’s starting to build strength. At this point, work the dough to the desired strength in the machine, or only go partially and use stretch-and-folds for the last stage.

Develop the gluten before adding anything – including salt. Adding the salt and watching the gluten tighten up is one of the better demonstrations of bread biochemistry in action. If adding levain, use the dough hook to mix it in (about 4 min.). The dough will settle to the bottom of the bowl; when it starts forming stringy strands, it's time to add the salt. Continue kneading the salt in for 4 more minutes. The dough will tighten up leaving the bottom of the bowl forming a ball that the hook will knead into a ball of dough ready for bulk fermentation. 

Hydration

  • Hydration is the sum of the weights of the liquids (water, milk, eggs, oils (not fat, e.g. lard, butter) divided by the weight of the flour. 
  • In general: less than 60% is low; between 60 and 70% is medium; and over 70% hydration is high.
  • By touch, low hydration feels dry, medium hydration feels tacky and high hydration is sticky. Different grains will have different tells.

Use the roller and scraper for:

  • Normal doughs up to 4 kg: use the roller and scraper.
  • Heavy doughs (e.g. whole grains, lots of nuts or grains, etc.) up to 2.5 kg (5.5. lbs)

Your mileage will vary, so use these metrics as a starting point. Above the weights indicated, switch to the hook and scraper.

Dough hydration shouldn’t be affected by different mixers. If you carefully weigh your ingredients, the mixer just isn’t going to change how “wet” the dough is. The ratio of flour to water is a constant, but the dough itself can look different in different mixers. 

  • It may take a bit longer to knead a dough with the Ankarsrum, but it’s very gentle with the dough and doesn’t heat it up as much as other mixers (like the KitchenAid).
  • If your dough looks “loose,” transfer it to a lightly floured work surface after it's done kneading, then stretch-and-fold it a couple of times. This almost always results in "recognizable" dough that comes together right away.
  • You can't judge the dough in the bowl the same way that you would judge a Bosch or KitchenAid dough. Just wait for the dough to form a donut shape, and you're done.

With the Ankarsrum, it’s easier to add in all of the water at once with the flour. Trying to add more water to an already-kneaded dough is challenging: the dough just slides around because the water reduces the friction on the side of the bowl.

Bassinage: When working with high hydration doughs, you hold back a little water, let the machine knead until it develops a window pane, then add the remaining water. 

  • If you do need to add water for some reason, add it slowly to the center and allow it to fly into the roller from centrifugal force without getting it onto the bowl. 
  • If you’re using the dough hook, you’ll notice the lack of friction between the dough and the bowl. It will come back eventually, but it will take time to regain the mixing/kneading action.

For higher-hydration doughs:

  • Try turning the speed dial up higher (around 3 o'clock position or even 4 or 5 o'clock).
  • For a small batch of dough, set the roller 1 in (2.5 cm) from the rim and set the speed to dead slow to make the initial mix. In about three minutes, it should be well mixed. Let rest for 5-10 minutes to let the flour fully hydrate. Then restart the mixer and raise the speed to medium-low (dial turned to 2-3 o'clock).

How to Use the Dough Roller & Scraper

Tip #1: Always, always, always add liquids to the mixer bowl first, no matter what the recipe says. if you add dry ingredients first, you may not be able to hydrate all your flour.

  • Add the dry ingredients a little at a time to the liquids. (Example: Warm water first, then the yeast; mix on lowest speed and let sit for the yeast to bloom before adding the flour a little bit at a time.)
  • Start with the roller against the side of the bowl. Start adding the flour. Once you’ve added about half of the flour, turn up the speed slightly.
  • Put salt and yeast at opposite ends of your recipe. Bloom the yeast first, then add the salt in with the flour. (Or if you use instant yeast added in with the flour, add the salt to the water.)

Tip #2: Two things are important when mixing: the spacing of the roller from the bowl's rim, and the speed. 

  • Spacing is primarily dependent on the amount of flour. For one or two loaves, space at one inch (2.54cm) or slightly more depending on hydration; but that's the ballpark figure.  
  • Speed is a more variable target, but a good starting point is medium-low, the knob turned to 2:30 o’clock. If the roller arm is banging or the mixer is trying to walk off the table, your speed is too high and/or the spacing is too little. You won’t need much higher speed than the 3:00 o'clock position for the dough roller; you don’t want the dough to smack around the bowl and slam into the scraper.
  • Consider taking the temperature of your mixed dough. It should be 77-80°F. Start mixing at a med-low speed for, say, 4 minutes or so, moving to a higher speed for a final 1-2 minutes.
  • The mixing time depends a lot on the amount of enrichment.  Doughs with milk, sugar, fat or eggs need more kneading to give the same gluten development than do lean doughs.  

