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A complete HOWTO on baking bread that tastes better, than most breads money can buy.
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Signing UpStep 1Preliminary thoughts
This is my 3rd instructable about baking bread.
Baking bread means more to me, than just preparing something to eat. As soon as you smell the bread baking in the oven, you know what i mean. Last year, i baked twice a week, give or take.
Most of the time, i prepare a "poolish" preferment Friday morning or around lunch time. At night, before i go to bed i add the remaining ingredients, and let it knead by my bread maker. The next morning, i preheat the oven, then maybe go to bed again until the oven reaches the temperature. This way, even a full time employed guy like me can do it without interfering with my other hobbies, or money gathering activities (like working ;-).
Many people tell me they tried to bake bread, after reading a recipe. Then their bread turns out dense like a stone. It's really not that hard to bake bread with a yeast leavened dough, if you have a basic knowledge.
1. Yeast works in a temperature range from about 5 to 35 deg. C or 41 to 95 deg. F. (At the lower end, the activity is almost stopped and it works very slow but you can raise the temp. to speed it up. At the upper end, it works very fast, but if you overshoot this temp. you could kill your yeast.)
Professional bakers normally try to reach a dough temp. of around 28 C or 83 F after kneading. (The temp. is reached by adjusting the water temp., the temp. of the flour can change from seasonal storage temperatures. Kneading causes friction and heats up the dough some more.)
This may sound awfully complicated, but if you take tepid water, all will be ok. (If you don't have 200lb of flour to knead, your bowl temp. has more impact on the rising time.)
2. Yeast doesn't like fats or salt. But then, i don't like bread without salt. The yeast tolerates some salt, but i wouldn't add it to a preferment. If you make a dough with lots of fat, add it after you mixed the flour, yeast and water or milk. Take more yeast.(As directed on the yeast pack will be enough.) Normally, i only take a quarter or even less than the amount suggested on the yeast package. But i give it more time to work.
After you master the white wheat flour bread, making whole wheat and breads with other grains are easy to adapt. I would suggest you use 25-50% white wheat flour in any of these breads. This makes sure, you get a good rise.
If you use coarsly milled or crushed grains or other dry, hard ingredients, you need to soak them. With the following method, you can soak them in the preferment.
Baking bread means more to me, than just preparing something to eat. As soon as you smell the bread baking in the oven, you know what i mean. Last year, i baked twice a week, give or take.
Most of the time, i prepare a "poolish" preferment Friday morning or around lunch time. At night, before i go to bed i add the remaining ingredients, and let it knead by my bread maker. The next morning, i preheat the oven, then maybe go to bed again until the oven reaches the temperature. This way, even a full time employed guy like me can do it without interfering with my other hobbies, or money gathering activities (like working ;-).
Many people tell me they tried to bake bread, after reading a recipe. Then their bread turns out dense like a stone. It's really not that hard to bake bread with a yeast leavened dough, if you have a basic knowledge.
1. Yeast works in a temperature range from about 5 to 35 deg. C or 41 to 95 deg. F. (At the lower end, the activity is almost stopped and it works very slow but you can raise the temp. to speed it up. At the upper end, it works very fast, but if you overshoot this temp. you could kill your yeast.)
Professional bakers normally try to reach a dough temp. of around 28 C or 83 F after kneading. (The temp. is reached by adjusting the water temp., the temp. of the flour can change from seasonal storage temperatures. Kneading causes friction and heats up the dough some more.)
This may sound awfully complicated, but if you take tepid water, all will be ok. (If you don't have 200lb of flour to knead, your bowl temp. has more impact on the rising time.)
2. Yeast doesn't like fats or salt. But then, i don't like bread without salt. The yeast tolerates some salt, but i wouldn't add it to a preferment. If you make a dough with lots of fat, add it after you mixed the flour, yeast and water or milk. Take more yeast.(As directed on the yeast pack will be enough.) Normally, i only take a quarter or even less than the amount suggested on the yeast package. But i give it more time to work.
After you master the white wheat flour bread, making whole wheat and breads with other grains are easy to adapt. I would suggest you use 25-50% white wheat flour in any of these breads. This makes sure, you get a good rise.
If you use coarsly milled or crushed grains or other dry, hard ingredients, you need to soak them. With the following method, you can soak them in the preferment.
