About dough hydration part2

First of all, thank you for every message, feedback and like I get every day. It makes me wanting to continue write and share my ideas and why not? secret toughts :D
As I have been enquired to write a follow up of the dough hydration piece; Going more in-depth with hydration effects on the different bread types (Italian breads in particular), here we go!
I decided to write this right now, with a cup of fresh ground coffe in the hand while watching my dogs sleeping on the floor :)
As I wrote in the previous post, here in Italy we have different main dough hydration levels which tend to produce different final products:



Bread type:                                                               Average hydration:

Ciabatta                                                                    <75% - 90%

Pane comune (di grano tenero)                                <60% - 75%

Pane di pasta dura (Ferrarese, Biove)                      <45% - 50%




We saw that most of these products can be done by apply the right tech, with different hydration levels and still obtain a similar level of lightness in the crumb.
Let' s see now the point by another perspective. How water percentage affects a dough for every tech and recipe listed above?

A close up of a Ciabatta crumb 80% hydration

Ciabatta:

Typically starting with an hydration of 75% (back in the years when in Italy were not available strong flours). The minimal manipulation of the dough, and the fermentation level reached in bulk phase, give you that light open crumb which is best appreciated while slicing this bread on the hotizontal plan (so the fillings of the sandwich will fall into the air pockets .. yumm).
When hydration is raised up in this bread, you get more fluffiness and a more polished texture as well as bigger air pockets. However by raising too much the water percentage (let s say above 120% using strong flour) the air pocket size tend to decrease but augment in number, giving you the micro-pockets structure.
On the other hand, when you lower down hydration levels, you will have a more regular air pockets distribution as well as a raw texture.

Pane comune with 68% hydration

Pane comune:

Typically in between 60% and 75% hydration range. It is made with mid-strenght to weak flours (protein level range in between 11% to 9%).
It has a more compact crumb structure compared to ciabatta due to the shaping phase that compress a bit the pockets. The more you high the water percentage, (using a same strenght flour) the more you get big holes but irregular due to a stronger fermentation as well as a difficoult shaping. Texture will be softer as well, and polished like in Ciabatta.
The lower you go with water percentage, the more you get a regular crumb with little air pockets. The texture, in this case, will get raw and less chewy.

Pasta dura, not laminated

Pasta dura:

Typically in the 45% - 50% range (in few cases it reaches 55%) of hydration. It is made with mid-low strenght flours (10%) but can be done also with strong flours (<11%). Is it characterized by a close structure with occasional pockets (many bakers consider air pockets a defect so they push out all the gases from fermentation by laminating the dough several times). There is not much room to change hydration percentage here due to the unique crumb structure that need to have this bread.