Example: A Viennese style sandwich bread (65% water, 6.5% DMS, and 10% butterfat) requires 10-12 twelve minutes at 2:30 o’clock speed. A lean dough at the same hydration and speed would be ready to ferment in three minutes or so.

  • Initial mixing is almost always 2-3 minutes at dead slow with proper spacing.  The exceptions are very stiff doughs like bagels and pretzels. After mixing, let the dough rest for a while to even out the wetting of the flour.

Tip #3: Adjust the position of the roller as needed. The placement of the dough roller and the speed of the mixer affect how gentle or aggressive the kneading is.

During the initial mix (before autolyse): Move the roller towards the center for a second or two and let it move back (the arm is free to move). Do this several times so the roller can help pick up the dry flour and mix it into the wet ingredients.

If ingredients are bunching up together unmixed in the center of the bowl: Push on the attachment arm to move it side to side, or to the middle of the bowl as needed to incorporate the ingredients.

Depending on the type of dough and volume of dough, change the roller’s position

  • For small batches of dough or for silkier higher-hydration doughs = the dough roller should be closer to the bowl edge
  • For large batches of dough or for stiffer lower-hydration doughs = the dough roller should be farther away from the bowl edge

Why it’s important to adjust the roller position: You want the roller to apply gentle pressure to the dough as it moves between the roller and the inside edge of the bowl. The dough gets kneaded against the side of the bowl while the scraper picks up and folds the dough; just like hand kneading. You don’t want the arm jostling back and forth as the dough moves. Move the arm to where it doesn’t jostle. (Remember: the lower the hydration, the greater the banging; e.g. pizza dough.)

  • Try 1.5 inches to start with. It will vary depending on how dense and wet the dough is. Denser and dryer doughs will need more clearance.
  • Start with the roller touching the side of the bowl. A small loaf won’t need much adjustment, if any. A larger loaf or batch of dough will need adjustment. Watch it for a few minutes as the dough starts to come together, and adjust the roller’s position so that the dough does not come close to being squeezed all the way up the side of the bowl. If you have a lot of dough, without this adjustment, the roller will squeeze the dough up the side of the bowl, and eventually some if it will come out the top.
  • Once the dough is starting to get shaggy, keep an eye on the dough and move the roller closer to the center of the bowl. Continue to add the rest of the flour, then slightly increase the speed.

If the roller is banging against the bowl: Adjust the roller out from the bowl or slow the machine's speed.  Some of the banging may come from the dough slapping the scraper. The scraper plays an important role in kneading. One of its functions is to turn the dough a bit so that it goes through the roller's scallops at a slightly different angle each time around. It sometimes looks as if nothing is happening, but simply going through the roller squeezes the dough.

Very small changes in the roller position will change how the dough behaves:

  • Close to the bowl edge – for smaller batches of dough (e.g. 400-600 grams), the roller stretches the dough and slaps it against the scraper (kind of like a slap-and-fold). 
  • A little more towards the center of the bowl – a ball of dough can form, with one edge of it stuck to the roller and the bottom being twisted in center of the bowl
  • Even more towards the center – the dough looks more like a doughnut, with the roller in the middle (*Note: If the entire dough ball gets centered and doesn’t touch the scraper or the roller, just pull the roller into the center for a second so it can grab the dough and start kneading it again.)

Tip #4: A few times during kneading, you may notice a small amount of dough on the back side of the scraper. Use a spatula to knock off dough from the back side of the scraper. Or, while the machine is running, pull the scraper away from the side of the bowl; this lets a larger amount of dough go behind the scraper so it takes that small blob of dough with it. 

Tip #5: Move the scraper back and forth to mix in any inclusions once the dough has come together.

Tip #6: If your recipe calls for butter, make sure it is very, very soft first (around 75-90°F). Hard, cold butter will break the beater gears.

