/bread/ thread

Normal kitchen oven on a backing tray

240 I think.

I'll post the recipe in a sec

Sorry for shit quality, I don't know why it's like this

idk what you're messing up, but those look pretty good. Make sure you properly knead it, gluten formation is really important to good bread. What's wrong with it? Is it tasteless, tough, dry, what don't you like about your bread?

Looks like it needs more kneading, maybe a bit more water, you could also spray it occasionally with water

anyone else at high altitude have to use ungodly amounts of water to get a proper sticky dough? i'm at like 110% hydration just to get a halfway decent ciabatta using regular bread flour

Yeah, to get better color on your crust you really need a covered dish to bake in. If you have a dutch oven it will help a lot.

That doesn't really make much sense. Why would altitude effect hydration? Are you just not getting your oven hot enough? And you aren't getting oven spring? The first 15 minutes are really critical, so it has to be very hot at that time.

i'm talking about the wetness of the dough before i even knead it

at typical 70% hydration i have a relatively dry brick that i can knead easily with my hands and it barely sticks at all, due to how dry the flour is and how quickly surface moisture evaporates off of the dough

I'm not but I'd imagine that they need to up the temperature to make the dish bake faster... That would need more water to stop the bread from drying out.

Yo, I know what hydration is. Are you measuring by weight? How old is your flour? Is it dry as fuck? Are you buying shit flour?

>Are you measuring by weight?
yes, my scale is ancient though, just bought another one online and waiting for it to ship

>How old is your flour?
i buy flour probably once every 2-3 weeks

>Is it dry as fuck?
hard to tell, i have nothing to compare it to but i'm guessing yes since the air is super dry where i live

>Are you buying shit flour?
you tell me

If your scale is off that could be a major issue, but there's no real way to tell till you get the other one.

It is very possible that you do need some extra hydration because of your dry climate. I don't really see why altitude would effect that, unless it speeds up the oxidation/drying of the flour. In fact this page recommends more flour, to help strengthen the dough.

kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html

That recipe are you using?

Looks about as good as anything I've managed

I bake mine in a Dutch oven and spray a bit of water in there. Works fine for me.

I'm trying to make Yakisoba pan but i can't find what type of bread is used. I can't find a recipe because i don't know the name of the bread. I must be a retard because I've been struggling like 30 mins on google.

Help please.

I have a slow cooker with what seems like a ceramic bottom and a glass lid, will that substitute?

bing translate is your friend: cookpad.com/search/焼きそばパン

bread rolls and butter rolls have been mentioned
I think they look like French pain au lait

Maybe if it can take the temperature, but either way it wont conduct heat as well as an cast iron dutch oven

or hot dog rolls

Cheers man. I kept searching and decided that it was probably Brioche but in a roll shape. I never even thought about searching in Japanese. You're my hero.

I have a cast iron pan too, could I figure some sort of ramshackle lid? I often just cook no knead in the pan so it gets a nice bottom.

Also, some people say that the dutch ovens and cast iron pans should be heated beforehand? or should I put the dough in a cold dutch oven/cast iron pan and then place it in the oven. I can't find a consensus

I would make love to some bread, in the right conditions of course

Chefsteps have some neat videos.

There isn't a discussion on that one at all. Preheat your dutch oven 100%, no question. Typical hearth surface temperatures are 500+. You need to get that thing super hot before the dough goes in.