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I have read that if you work in a kitchen where such things as bread, cheese and beer have been worked with (made) for a loooong time that the yeasts and "cultures" can be found in all the nooks and crannies and floating around waiting to settle on anything--if it is friendly---like a dough mix---or raw milk--they will start to grow. The flavor of course is dependent on the type; temperature and other factors but I would think that if you started a basic poolish or sponge with JUST flour and water it would be possible to capture enough organisms to make a decent bread.
One of the more interesting things I have seen in my travels was a GIANT basket with two trees for the sides. I mean GIANT--something like 6 FEET long by 4 FEET wide. And several FEET deep. This is at the house museum in Burke NY where the Father of the Little House series was raised. This enourmous thing was intended to be carried by either men or horses and was to gather HOPS. Hops when dried are extremely light but puffy--thus the size needed and also the fact that the weaving was fairly airy. Once upon a time hops growing areas had these--has anyone ELSE ever seen one of these? Knowing how much work goes into even a single hand woven basket I was blown away! And where oh where are the hop farms of Upstate NY today? Crickets. Hmmmm--some clever person wanting to tap into the "Locavore" scene might do worse than plant some hops and do some REAL "Homebrew".
Maybe Sam Adams can come up here and revive the local farm scene---basket would make a killer commercial!
Thank you OP for these amazing 'ibles. Your English is astonishing and your instructions clear and easy to follow---and you are amazingly patient with us!
Regarding the hop basket, i have never heard about such a thing.
I live very close to some very famous hop growing regions. (Tettnang is some 40 miles away, Hallertau some 180 miles.)
The old way, how hops got harvested around here, was to cut the vines at the top, rip them down and load them on a cart.
Then it was transported to the farm, where the cones were picked by the children of the region. (I know this, because a friend of mine told this firsthand. She also told, that they were payed "by the basket" they filled. But these baskets were much smaller, than the one you described.)
Then the cones got dried on airy floors.
Nowadays, there are harvesters that rip, pick and transport the hops.
Then they get dried in kilns.
No more hop-picking parties, as my friend described them.
Been making my own bread for a couple of years. Very satisfying but, like golf, it can also be very frustrating. (I never play in the rain because you just get your balls wet).
You do exactly the same thing each time, but sometimes get different results. This can just be due to the batch of flour which sometimes absorbs the water less or more.
I've got the brown whole grain breads sorted now. I am lucky because the French baker across the road lets me buy his special flour mix from him, plus a little powdered malt. So 500g flour, 350g water (70%), 12.5g salt, 5g yeast, 10g malt powder.
Like you I make a poolish first using 25% of the flour and water, all the yeast and a pinch of brown sugar (just a little feed). Once the poolish has at least doubled, I make the dough. I prewarm the flour, in a prewarmed bowl, mix in ground sea salt and malt, then adding the rest of the warm bottled water, (don't like tap water, never sure what's in it!) and once that is smooth, I mix in the poolish.
( I am now making a big poolish which I intend to keep and feed all the time. I will pass this on to my grandchildren.
A very good friend in Portugal has a poolish which was originally started by her great great great grandmother a very very long time ago.
She used to keep it in her husband's trousers for some reason.
I don't know if her husband was in the trousers at the same time!)
Needless to say, their Rye bread is amazing, and they pour boiling water, YES BOILING water in to make their dough).
As you say, yeast and salt don't like each other so I keep them apart as long as I can.
If I am feeling energetic I knead it myself for 15 minutes, or in the Kenwood with the dough hook for 25 minutes, stopping and scraping down half way through. Then pop it in an lightly oiled bag in the fridge over night letting the flavours build.
Next day I put it on a lightly floured board and squash it out into a rectangle and then roll one way, then squash out and roll the other way, 4 times. Form it into the shape I want and let it rise again on baking paper (which makes it easier to move without disturbing the shape), until doubled or more.
Oven preheated to 275c, (the temp drops sharply when I open the door and I'm aiming for 240c), I pour cold water onto a tray at the bottom of the oven to generate the steam, slash the risen dough and in she goes.
I get great results with my brown breads, pizzas, arab flat breads, brioches, all that stuff. The Brioche Mousseline is an old Escoffier recipe. Fantastic!
