You forgot: delicious experiment! :) Thanks...the saga continues.

I think it important you retain the idea that a loaf that doesn't turn out exactly as expected is a part of the process of understanding principles and not simply being abandoned to always using other people's recipes. You are building gradually your own. So this is nothing at all about being despondent about, it is the most useful part of learning and gaining skill and insight into what is going on.

You need to do two things. Firstly reduce the water a bit, and then when envelope folding make the first five or six folds, than wait for ten minutes or so and say another five or six .... another ten minute wait and then a few more folds and then perhaps another wait and then a final couple of folds. If I'm doing baguettes those final folds will be in the same direction to try and encourage elongated air bubbles. And the final fold should always be obviously edge to underneath centre to try and force the top crust up.

You are now learning how far you can go with hydration as a compromise against your ability to handle. If you keep a record of each attempt you will end up with your perfect loaf and understand how each decision effects the outcome. Once you have done that you are starting the process of being able to create any loaf you want from pizza, to all the worlds different type of flatbreads, to using different flours like spelt and rye .... and then there are those bagels. You are developing self sufficiency through knowledge of principles. You learn more by something going wrong than by having a good outcome as a result of a fluke.

I - to my regret - stopped bread making for some years because when following a recipe that didn't turn out right, I couldn't work out what had gone wrong. So after a few unexplained failures I gave up. Then the penny dropped that I " didn't understand the principles" and so couldn't work out what was going wrong. So I decided that most people learning bread making might be " learning it wrong" by not going the more difficult route of learning the principles rather than always following recipes. So I started again and had loads of failures, but now I think I have developed more of a "feel" and affinity for bread and therefor feel more in control. Now bread making is a real joy of exploring and experimenting and finding the exact loaves for my taste and lifestyle and there is nothing more rewarding than ending up with a loaf from your own mind rather than someone elses recipe. You end up with a series of personal spreadsheets that are your own unique loaves.

You may have gathered my real passion is flatbreads. This is often something intended to give maximum crust and used by people all over the world to eek out other things and contain some sort of fill or topping. There is a unique one in almost every culture. I will never express the joy of tasting say a snowshow flatbread from Afghanistan for the first time ..... and knowing pretty sure how to make it. Or some of the Lebanese flatbreads or those from the Balkans or Greece or Turkey ... You may have seen some of my flatbread piccies. And in the end ... nearly all are just water, flour and yeast ... but you can make those three ingredients taste and look so different each time so that each culture would recognise their own blindfolded simply from it's taste or from appearance. People forget that pizza is just another flatbread and as most of us now know it today made by fisherman's wives in Naples for the returning husbands and sons ie those Marinara to use all those wonderful tomatoes they bottled over summer to bring a bit of sun during their winters ..., hence the idea with toppings meaning less is more.

eg


(poor colour as taken with ipad under poor lighting ....

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...95EA96C32C.jpg
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...33BB3932_1.jpg
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...5B83207A26.jpg



Afghan snowshoe bread

.... and the bible of the worlds flatbreads ....

Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker's Atlas ... one of my favourite books ...


Anyway ... I gotta stop as I'm getting all sort of passioinate and boring now .,....

:)

ps I did ask the mod whether we might adjust the topic to simply "bread" to accommodate the changing and more complete nature of how it is evolving ..... but let's just read this thread as all things bread.

Looks amazing! I love flatbreads...well, I love all breads. Except maybe that Ethiopian bread that looks like the inside of a sofa. :) And even that isn't half bad...

In any case, here's today's attempt. I was much more careful with the salt and reduced the hydration to about 65%. Nice flavor, and great crust. The dough had a bit of an alcoholic twangy scent while I was kneading it. I actually kneaded it because it wasn't really wet enough for enveloping folds. As you can see, the crumb doesn't have nice bubbles in it.

http://i.imgur.com/ASPk3hZl.jpg

Much better shape, as you can see! But the crumb still needs some nicer bubbles:

http://i.imgur.com/KiwHw8Gl.jpg

I was very careful with the salt content this time around. What else affects the bubble sizes? I used about equal amounts of yeast...say 3g in the poolish and another 3-4g when making the loaf. I didn't put the yeast and salt in the same part of the bowl, but I'm not sure how to keep them separate when mixing everything together.

Also, what do I need to do for a nice deep brown crust? Is that just a function of needing a hot enough oven?

Thanks for your tutelage, uk1 (and anyone else who'd like to reply). If I become annoying, just let me know. :D

You need longer rises!

Thanks - it rose for about 2 hours and then proofed for another 2 or so. Both times, it had doubled in volume, so I thought it was done. I'm going to get a copy of a good bread book so I can stop bugging you. :)

It's no problem at all. The other factor contibuting to it's closer texture will be the use of wholemeal.

Yeah, but I didn't use that much. Still, my ultimate goal is to make a 100% whole wheat/wholemeal loaf that still has a good texture.

Make sure that when you add the poolish / biga to the rest of the flour you add a few more grammes of yeast say four or five and perhaps if that hasn't improved texture then on the next batch after that add a teasponn of sugar to feed the yeast. Also if you can afford the steak griddle for the steam, I think that the injection of good steam might give it a touch more texture as well as a really great crust. Even experiment with a tablespon of honey which goes nice with wholemeal and might feednthe yeast. Some add vitamin C to improve wholemeal texture. Also, bizarrely, try an experiment with less kneading. A few interesting pages of reading .....

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...holemeal-bread

http://www.bakingyummies.com/2013/12...eat-bread.html

Wholemeal will always provide a closer texture simply because the mill is heavier ie less flour powder per kg if you like means less bubbbles per kg of finished dough. It is inevitable.

gfunkdave

Hi,

You asked some time ago how long can you can leave dough or starter in a fridge. The question intrigued me so I left a couple of pizza dough balls in my fridge and went off to Singapore for several weeks and now back and the balls being around eight weeks old or so I pulled out the balls scrunched them up, threw them into a hot pizza oven and baked them, put some butter on them and tasted them. They were difficult to handle because as you know I like wet mixes but they tasted great. Touch more sour, soft chewy, great texture and full of character. So ... the answer to your question is that you can it seems leave dough in the fridge "indefinitely".

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/t...56E6082B29.jpg

Hope it is of interest.

:)

Interesting, thanks!

I made another loaf today. Don't understand why letting it rise for two hours isn't enough. It's great except that the crumb is still somewhat dense.

I think I'm going to take a bread class somewhere.

God, I love bread. :)