>hot dog rolls
Seems like you might be right. It looks like it might be top sliced hot dog bun.

alright, OP. here's the drill:

>get a kitchen scale, so you can weigh your ingredients
>if you don't have a dutch oven and are baking on a cookie sheet (which is fine!), make sure you cover your dough in the oven with a stainless steel bowl for the first half of baking
>search youtube for "stretch and fold dough" and do that every 30 minutes for 3 hours during the first "bulk fermentation" stage
>this sounds dumb, but make sure your yeast is active. i'm hard on sourdough (pic related), but you can make some damn fine breads using commercial yeast, as long as it's GTG. if you stir some in warm water and it doesn't foam up in 5 minutes, get some new yeast.

my go-to recipe, using sourdough starter is:

Recipe for 2 loaves:
437g red fife whole wheat flour
437g white bread flour
646g warm water
100g sourdough starter
23g salt
Mix water, starter and flour together, rest for 30 minutes autolyse. Sprinkle salt over dough and mix using the pinch and fold method until salt is incorporated. Rest another 30 minutes.
Stretch and fold every 30 minutes for 3 hours.
Divide, preshape, bench rest 10-15 minutes.
Shape and place in floured bannetons, cover and refrigerate 12-14 hours for cold proof.

Preheat oven with lidded dutch oven inside to 500F.
Remove dough from banneton, score, place in dutch oven with the lid on, and turn temp down to 450F.
Bake covered for 30 minutes. Uncover, bake additional 10-15 minutes.

why is my crust so smooth? why dont i have more bubbly crust? Is it because i used 100 % high gluten bread flour?

wrong image lmao sorry

No, it has to do with the fermentation. You're not fermenting completely. Also are you retarding your dough over night? I'm guessing no. If you go straight from cold into the oven you're going to get more blisters. Using a hotter oven will help too. You're not baking in a covered vessel either huh? Why are all the ck bakers plebs?

Dude, i put a comment about how people should know what a roux is and I got blasted for "being an asshole"
Half of the people on Veeky Forums are here for the coffee threads and the like. At least OP is trying and asking for help.

>Stretch and fold every 30 minutes for 3 hours.
>Refrigerate 12-14 hours for cold proof.
Why all of that fucking work over 3 hours if you're going to slow down the yeast with a cold proof? Just let it proof at room temperature instead.

what this user said! stick your shaped loaf in the fridge overnight, up to 36 hours. that lets the yeast/starter fully ferment and gives you nice "blisters" on your crust.

that being said, you have an excellent oven spring (the amount your bread jumps up in the oven when it bakes), and your scoring is good! just give it some more time! :)

because bread rising happens in stages. for the bulk fermentation, the first part, it's important to build in structure to the gluten of the developing dough. the long cold final proof develops allows the starter to develop more of a sour tangy flavor.

if i was in a rush, i could do the final proof at room temp, but my baking schedule works better with a long cold final proof, and the flavor is an added benefit.

the crumb of pic related is one of the results of cold final proofing -- it gives whole wheat plenty of time to fully hydrate, and it gives the loaf excellent oven spring

People should know what a roux is. It's not that hard. Neither is baking. I know I'm being a dick. But I'm dropping truth too. I'm just being lazy.

Without looking it up, do you even know what roux means in French?

I wouldn't attribute that crumb solely to the retard. Literally every part of the process will effect the crumb. You are correct with oven spring: cold air has more potential for expansion, which creates more spring.

Nope. But I know how to make one and how to use one.

yes, obviously there are like 18 factors when it comes to how the crumb turns out (time, ambient temp, humidity, quality and ratio of flours, wild vs commercial yeast, the amount of structure built in by stretch and folds or slap and folds, the baking medium, etc). but i'm trying to give basic info and feedback here

Yeah, but I would not say that crumb structure is the main result of retarding. There's a lot else you have to do right you get a crumb like that with or without retarding

Accidentally bought whole wheat flour instead of ap
Any recipes i cqn make with that

Couldn't tell you. Don't need to.
I learn a whole bunch of french words in school and i know none of them and don't have to.
I know how to make a roux, and what it does. That's all that matters when you're in an actual kitchen.

You can make anything with whole wheat, but theres something special you have to do with it. I don't know it off the top of my head and i'm not gonna look it up, but you can make any bread whole wheat instead.

Whole wheat will require more hydration, but you can certainly use it in bread, that's peaceably a bump of 10% or so, in other recipes you should probably wing it till the consistency seems right. You might be fine with no adjustments, but you have to see.