BUT, can I get my baguettes and Boules like the ones they sell across the road? Can I hell! Really frustrating.
I use the same method as above, with just Type 65 white flour, salt, water, yeast, same proportions. It is OK, but it just isn't the same.
Somehow their baguettes are slightly moist and soft inside with that brilliant light golden crunchy crust. Maybe it is cooked hotter and for a shorter time. I am experimenting with the baguettes, 275c for 20 mins to see what happens.
Anyway, it keeps me of the streets and it's all good clean fun!
Thank you and Happy Baking
Interesting baking methods.
They are somewhat different, but as long as they are successful, no need to change anything.
What you write about the "portugese" poolish makes me think.
I wouldn't call it a poolish anymore. This goes more in the direction of a sourdough. (pate fermentee)
When you bake with large amounts of rye, the dough needs to be soured in order to rise. This is because rye has almost no gluten.
By using boiling water, there will be some gelatinization of the rye starch. While cooling down, there is amylase activity. This will convert some of the gelatinized starch to yeast digestible sugars.
I guess they only add the "poolish" after the dough cooled down to around body temperature.
This way, the yeast and the bacteria in this "poolish" have readily available food for a nice rise.
Regarding your baguette problem, look up "Danielle Forestier, Julia Child" video.
I tried to add the links here, but they don't seem to stay valid for long.
But you find it on Youtube as well.
One thing that is not clear to me in your comment:
Do you use a pizza stone of some sort? If not, try it.
Danielle Forestier also stresses its importance in household ovens.
I did look at the Forestier Childs method a few weeks ago, but I didn't try it just because it is far removed from what my French baker across the road does, and it is his baguette or Boule I am trying to copy.
Portugal their Rye (Farine de Seigle) bread has the flour and salt warmed and then boiling water mixed in quickly. It's a bit like porridge. It cools down quickly and the starter is then added. They make several kilos at the same time in a deep wooden tray stirring and turning with their arms deep in it. Wonderful.
This goes on for ages, and then finally it is covered with a floured cloth and left for at least 10 hours, (wrapped in the husbands trousers!) Don't ask!.
It becomes a sort of wobbly jelly which is divided into 1 kilo loaves, kneaded and shaped again and left to rise. Then it is baked in the glowing embers of a large communal oven. It is truly a defining moment if, like me, you are just a simple chap trying to produce a half decent tasting piece of bread to put on the table. They have been doing this for centuries.
Yesterday's Pain au Grain was the business! A monster, and lovely and moist inside. Moments like that make me believe, just for a moment, that I actually might be doing something right. (I am lucky my baker sells me his special mix, but he will not tell me what is in it. Maybe I'll have to get it analysed at a lab. Naughty, I know, but a chap has to do what a chap has to do.)
Almost a shame to spread anything on it other than Brittany butter on it really, but my lady brought up a jar of my Sept 2010 Blackberry jam. Couldn't resist!
No wonder that baking and foraging is an obsession for some of us.
I would just like to say i have been trying to make my own bred for month’s now, with no success! I used your method about three weeks ago. Perfect bread every time. i have not bought a loaf from the shop since.
The only problem i have is it gets eaten to fast by my wife and two kids, i have nearly got a batch on the go all the time. One day White bread, the next whole-wheat.
5***** The best bread yet, if you are having trouble making bread that will not rise, is to heavy, or tastes to yeasty I urge you to try this recipe.
Thank you t.rohner .
I'm happy to share my insights. (I took me quite a while to figure it out...)
Everyone who takes the effort to bake her or his own bread should be rewarded with a decent (if not outstanding) result.
Also, does halving the yeast and doubling the fermentation time makes better bread? At last, happy new year and I wish everyone bakes better bread this year!
The salt amount is a question of preference of course.
I like it around 3%. (15g salt for 500g of flour)
But many recipes use 2%. (10g for 500g flour)
As i wrote, your flour may be different in water holding capability and/or gluten content.
Just reduce the water a bit. It will still be tasty and gives a more uniform crumb.
Maybe prolong the final rise by 30 minutes.
In my experience, 24 hours from mixing of the preferment until baking is ideal. I did longer and shorter fermentations to test.
You can try it, but i don't think it will enhance much.
