Understanding the flour

A balanced dough on the bench waiting  for scaling 

...

Autumn came, with the first snow and made everything quiter. The forest is getting coated by those beautiful colors, which every year amaze me. So beautiful is nature!

I got a beautiful smelling cup of grey tea with honey, so I can start write this piece.

...

Sometimes we want to replicate a bread recipe, or we want to try a well known one but using a new kind of flour and the result isn' t as expected. Maybe the dough comes out too stiff (in which case is easier to correct) or maybe it comes out almost batter-like. 

Altough can be many the factors that lead to a not-so-good result while execute a bread recipe, a missread of the flour used can be the most recurring (and most of the time a problem for the inexperienced baker).

Without writing down a copy of the many existant technical guides to flour's rheology; I want to share my personal opinion learnt throught the experience.

When a proper balance is estabilished within flour and other ingredients, also the shaped dough will be balanced. 

But, before that, I ll try to resume in a few words the most important flour carachteristics involved into the baking process.

1.Quality of proteins and level in percentage:

Two distinct aspects which are very important. I should say the most interesting of the two is proteins quality; When they are good, we can expect a nice development of the gluten net. 

Even if the proteins are low, but of a good kind, we are able to make a nice bread dough without many problems.

On the other hand, we can expect less water absorbtion.

Assuming we have the same protein quality, the flour which will have a higher percentage, will develope a stronger gluten net and will absporb more water.

2.Elasticity and extensibility of the gluten strands:

It' s strictly related to the proteins quality (another time we can see that the quality is very important).

A flour can produce gluten which is really elastic and not extensible as well as the opposite or a blend of the two characteristics in different rapport.

When we have a good protein quality, we will have a balanced rapport between elasticity and extensibility, making the dough easy to work with.

My opinion is that when we try a new flour, (in a empyric way, without having flour sheets) we have to carefully "read" it. 

The way it mix with water, how much liquid can absorb without a proper mixing, if when stretched we feel stiffness or a lack of resistance...

All of those little things we should feel and be able to understand. 

With this kind of knowledge, we will be able to decide if more water is needed (or maybe less water then the original recipe); If a fold or more are needed, which will be the amount of bulk fermentation time required and so on...

This is just a guideline, there are so many variables that it' s not possible to mention every possible scenery. 

However, I hope that I will give something to you to think about next time you mix a new dough.

Sincerly, 

Matteo

About Bread Flavor

A "Bruschetta".
Even with complex preparations,
some notes of the bread's flavor will be present.

Hello everyone ! I hope everyone is having wonderful bakings :)

Finally, I found some time to write this post. The idea sneaked in my mind since last week but I couldn' t write it down, for a reason or another.
But hey, here we are!

Maybe the most important thing in bread baking, for most people; Flavor, or flavour, taste, is undoubtedly one of the main characteristic we all are conscious of.

To be more clear, think to a person who doesn' t have any bread knowledge.
He, or She, will not notice much of the appearence of the bread, or the differences in texture, but will for sure understand very well the taste. Maybe not all the slight variations or the aftertaste, but the main sensations of sweet, bitter, acidic, I am sure, will be felt.

So, which can be the main flavours in sourdough breads? Just the word sourdough itself can hit your imagination and start wetting your mouth because of the first part: Sour; That is acidity. Acidity force your mouth salivating. And salivating will help to eat that fantastic food we are loving!

Many are the possible levels of acidity in a levain bread. To me the optimal ph of the final product should not be less than 4.0. After that I feel the acidity starts cover other flavors. Of course this is only my humble opinion and there are very good bakers who like more acidic breads.
To be honest, the most important thing for me, is not quantity but the quality of acids in a bread. This is because they will give a very different imprint.

As everyone knows, the main acids produced in sourdough breads are of two kinds:
Lactic acids and Acetic acids. The names alone, tell you which flavor they will produce in breads.
Usually, when producing a certain bread, good bakers tend to choose if the flavor should be lactic or acetic. Therefore they choose or adapt methods that will give the wanted result.

To me one of the most interesting point is that you can have a mix of both, producing some of the most complex flavoured breads (without adding ingredients).
This is the case of some long, retarded maturations in which the two acids will be produced altoghether but in a different percentage.


Which are the other flavors that can charactherize a sourdough bead?
Sweetness and bitterness are always presents.

Much of those tastes balance depends on flour quality, and another part is directly connected with the fermentation method.

Red wheats, in example, have a reddish bran which will give, especially to whole meal flour or high extraction ones, a bitter taste.
Here in Italy we don't have this kind of wheat so it's really uncommon to have bitter flours.