There are a few different ways you can mix in butter:

Method 1: Chill the dry ingredients and the butter. Cut the cold butter into small cubes (like 10 mm cubes) and then cut it into the flour as you would with pie crusts or biscuits. Add the dry ingredients to the wet while mixing.

Method 2: Soften or melt the butter and mix at a medium-high speed with the other wet ingredients. (To soften, try cutting it up into pats and place it in a proofing box at a warm temperature, like 82°F).

Method 3: To use the roller, try holding back some of the liquid (bassinage), developing the dough, then adding the butter slowly. After everything is incorporated and the gluten is developed, slowly add the remaining liquids.

Method 4: Soft, warm butter may smear around and coat the inside surface of the bowl, resulting in a loss of friction that makes it challenging for all the butter to be fully incorporated. Try patting a chunk of butter, not too thickly, on the surface of the dough and pull a flap of dough over it to encase it. Then turn the mixer back on, starting slowly but steadily increasing the speed as tolerated until the butter is fully incorporated.

Method 5: Grate the cold butter if you need to add it in colder than room temperature.

Basic Mixing Method

1. Liquids first: Add your liquids in the mixing bowl first (e.g. levain, water). Combine your dry ingredients (including salt and yeast) in a separate bowl. 

  • When premixing liquid ingredients, do so with the roller against the rim and run at high speed.
  • Mix your water, milk, juice, eggs, oil, your wet starter or poolish somewhat vigorously. If you include yeast in any form with the wet ingredients, mix with the speed set high for just long enough to aerate the mix (oxygenation helps yeast to be more reproductively frisky). 
  • For poolish, mix it in the water as you run the mixer at a high-ish speed. 
  • With firm preferments like biga, pat it out and cut into small <1" squares, coat in flour and stir into the dry ingredients. From there, it is the same as with a liquid starter.

2. Install the roller and scraper: Transfer the bowl to the mixer and install the roller and scraper. Turn on the mixer on low speed (2 o’clock position). Let the roller run against the side to get the water and levain mixed.

*Note: Never change between the roller and dough hook midstream in a recipe unless it's your first time making it and need to adjust. If the arm is swinging back and forth from a too dense dough, change to the dough hook and make a note in the recipe. The hook might be inefficient at the start of a recipe where the yeast is being mixed with the liquid, but that changes rapidly after dry ingredients are added.

3. Add the dry ingredients: Adjust the speed to dead slow and adjust the roller to ¾" to 1". Quickly add most of the flour at the beginning; don't hold back much, if any, from the initial mix. As the mixture gets thicker with the added flour, adjust the roller so that it’s about 1 inch from the bowl’s edge. 

  • As the dough comes together and goes through the roller, watch and adjust the roller’s position as needed so that it does not squeeze the dough up over the edge of the bowl.
  • If the mixer is trying to walk or the arm/roller is slapping against its stops, you are running too fast or the roller spacing from the rim is insufficient.

4. Initial mix: Mix for 1-3 minutes until the flour is fully wet and ragged. When you first mix the dough, it helps to push the roller to the middle and then release it a few times, to make sure it is incorporating everything in the middle. At this point, you're trying to get a shaggy mass for autolyse, but be sure to let it run longer than a traditional mixer since it's a great deal gentler.

5. Autolyse: Take off the roller and scraper, keep them in the bowl, and then put the lid on the bowl; or, if you want to keep the roller and scraper attached, find a shower cap that will fit over the bowl and the rear of the machine. Allow the dough to sit for 30 minutes to 1 hour. (During this time, your dry ingredients are hydrated, making mixing much more efficient.)

*Note: If you use a preferment, poolish or wet starter, or make enriched breads, you don’t need a long autolyse; a 5-10-minute rest to allow the flour to absorb the liquids is plenty. 

6. Final mix: Add the salt and knead for 4-5 minutes to make sure it’s incorporated. 

7. Kneading: Knead at low-medium speed (2:30 or 3:00 o'clock) to get a smooth dough. You’re looking for the dough to go from a rough shaggy appearance to getting a smooth exterior. The dough should consistently form, roll and reform in the bowl. When you go to take the dough out of the bowl, it should come out in one mass with nothing stuck to the roller. 