You probably culture some lactic bacteria, if you add very little yeast. If you deliberately want to do this, give sourdough a try.
I recommend to use a tried and true culture, instead of starting your own culture.
Or you can do both and compare them.
I'm very happy with this one:
http://www.sourdo.com/home/cultures/france/
Thank you
The main difference will be, that some of the "chaff" will cut the bubbles and therefore hinder the raising of the loaves. Be prepared for a denser loaf.
It's also important to put the "chaff" into the preferment to get it rehydrated. I would recommend to use 25-33% of a nice white strong gluten flour.
I also like to add some "bread spices" sometimes. It's not very common here in Switzerland, but i live close to Austria, so i can get it easily... It's a mix made of fennel, coriander, caraway and anise. It's a hit with home smoked salmon...
I would suggest to try a "free" formed loaf on a pizza stone. The toasted aromas come out very nice in a thick crust.
To your personal question:
I didn't end up in Switzerland, i was always here. (except some longer trips to different parts of the world)
Rohner is a common family name in my area.
When i remember correctly, the name comes from tree stumps, that were left standing, after clear cutting the forest for settling. (Maybe my predecessors were just to lazy to uproot them...)
Manitoba it's not a brand name, it's a commercial variety name you find on flour bags in europe.
A optimal flour composition is nice to have, but it's not make or break.
Fleshly milled flour makes sense of course. That's why i go to the local miller to get it.
For a pro baker, there may be other considerations, like machinability.
A baker takes of course the best / most economical product available.
As i wrote in the instructable, i can make a very good bread with different flours. I don't even know, if one of them is "high gluten". I think i interview the miller, next time.
The information on the supermarket flour is very limited here. (I never read manitoba on a flour package...)
I also read the wonderful webpage from Jeff Varasano and he comes to the same conclusion.
It's not so much the flour, it's the dough making procedure.
Although he's writing about pizza dough, it applies to bread dough as well.
See for yourself:
http://varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm
I made my last two pizza doughs this way, the last one even with sourdough. It rocks.
I like the idea of doing some work the day before, and only minor actions on the baking day, so you can have great bread for breakfast.
To make it clear for myself. you do the following, right?
1: make polish in the morning of day 0 and let it ferment all day at room temperature (RT)
2: add the ingredients in the evening, mix it and leave it for overnight fermentation at RT
3: in the morning of day 1, you form the bread and let it rise for 60-90 min (again RT) while heating up the oven
4: then bake it
If the above method works perfectly, I will be happy. However, I am afraid that the overnight fermentation at RT is too warm/too long. The fridge is however not an option I discovered. I tried the rising step (nr 3) in the fridge overnight, but that was unsuccesfull. The dough didn't rise at all, and it took too long for the bread the get bake to RT again.
Do you have any knowledge on the fermentation/rising time at different temperatures? I could make a simple rising cabinet with a set temperature from and old minifridge and temp controller that I have.
Kind regards, Rutger
I looks quite scientific... i haven't read all and it has a second part...
http://kenklaser.gaiastream.com/2009/08/11/experimenting-with-bread-dough-process/
Was planning to start a poolish this morning, but only thought of it when I was already on my way to work :(
1. a bread dough
2. a pizza dough
3. a Zopf dough. (as in one of my other instructables) It's quite a while i made the last one.
Last weekend, i wasn't able to bake. I was in southern Tirol (Italy) with my better half, to enjoy, eat and drink the local treats... This is really a part of the world to see. We drove home up the Vinschgau. They grow 1'000'000'000 kilogramms of apples each year. Just wow.
Luckily, it's quite close to my place... i used to go there for skiing only, for the last couple years. But it's worth a trip in every season.
I started cold smoking fish and meat last year.(better late, than never)
If you ever tried a real farmers bacon there, you know what heaven should look like. I had the best ever, ever, ever "Carbonara Spaghetti" there. With lightly fried "local bacon" sticks. It really ripped my socks off and i ate very good carbonara before... It was in a restaurant, famous for their fish dishes...
I already fired up my pizza oven, giving it time to slowly heat up for dinner. Now i go shopping for some Taleggio cheese and then make a tomato sauce.
The overnight fermentation in your step 2 can lead to overrising, if the time is long enough or the temperature is too high or too much yeast in the dough.
These are the 3 variables you can play with.