It wasn’t an overnight ferment. Bulk fermentation done outside. Then let sit in fridge for 3+ hours. Then took out to proof in the pan. Baked at 450 for 30 min then 375 for 45 min.

Baking was done in a Le Creuset. Surface rubbed with olive oil.

Did you put olive oil on the bread itself? Or the surface of the dutch oven.

Crispy bubbly crust is formed due to steam in the early stages of baking. If you put it on the bread itself it'll prevent the humidity from reaching the surface of the dough, and cause the crust to form too quickly.

The steam is there to delay the crust from forming. The process that forms a golden brown color can't occur in the presence of water so as soon as the surface of the dough dries out and reaches 275 F the process will begin. By delaying this process the surface of the dough remains supple while it expands to its maximum volume.

Oil will heat up faster than water and increase the temperature of the surface of your dough too quickly and prevent the formation of the lovely light crusts you see in professional bakeries. I'm guessing this is what happened. The oil caused the surface of your dough to fry as soon as it got into the oven so the crust solidified in the early stages of the bake, preventing expansion of bubbles, and giving you a colored but smooth surface similar to that of raw dough.

I did a second loaf and rubbed water on the surface instead of oil, it had blisters but very polydisperse. There were 2 or 3 really large blisters (>1.5 inches in diameter) and a lot of very small blisters that weren’t very high. And the color is still too golden. Should I sprinkle some flour on top to get that dark brown powdery look? A alkaline wash?

375 is way too low. Keep it at 450 and you'll get better color.

I baked this boule-style whole wheat sourdough loaf and threw some ice cubes during the first 2 minutes or so to create steam. Any tips on how I could have made it better?

make sure your starter passes the "float test" before you use it. 100% whole wheat is gonna make a much more dense loaf than a 50% ww/bread flour mix. Are you doing stretch and folds during bulk fermentation?

I have the same baking and pastry book for culinary school

Most of the flavor forms in the cold, and can't form at room temp/ especially for sourdough

Eh, that's not really correct. You will get different flavors fermenting at different times and temps. What you're looking to get will dictate how to do that.

That really isn't going to be enough steam. It will dissipate very quickly. You need constant steam for about half the baking time, which is easiest to achieve at home baking in a covered vessel of some kind. Dutch ovens work great.

youtube.com/watch?v=UkRoCE8J0Mc

>Dutch ovens work great.
Yes. Yes they do.

Tried making sourdough bread for the first time and it failed so hard. Not even sure what it's suppose to taste like but it didn't rise at all and the dough stuck to the basket I left it in overnight because the lack of flour. Quite tasty anyway though. Next time will be a success.

my first stab at partial rye sourdough, just pulled it out of the oven.

not a bad first try! a few things:

>make sure your starter is nice and active (passes the float test)
>if you didn't, try doing some "stretch and folds" while the dough bulk ferments
>try using a 50/50 blend of rice flour and regular flour to dust your basket

The starter failed the float test and failed to double when I fed it. I tried the test at various times after feeding and after numerous failures just decided to try to bake with it anyway. I'm hoping if I just keep feeding my starter it'll eventually work. Didn't do the stretch and fold thing and only had plain flour, I'll keep this stuff in mind, thanks.

what kind of flour and at what ratio are you feeding your starter? i keep one fed with regular flour and one fed with rye flour, both at 1:1:1 ratio of starter:flour:water. i find the rye one to be a bit more responsive, it doubles more quickly.

Just been using plain flour at a 1:1 ratio with water. Will try and get my hands on some rye flour and give that a try.

Dad used to buy these, stick it between a slice of wonderbread and then give me a bowl of ketchup for dipping. Was good eating until mom went vegan.

>mom went vegan
I can see why. Your father was literally trying to kill you. Anyone who would feed that to their son doesn't truly love them.

What percent rye flour? I find 10% works great