  • Do not use low speed with the roller after adding dry ingredients as it defeats the action of the roller, bowl, and scraper to do so. The mixer requires centrifugal force to work and that only happens when the bowl is spinning rapidly. 
  • The knead time will vary according to the degree of gluten strength your bread requires. For example, 3 minutes is plenty for most lean breads, while enriched sandwich breads may take upwards of 10-15 minutes.
  • Use the hook only for large (exceeding ~3 kg) batches, though really stiff doughs may benefit at smaller sizes say 1.5 kg of bagel dough.
  • The manual's recommendations are very good; trust them. It doesn't always look like it's doing much, but there's a lot going on. It's just different and mostly better than the actions of a planetary mixer.
  • For some dough sizes and hydrations, the dough will form a donut around the roller and the roller will stay in the same place, and for others, it will form a more classic lump of dough that gets kneaded each time it goes past the roller, and the roller will go in and out with each rotation.  Both seem to work as well, just look different.

*Note: 60-80% hydration dough takes a while to develop. Watch the dough – it is fascinating to see the gluten as it pulls off the roller! This should take about 15 minutes.

  • Low hydration dough – around 3 minutes
  • ~70% hydration dough with a fairly strong flour – 6 to 7 minutes
  • High hydration (80-100%) dough – 12 to 18 minutes

8. Bench rest: When the timer goes off, use a bowl scraper to gather the dough and lift it out of the bowl (rather than pour and scrape). This helps keep the dough from gathering under the lip at the top of the bowl, which can be hard to clean. Set the dough on a countertop under the mixer bowl lid.

9. Gentle folding: Do a stretch-and-fold in 20 minutes and a second or third in 30-minute intervals as needed. Then transfer to a clean container and cover for bulk fermentation.

Mixing Tips

Remember: The Ankarsrum is a gentle worker. Speed isn’t everything! 

Keep in mind that you're not mixing for time, you're mixing to achieve a particular dough consistency. When the gluten is appropriately developed, stop. If you're not sure, stop early and do some extra folds during the bulk phase if needed. Machine mixing could affect your bulk time if your dough is more or less developed at the end of the mix, the same as if you over- or under-mixed by hand or with any other machine. 

Try and stop thinking about using time as a dough development cue. You need to mix until your dough is developed to the degree you want it regardless of whether that takes 3 minutes or 30. If you crank the speed all the way up, you could have a windowpane in a few minutes, but it might take 30 minutes on the first speed. Or, it might take 10 minutes using all-purpose flour but 5 minutes using strong bread flour. It's all relative, and the ingredients factor in too. 

You have to make some judgment calls, but trust your senses and it will be alright. Here are some suggestions to help you make those judgments:

You need to know the degree to which you want your dough developed. The formula might say "mix to full development" or maybe "Mix to windowpane" or "Mix to medium development." If you don't really have a sense of how well-developed your dough was when you used to hand mix it, hand mix the dough again and take note of the dough's appearance: Does it hold its shape, is it firm, does it spread out, is it shiny? Then, tug on the dough to get a sense of its strength. Then try to pull a windowpane and see how the windowpane looks. Write down your observations, then refer to your notes and try to achieve those same qualities with the mixer next time you bake.

You can hold back some water when you mix your final dough (bassinage). Some bakers do this as a matter of routine because how much water your flour can hold varies from day to day depending on many factors including the humidity. Add in the withheld water a bit at a time if you believe your dough will tolerate it. You may need to reduce the mixer speed when you do this but if you just add a little bit at a time, it should be fine.

Take notes when you mix: what speed you were using, how long at each speed, what the dough consistency was like at various stages. (You can turn the mixer off and check the dough whenever you want.) Refer to those notes the next time you bake and adjust accordingly. Do that every time you bake and you will soon hit upon the sweet spot for that particular dough. If you feel your doughs end up a little over- or under-developed, make a note of it so you can adjust the time or speed next time. 

To incorporate ingredients (including autolysed dough): swing the roller arm away from the side bowl and more into the center to capture any dough or loose ingredients that are not being taken up. You can also do this with the scraper. Keep the speed low to keep water and/or flour from splashing out and all over your kitchen. In most cases, you will incorporate ingredients at a much slower speed than the actual mix speed.

Start mixing slow until you get more comfortable with the machine. You can always mix a little longer if you need to, but once you over-develop the dough (which is easy to do on a fast speed) you can't undo it. For starters, try mixing with the 4th or 5th box at the top of the speed dial to help you learn how fast or slow the dough comes along at a particular speed. If you adjust the speed, do it in small increments and write down the times and results. Check the dough as often as necessary.