For me, it's normally not a problem to make the dough at 1 am. and form it at 7 am., that gives 6 hours of main fermentation at around 20° Celsius.
If the dough gets a little bit overrisen, that's not a problem. It just takes a little longer to rise after forming. If it's too overrisen, the yeast food(sugars from flour) is depleted and it wont rise after forming or it takes too long.
Sometimes, if i need to retard things a bit, i put it in the basement at 10-15°
.
So your idea with a electric cooler can make sense. (most of these units are too small around here, but i'd use a insulated foambox and install the cover of the cooler with the peltier cooling element.)
A friend of mine is professional artisanal baker. He adjusts the amount of yeast, depending on the time of year.(temperature)
If you want to play with the yeast amount, you will need a pretty precise scale. I bought one at Fry's, while in California. I bought it mainly to weigh spices for sausage making.. It goes down to 0.1g or 100mg.
In bread making, i just shake some yeast out of the packet. So this is quite variable here.
I have such a minifridge in the car. It's a bit of a luxury model for around 100$. It has temperature control from 4-60° Celsius and a digital display for setting and reading the actual temperature.
Peltier elements can be reversed, meaning they can transport heat energy in both directions.
That way, my box can cool and heat.
This makes it interesting for sourdough fermentations. Here you need temperatures quite above room temperature.
I certainly see it possible, that you can adjust the time of the bulk fermentation to your needs with such a cooler and temp controller.
I don't have real scientific data like a fermentation temp vs. time curve. But maybe this helps a little bit.
Within the range of temperatures in which yeast works, every one degree F rise in temperature increases the rate of yeast fermentation by 3-5%. The temperature range for optimum yeast fermentation is between 75°F-85°F.
So from 40°F in a fridge to 80°F, it seems to be fairly linear. (although 3-5% is a pretty wide swing...)
With this data, you should be able to make some experiments.
Let me know, how it works. Maybe you can make a "fermentingbox" instructable...
I have been baking bread for some years now and it has always had a tendency toward heaviness. I started with "no kneed" bread, then moved on to some kneeding. Now I have a kitchen-aid mixer & use a poolish in it. I am getting rocks for loaves. It's dishartening, but you said above: The time of the final rise can be adapted to the environmental temperature and also how dense the crumb should be.
As for the mixer, I only use it for a few minutes on the lowest setting, then I take it out and kneed by hand a few minutes more. I turn on the oven and when it is preheated, put the loaf directly in. Am I I kneeding too much, am I giving too little of a 2nd rise? What do you & / or my fellow bakers think.
Thank you for your help
Marya
from the second paragraph, i gather you omit the 1st or bulk fermentation. So after kneading, you heat the oven and put the loaf in, as soon as the oven is hot?
This would give the dough a total rising / fermentation time of 30 minutes (with my electric oven with pizza stone).
This is definitely much too short.
-First, after kneading, give it time to double in volume. This is the 1st or bulk fermentation. (Depending on the amount of yeast and temperature 1.5-6 hours)
-Then degas and form it.
-Then give it a final rise between 45 and 90 minutes. (you can now heat up the oven, so it has reached the temp. when your loaves are ready)
-Slash the loaves, sprinkle with water and shove them in.
As for kneading too little or too much, try a small(1lb) test batch. Then start the machine and note the time, when the dough starts to seperate from the bowl.
Give it one more minute and stop the machine and take the dough in your hands to feel it.
Then put it back and start the machine and timer again, until the dough gets slack, sticky and glossy.
Now you know the time margin, between kneading and overkneading.
Depending on the machine and speed, optimal kneading time will be around 5-8 minutes.
Overkneading starts after 10-15 minutes.(with my Kenwood)
There is not much you can do with a overkneaded dough, it lacks its gas holding capability and won't rise nicely.
It also looses some of its water holding capabilities, that's why it's glossy.
Give it to your compost and start over.
But now you know the optimum kneading time.
Watch this:
http://vsx.onstreammedia.com/vsx/JuliaChild/search/PBSPlayer?assetId=69337&ccstart=0&pt=0&entire=yes
Here's what I do. 1 I make the poolish, 2 I let it refrigerate over night. 3 I take it out and let bubbles form. 4 I add flour and kitchen aid it. I let it rise a couple hours (while I forget it and remember it again) I form the loaf and then as soon as the oven is hot I put it in.
