How to make sourdough bread...

[scottranda]

In Chef Jacob's chart on baker's percentage, what is used for "fat"?

[MBMorgan]

Butter, shortening, etc.

[Breadhead]

Any fat... like Mb says plus olive oil, lard and bacon grease. Cuban rolls use lard.

[RonB]

Butter is around 15% water, so if you add a lot, you might need to adjust for the additional water. I have never added that much butter, so I have never adjusted. One stick of butter is 4 oz, so that would be .6 oz of water. I've never come close to using a stick in a bread recipe.

[Breadhead]

My Brioche hamburger buns are 30% of the weight of the flour as butter, 7 ounces/150 grams. I consider it as fat in that formula.

[scottranda]

Thanks! What about bacon grease? I make my own bacon, so lots of that around my house. Need to adjust the water hydration for that?

[Breadhead]

Scott ... for ciabatta dough I use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer to knead the dough using the paddle not the dough hook. I use Chef Jacob's technique for 65%/70% hydration dough and the Forkish folds above 70% hydration rate.

[scottranda]

You all are very enlightening. Thank you for helping me with my bread journey!

[Breadhead]

scottranda

Breadhead's are just like BBQer's... we all share our knowledge willingly to help the newbies. All bread websites are like that. That's how I learned and the guy that really helped me made me promise to help others.👍 You will become one that helps the newbies soon.

[RonB]

Here's something to try once you are comfortable with a particular recipe - sub beer for the water. A beer that you like, but without a strong flavor - I like Dos Equis Amber for bread. I don't drink IPAs, so I don't know what a bitter hops taste will do to the bread's flavor.
The beer will have a small percentage of alcohol in it, so watch the dough to make sure it has enough hydration.

[Breadhead]

Sounds perfectly plausible. Liquid including beer is hydration. May as well pour some whiskey in there too.🙀

[Thunder77]

I definitely would not use an IPA. The hop flavors would be overwhelming. IMHO. Of course you have to take that with a grain of salt. I loathe IPAs. 😬

[Breadhead]

For all of you guys that are looking for helpful tools to make bread by hand this is a tool I've been using for years. Some of you may already have one or know about it. I find it a very helpful tool and not very expensive. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HQQJ3N6/?tag=amazi0a8-20

[scottranda]

Already on my Christmas/Birthday list! I'm going to rack up on bread tools in December!

[MBMorgan]

The Danish style whisk really is amazing ... it works well, doesn't clog easily, and cleaning it is a piece of cake (yes ... pun intended).

[Thunder77]

Got me one of those from Amazon!

[scottranda]

Scott ... for ciabatta dough I use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer to knead the dough using the paddle not the dough hook. I use Chef Jacob's technique for 65%/70% hydration dough and the Forkish folds above 70% hydration rate.

So, I'm making two loaves right now. About 67%, and it's feeling stickier. So, I wet my hand and my bench scraper. Seemed to work really well. So, my question is, every time your dough is getting "too sticky" to effectively handle, do you wet your hand and bench scraper which helps you handle/form the dough? Breadhead

[Breadhead]

Yes... when I'm mixing and shaping dough I always keep a bowl of water on my work bench that I can dip my hands and bench scraper in. If the dough is real sticky I will lightly coat the bench with water too.

[scottranda]

Thx. That will help me increase my hydration.

[Breadhead]

Not sourdough...

Ciabatta bread in 4 hours flat...😎 Stand mixer with both the paddle and dough hook.

• 800 grams bread flour = 100%
• 640 grams water = 80%. (At 90°, I wanted to speed up the process.
• 10 grams of instant yeast... that's a lot of yeast for 800 grams of flour, I wanted speed it up.👍
• 16 grams salt = 2%
• 20 grams olive oil = 2.5%

Process:

• In my Kitchen Aid mixing bowl I put in 640 grams of 90° water, added the yeast and the flour. You don't have to proof instant yeast.
• I used my Danish dough hook to mix those ingredients to a shaggy mass and let it autolyse for 30 minutes.
• I added the olive oil and the salt and used the paddle to mix everything together until the dough was stuck to the paddle.
• I removed the paddle and inserted the dough hook and mixed at high speed until the dough climbed the dough hook and cleaned to sides of the bowl. About 10 minutes.
• I transferred the dough to a rectangle proofing container to let it bulk ferment, rise. That took about an hour for it to double in mass.
• I preheated the BGE to 550° after I took the dough out of the proofing container, portioned it, shaped it and put it in the couche.
• When the pizza stone was at 500° I put the final proofed dough on the stone and let it cook at 550° for about 25 minutes.

Next time im going to up the hydration to 85% to get a more open and airy crumb.🤔

You can use this exact recipe/formula using your sourdough starter. Just don't use the yeast. Use your starter as the yeast and if you want to make it the same day use 200 grams of starter. If you want to make really kick ass sourdough Ciabatta bread, preferment half of the flour with an equal weight of water with just 5 grams of starter and then mix in the remaining ingredients. Then if you want to kick it up a notch... let it rise half way then put it in the fridge overnight.

