Another (yawn) Pain au Levain
My tendencies are to find and try to duplicate interesting breads coming from our talented lot of bakers on TFL. But over time, especially quite recently, it is hard to not notice that there are a lot of folks who love to bake Jeffrey Hamelman's Pain au Levain. So the carrot was placed before the donkey and I took the bait too.
As the notes indicate, the stiff levain itself was quite rubbery and needed to be pulled into small pieces to facilitate incorporation into the autolysed flour & water. The dough also felt dry to the touch, so I added a few grams of water here and there, probably bringing the total hydration up to ~70%,
Everything went along just dandy. 300 French Folds followed by two Letter Folds at 40 & 80 minutes and a final 40 minute bench rest before loading into the refrigerator for somewhere ~90 minutes. Divide into 3 at ~500g, pre-shape and shape on the couche and back into the refrigerator for a long beddy-bye overnight. Scored and baked directly from the retard.
I've yet to taste or cut into them, as they are destined for others (and me!).
steam released and rotated after 15 minutes
Crumb shot added
alan
Comments
The crumb might suffer with low hydration so you were wise to add in some water.. Well done and happy baking
I've seen some pretty open crumb from lower hydration breads on TFL, and here is just one example from a rather familiar face. So it can be done well. But the notes I used mentioned that the dough might be dry to the touch. Which is what I found as well.
As an aside, what I'm really happy about is that it seems as though, in general, no matter which formula I use I come out with a pretty consistent looking product. There's something to be said about being able to get an anticipated look to the batards and baguettes.
alan
the crumb will be dense. Think bagels. You can even boil them in a pot of water and they still are dense. Just think what this bread would have been like without the extra water you added? Smaller holes for sure. The largest holes come from ciabatta and other high hydration non whole grain breads because of the high hydration, the only thing that changes from a 68% hydration baguette - which can have some decent holes but not ciabatta style holes..
it is all in the hydration and white flour when it comes to holes for the most part.
Happy baking Alan
Those looks great! I like the oven setup too.
Speaking of this recipe, I have my levain building today and will be working on this very loaf tonight! I hope for similar, successful results!
are what I use for a baking deck. What you can't see in this picture is the roasting pan filled with lava rocks that get bathed in 2 cups of water just after the batards are loaded. Also removed at this point is Sylvia's steaming towel, placed into the oven 15 minutes in advance of the bake to ensure a face-full of steam upon opening the door to load the deck.
460dF preheat, 440dF bake with steam for first 13-15 minutes. Try to rotate the batards front to back, left to right to get an even bake.
Good luck and thanks.
Looks great. The browning and crust look amazing. I'll taste if you want!@!
my bread download app. My smell-o-sense app never went anywhere, but maybe this time is the charmer ;-)
Thanks for sharing Alfonso, I use a baking steel as a bottom and cover the loaves with a heavy clay lid and get good results too. I would like to bake more than 1 loaf at a time so your solution might be worth trying!
Can I ask where you got those stones Alfanso? I use a pizza stone--pretty standard fare which I bought at a kitchen store (one is a big khaki-ish stone and the other is an emile henry stone which is rectangular). I never know what types of stones/tiles to buy and I'm always paranoid of food safety or shattering.
And to Stone and lid: Where do you get a heavy clay lid? Is that just equivalent to using a dutch oven cast iron thing?
these really inexpensive baking stones are unglazed floor/garden tiles which can be purchased at a floor tiling store or a Home and Garden hardware store (like Home Depot in the USA). After a scrubbing they went into the dishwasher's extra hot cycle and then had to be cut down to fit my oven rack. This was done with a "wet saw". Glazed tiles may contain chemicals that can leech into either the air or the bread, so my understanding is that they are not recommended. No such issues with these clay tiles - wait a second - is that a third ear that just started to appear on my forehead...
Not sure whether you mean the shattering of a tray placed on them or the tiles shattering themselves. In fact a few of these did crack upon the first few uses and then never again. As I now have a double oven, they never get moved from their home in the oven.
I know many people who would get up early for those batards! The blistering is becoming your trademark and a characteristic only professional ovens seem to attain (aside from yours of course). I noticed the same thing when I made this recipe. The hydration did seem rather low especially compared to many of the breads we're used to here. Almost felt compelled to add more water myself. This is certainly a look I'm striving for with my breads. Perfect ear, blistering, oven spring.. just perfect. Now for the crumb shot...
A full 13 hours after the bake is when I cut into this one. I am surprised that the crumb is not more open even with the slightly lower hydration of this bread. And the inside feels a bit moist, meaning that I didn't wring out the final liquid from this during the bake.
I'm not disappointed, as everything else worked out so well for a first time. At 440dF this bread baked 25 or 40 degrees F lower than I typically bake, so that may be part of the problem. I also have a tendency to get a pretty tight skin on my shaping, so maybe I'll back off a hair or two. However, with that bloom I am surprised that it didn't show more open holes on the inside.
Thanks for the kind words, I do appreciate them.
BTW, if you poke around enough at current and former contributors to TFL, you'll see a gaggle of folks who can knock them out of the park on a regular basis. This is like Iggy's Fun House around here, at least for us aficionados.
alan
BTW2 - the "yawn" was because I was jumping on the back of the bandwagon of folks, like you already doing this bread.
my question is about your steaming method. I have the lower element in my way also so how do you achieve adequate steam?
Duh! I just had to read further.