How to Use the Dough Hook

Method:

1. Start with the hook and scraper, add the liquids and stir them around a bit, then dump the rest of the ingredients in the bowl, sans the salt. Start on a low speed and let the ingredients incorporate to shaggy. 

2. Remove the hook and scraper, sprinkle the salt on top, and put the bowl cover on while the autolyse takes place (20-30 minutes). When the autolyse time is up, replace the hook and scraper, then start the final mix on a slow speed again. 

3. During the final mix, the dough to climb up the hook all the way to the top arm, so have a dull knife on hand to release the dough from the top of the hook. (A spatula will push the dough down but the knife actually slices the dough and makes for a better release.) Scrape the dough off the hook and the mass should fold around a time or two before it climbs back up again. Repeat often.

4. Once things come together the scraper may no long be needed, and may become an impediment to the kneading process. Pull it out and see if you really need it. You will likely need to raise the speed to keep the kneading progressing and you may need to move the hook assembly to the middle or left side of the bowl. Keep an eye on the dough to ensure it doesn’t get over-kneaded

Additional Tips:

  • Use the dough hook and scraper for the initial mix to start the autolyse. Run it first at high speed, then slow down while adding the flour as it thickens. Take out the hook and let it autolyse for an hour or so, then put in the roller and scraper, add salt and levain, and mix fairly slowly for 8-10 minutes. 
  • Add the salt last, after the gluten has been developed. The dough will firm up quickly once the salt is added (5 seconds or so).

 

 

joegranz's picture
joegranz

Rebalancing Lievito Madre

Over the past year or so, I've been having issues mixing panettone dough .  After a lot of research and talking to a few different people. I've concluded that my LM is not healthy.  If I am reading the signs correctly, it's too weak.

After feeding and leaving at 30C for 3-4 hours, the LM doubles but does not quite triple.  A cross-section of the LM after fermentation shows very tiny alveoli. The starter tastes mild and fruity, but there's really not much acidity to it and the pH seems stuck in the 4.4 - 4.55 range after fermentation.  If I understand correctly, after about 12 hours bound at 16-19C, the starter should register a pH of 3.8-3.9, yet mine is still sitting in the 4.4 - 4.5 range.

The issue I'm having now is correcting the balance of microorganisms in the dough, and while there seems to be a lot of information out there on how to create and maintain a LM, there's surprisingly little information on what to do when something goes wrong.

I initially created this LM maybe 1.5 years ago from my 100% sourdough starter and I suspect that something went wrong with this process as my LM has never really behaved correctly.  The typical schedule for my starter is to refresh 1/1/0.5 and leave for 3-4 hours at 30 C.  I'll do this 2 or 3 times in a day, after which I will bind it and put it in the refrigerator for about a week.  If I'm going to bake with it, I'll take it out of the fridge about 3 days before and begin the typical cycle of 3 short warm refreshments followed by 1 long cold one.  The starter is maintained exclusively with KA Sir Lancelot flour.

I've been doing things a bit differently lately in order to try and correct the issues I've noticed.  I've been taking some suggestions from https://www.dissapore.com/ricette/lievito-madre-di-iginio-massari/ and https://biancolievito.com/how-to-fix-your-sourdough/ on how to strengthen a weak LM.

Over the past week I have been tracking refreshments and have gathered some interesting (and frustrating) data points:

  • I have done many 1/0.8 refreshments (starter/flour) at 45% - 50% hydration per Massari's recommendation, yet the starter still seems weak and is not acidifying below 4.4, even after as much as 5 hours at 30 C.
  • I have done 2 rather lengthy "long" refreshments.  One of these was a submerged refreshment with 19C water left at room temp (about 71F) for 17.5 hours, the other was a bound refreshment at 17-19C for about 35 hours.  Both of these resulted in some decent acidification down to about 4.1-4.2.  I followed both of these up with 1/0.8 warm refreshments which, in both cases, brought the pH right back up to about 4.4 after 3.5 hours.
  • I'm tracking the difference in pH before and after fermentation. The two very long refreshments I mentioned acidified the most, resulting in a pH change of about 0.8 - 0.9.  The refreshments immediately following these long ones, however, resulted in the least acidification of all 15 or so refreshments I've tracked so far, decreasing the pH by only 0.29 (oddly, exactly 0.29 in both cases)
  • I've tried a longer warm refreshment where I mixed and laminated the dough, rolled it in a ball, and left it at 28C for about 9.5 hours (neither bound nor in water).  This only acidified down to about 4.38 and was right back to about 4.5 after the subsequent 3.5 hour warm refreshment
  • Out of desperation, I've begun using bottled water instead of filtered tap water.  This hasn't seemed to make any difference at all