[Thunder77]

Nicely done! Love that airy, open crumb! 👍🍷

[MBMorgan]

Now that looks great! Congrats!

[Breadhead]

MBMorgan

That's my guick go to bread for sandwiches and toast when I want to make a quick loaf of bread. I've made it as high as 95% hydration. 95% hydration gives you a wet crumb though. I think 85% is best.

[Breadhead]

Amazing shaping and kneading techniques. Oh my...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-FUGG94n0A

[Thunder77]

Why is the dough green??

[Breadhead]

Dough has multiple meanings... when a robber says, stick em up and give your dough, he wants your green dough, not your bread dough.😎

[MBMorgan]

Amazing shaping and kneading techniques. Oh my...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-FUGG94n0A

You have to wonder what the Japanese baker ... the one without a giant wooden mallet ... did to piss someone off badly enough to deserve getting assigned that station ... ...

[Breadhead]

I wonder how many bones were broken before they refined that method to perfection...🙈

[Pequod]

A loaf on my KK. Great oven spring. Ignored my scoring and busted its own seam.



Love that baking stone.

[MBMorgan]

A loaf on my KK. Great oven spring. Ignored my scoring and busted its own seam.

Nice! FWIW, more often than not these days, I bake seam-side-up rather than scoring. I like the rustic looking results. What formula did you use for this loaf?

[Pequod]

Requested by my daughter. This was a simple 66% hydration all bread flour loaf with 14 hour preferment kicked off with 7g of starter. Didn't use SS bowl or CI pot. Just rode straight on the stone for 50 minutes at 475.

[Breadhead]

Great loaf Pequod 👍

I really admire the KK for bread baking and that thick baking stone is excellent too. Great oven spring on that loaf, good job. When you get that much rise your loaf can get crazy on where and how it opens but that's a good thing. Try that same exact preferment but up your hydration to 70%. You will notice it will greatly improve the texture of your crumb. Less dense, more open and airy.👍

It was a brillent move to elevate your baking stone up higher in the dome too.👌

[Pequod]

Thanks! You have read my mind on hydration. Still getting my "bread legs" on the KK, so starting with easier handling dough. Think I've got the KK dialed in now.

[Breadhead]

You might want to increase your baking temperature to 500°. That's the normal temperature for sourdough bread, especially for delayed fermentation and prefermented dough. The longer the yeast/starter has to feast on the flour it consumes the natural sugar in the dough. Less sugar, less browning.

[Breadhead]

Today's loaves...

Prefermented sourdough Ciabatta bread...

Formula:

800 grams bread flour = 100%
680 grams water = 85%
16 grams salt = 2%
20 grams olive oil = 2.5%
Pinch of instant yeast

Preferment
500 grams bread flour
500 grams water
Pinch of instant yeast
I let it sit on the counter top at room temperature, 72 degrees, about 16 hours.

Final mix: I weighed what the preferment weight was when transferring it into my KA mixing bowl... 920 grams. I added ingredients to match my starting formula but decided to use 200 grams of my sourdough starter as part of the flour and water, just because I could.🤔

Starter 200
Bread Flour 240
Water 120

I mixed it into a shaggy mass and autolysed it for 30 minutes.

After the autolyse I added the salt and olive oil and started the mixing process with my paddle attachment. When the dough was struck to the paddle I switched to my dough hook attachment to help strengthen the gluten structure. When the dough climbed the dough hook and cleaned the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl, the mixing was done.👍

I put the dough into a rectangle proofing vessel and let it bulk ferment until it doubled in mass.

I removed the very wet dough from the proofing vessel and portioned it into 2 pieces and folded it together... it's impossible to shape 85% hydration dough. I put each piece of dough into a banneton and let it final proof while I preheated the BGE to 550°. It's best to bake Ciabatta real hot.👍

All came out nicely I thought. I moved up in hydration to get a more open and airy crumb than the above Ciabatta loaf that was an 80% hydration dough. Mission accomplished.👍

[Thunder77]

Holy open airy crumb, Batman! That looks gorgeous! 👍

[Thunder77]

Ok, question for the group. I recently found this recipe on KA website. To my math, it works out to be a 58.6% hydration dough. That seems super low to me. Also, the recipe calls for AP flour. the formula:
227 g starter.
340 g water
11 g yeast.
659 g flour
2 teaspoon salt
50 g olive oil.
My research indicated that oil is not part of the hydration calculation, so: given that I have 100% hydration starter, it works out to:
773 g flour (659+114 from starter)
453 g water 340 + 113 from starter)
453/753= 58.6%

Has anyone made a dough like this? I guess the oil would help somewhat. I was thinking of making this into a 70% hydration dough, and see how that works. I would also use bread flour, not AP flour. Thoughts?