I figure it's probably rising too much after the dough is formed and not enough after the loaf is formed.
I made a loaf just yesterday and kneaded by hand, because I was afraid to beat it up, then I forgot it as usual, I made the loaf, forgot it again and a couple of hours later, baked it. It was lighter, but not perfect.
I'm going to have to remember what I am doing to begin with.
Marya
most of the actual mobile phones have a countdown timer nowadays...
Since i carry it with me most of the time, my Android model helps me with that.
By the way, i wouldn't refrigerate the poolish. Maybe the final dough, or the formed loaves.
If you let the dough overrise, there may be not enough yeast food left for the rising of the formed loaves. (or it takes a lot of time)
By the way, most of the people i know, make their doughs too dry. It has to be tacky to the touch.
As per your advice, I downloaded an android stopwatch / timer app. this morning.
I tried to follow the 'blazingpants' link for the vol-weight conversion... no go. Took me to some shopping site...
I linked another conversion utility, which is way more powerful, but also more complicated...
For ciabatta, they traditionally used a "lievito madre" or a "biga" preferment. Besides the standard bread flour, they also use some durum wheat flour(as used in pasta) maybe about a fifth.
I use traditional yeast and have never dabbled with instant.
Merci pour ton effort, mon ami.
from my observations, 45C is rather on the high side. I'd take 35C as the optimum for fastest fermentation.
I mostly bulk-ferment at room temp. 20-25C. From my brewing experience, i know that fermenting at higher temps would be faster, but unwanted aromas / flavours and hangover producing fusel alcohols are produced as well.
I ferment lager / bottom fermented beers at 10C and depending on the yeast strain, this is already on the higher side.(6-13C)
Bakers yeast is a top fermenter, top fermenters as in ales are used from 15-22C in brewing.
In brewing, i have a tight temp. control. In baking, it's more of a ballpark thing for me. I don't have a AC here, so in the summer, room temp can go up to 25C or even a little higher. During most of the year, it's around 21-22C inside.
This method was no different, I got more very hard and salty bricks to chuck at cats. What can I be doing wrong? I'm mixing up another batch to try again, maybe I should use less salt? To me the salty taste was worse then being hard.
Would you please outline, how you do it exactly?
This way, i could probably better help to troubleshoot your problem.
There is another comment, from a guy with a very problematic environment. (water, mineral dust and high altitude)
But normally, it's just a mistreatment of the yeast, or not enough rising time before baking, or you start baking too "cold".
Let me know, i'll try to troubleshoot.
Good luck.
I let the dough rise for 90 mins, and some times the top does bubble up then fall, am I letting it go to long? And what if you only let it rise once? Be four baking.
Maybe you can do a short experiment:
- Make the dough like you usually do.
- Split into 3 or more different small dough balls for different variables
- Don't do anything different to one than you usually do.
- Knead a bit more flour into the 2nd.
- Let the 3rd rise a bit longer.
Something like those, figure out what works best for the conditions you have. Hope that helps. By the way, I make bread that ranges in consistency from rock-hard, what I prefer to think of as "Survival bread," to light and poofy. Different variables will probably yield different results.
Hi, i suggest to read this:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/Yeast.html
This gives you the basics in handling yeast properly. When i started baking, i only knew that it will be killed if too hot.
The temperature optimum in terms of speed of fermentation, is around our own body temperature.
I sometimes use this to speed things up in final proofing.
It also works fine at room temperature. (Except you set your AC very low)
If you let the dough rise for 90 minutes, then degas and form the bread, then give it a final proof of 45-60 minutes, you should be ok. (This is true, if you use the recommended amount of yeast on the packet)
The main difference of this instructable is to use small amounts of yeast and give it a long fermentation time to enhance flavour and texture.
These "No Knead" recipes are easy and nearly foolproof and I have had great success with using them for breads, cinnamon buns and pizza crust.
I recently started baking bread using a simple recipe I found in a Mother Earth article and I'm getting good results.
So far I've been amking round loaves but this weekend I think I'll try forming the dough in the shape of "bâtard" baguettes like you showed.
Merci from a French-Canadian who truly enjoys his Sunday morning baguette !!!