I'm tempted to create a new LM either from my 100% starter once again, or perhaps from scratch, but I really want to figure this out.  If I were to create a new starter that behaved perfectly, I feel I will have lost out on what seems like a valuable learning experience.  I am kind of running out of ideas though, which is the purpose of this post. 

At this point, I feel like I could leave my LM out in the yard for a week and still effortlessly bring it back to 4.4 pH 🤣. I thought maybe my LM is just happy at 4.4 - 4.5, but given all of my issues mixing panettone dough, I do think it's an issue.

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

Bulk pizza crusts

Making SD YW T65/Semola pizza crusts in my Detroit pans. Prep with sauce and parmigiana and then par bake and freeze. Better than Costco 😂😬. The little one on my 40 yr old steel pan ( can’t get it anywhere anymore) will be gone almost immediately after coming out of the oven fully topped. Let me know if you want the best crust formula. 1700 g of yum

And it’s only Tuesday  

 

 

par baked goodness ready for freezer when cool

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

WW YW Pullman 13” with trinity

 

Crumb pics . 😊

 


Haven’t baked this in awhile. It’s so easy that it’s almost unfair because it looks like work. Mix everything til moist in KA mixer. Rest 1 hr. Mix on speed 2 for 9 minutes. Butter your 13” Pullman REALLY WELL…. for flavor as well as crust/ color and easy removal. Let dough rise 50% up pan sides. Place in fridge. Next day resist urge to peak inside as it will pull the dough which should be very close or touching lid. Preheat oven 375. Bake covered 30 min and uncovered 20 min. That’s it. The bulk is done in the pan . Dan was the first to popularize this method. 

335g AP 

335 WW ( milled Rouge de Bordeaux and Turkey Red) 

70g Semola Rimacinata 

28g Rye ( milled Danko Rye)

400-460 g H2O- watch your dough and adjust as needed

( I used 100g YW as part of my water. ) 

42 g each honey, EVOO, Buttermilk = 126g trinity

13g salt 

126 g active YW levain 

 

NicolC's picture
NicolC

Ankarsrum- dough development

Hi I have recently bought the Ankarsrum and have been reading through all the really helpful posts on here. There are some great tips on use thank you. I have been baking sourdough for many years and have had to adjust a few things for the Ankarsrum - I found out the hard way that adding any kind of fluid after the initial mix isn’t great!  So I don’t autolyse or even fermentolyse now thinking that actually the mixer does most of that early dough development for me. However I do have a few questions about how the dough behaves afterwards and I would really appreciate some advice from anyone who has been using the Ankarsrum for a long time.  

1. the dough seems really wet and sticky compared to hand mixing? I usually work at 70-75% hydration. Do people usually reduce the hydration in the Ankarsrum?

2. When I mixed for 15 mins the loaf structure was really tight when compared to a hand mixed loaf. Am I over developing? Everything was exactly the same apart from the mixing and the hand mixed dough was better!  I’m on a slow speed with the roller and 1kg of flour.   I’m at around  8 mins now (I like to keep doing stretch and folds to feel the dough) -does anyone have any advice  on the best timings to use? I’ve added a small amount of spelt into my white loaf too to see if that opens the gluten up more. 

3. Has using the Ankarsrum changed the time in your bulk fermentation at all?

Many thanks! 

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

YW Challah

 

 

 

I had mentioned previously about converting my Challah recipe that I have been making since the mid ‘70’s to YW. I posted pics of the Apple/Raisin YW that I used on the YW topic . . Freshly fed and fermented it did an outstanding job. The fragrance is intoxicating. Crumb shot in a bit. 

I simply use 2c YW that’s very active and then follow my usual recipe. It’s in cups and measures and I haven’t ever bothered to change it. It’s been perfect all these decades so I haven’t felt the need. 

The beauty of YW is the enriched dough rises so nicely and the bread crumb stays soft and shreadable for days unlike yeasted crumb. 

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