Another consequence of bitterness is when during a fermentation, some byproducts (acids, esters) are produced. They then pass into the final products, and the taste will be affected.
Again, the cooking time/heat will affect the flavour of the bread; Overcooking always lead to a bitter aftertaste or taste depending on the level.

Sweetness, on the counterpart, can be produced by very sweet grains; Such as the grano duro Timillia, Khorasan, some hybrids and so on...
Also I noticed that if a very short fermentation method is used while making the bread, the sweetness will be more noticeable because of less sugars have been processed by microorganisms.

The last, but not less important taste, will be the flavor of the grain itself.
Even if refined flours will end up with little to no grain flavor, the less refined ones will bring the seed charachteristics to your mouth.

In conclusion; I can say being a chef for many years trained my taste sense quite a lot, therefore I always feel when a bread I bake lacks of some particular flavor or have another more persistence or again if an aftertaste is pleasant. The most important thing for me is to try achieve a right balance and complexity of flavor keeping in mind that no one of the main tastes (acetic sourness, sweetness, bitterness, lactic sourness, grain) must be too present or will overwhelm your senses and eclipse other flavours.

Salt, this stranger

Himalayan pink salt

Salt is one of the four ingredients in regular bread baking.
I would say it' s a key ingredient because it gives to doughs different properties.

We will see later which are the most known as well as the unknown ones.
But before of that, we could take a couple minutes to think about Salt.

The mineral which in the medieval times was so precious can be found of many different types: refined, unrefined, fine coarse, gross coarse, crystals or enriched, and so on...

The most common is the white salt either coming from mountain caves/ salted deserts or made by letting evaporate sea water with industrial or artisan methods.

In france (Normandy coast) they extract a grey salt which have less salty taste but great other qualities. The color come from seaweed and other minerals.

Always in France but in the south coast of Camargue, a very special salt is extracted: Le fleur de Sel
It has fine crystals (flowers) which are delicate in taste as well as texture and they dissolve faster in a water solution.

In the Himalayan region, a pink salt is produced. Usually unrefined, is harder but have a gentle taste. It' s a fossil salt and so is very pure.

From hawaii islands comes a black salt which have been naturally enriched by carbon from the vulcanic activity of those isles. Also less refined tend to be heavy in taste but is good for our gut.


However, in bread bakin, we dissolve salt into water and percentages are low (usually from 1,5% to 2,8%) therefore any difference in taste is not really noticed in the final product.
The only exception is iodium enriched salt, which tend to give a bitter note to the breads.
For this reason I can suggest to not use it.


The most obvious aspect of adding salt to the dough is for the taste. Salt gives to breads that well rounded taste which is impossible to obtain without this mineral.
But, there are other improvements that salt can give to a dough; More on the technological aspect:

1.It affects fermentation. Since the dawn of the cook, salt have been used to preserve aliments from bacterias and natural decomposition (which starts with a fermentation). Then it' s not surprising if salt can slow down fer,mentation in doughs too. Of course you need a lot of salt to compromise a fermentation, but it will be slowed down for sure.

2.It affects rheologycal properties of gluten and so of doughs. Salt help to bond proteins with water strenghtening bounds as well as giving rigidity to the gluten's structure.


I always look for unrefined salts for baking since they tend to be more natural as well as they dissolve in water less rapidly. Which kind I would use every time is just a matter of personal preference as well as disponibility at the moment.

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.

About dough hydration

Hello people! today I want to speak about hydration in bread dough.
I think it's time to demystify a bit the importance of water's percentage influence in a dough.
Let' s say that the second most important ingredient in bread making process have a great influence on the final product as well as on the entire production chain.
Right; But, and there is a big but here, it's not the most important element nor the only one which concours in having a light open crumb that most people are looking for in sourdough baking.
I will not discuss here if it' s right or wrong, just let' s assume that an open crumb it is what one aim for.
Water, H2o. Is the life itself. Is the thing that we all need to survive, to stay healthy, to stay clean.
As the ferments are living beings, they also need water to survive. And they need good water to stay healthy and clean.
So, admitting we have a good balanced pure water, let's get back to the amount of it we put in a dough and what it will influence.
I take as example breads that are normally made in Italy.
I can say we have different main doughs with different hydration levels:

Doughs:                                                                           Hydration %


Pizza&Focaccia (tray)                                                    <80% - 100%
Ciabatta                                                                           <75 - 90%
Pane comune (Filone, pagnotte)                                     <60 - 75%
Pasta dura (Ferrarese, Biove ...)                                      <45 - 50%

The goal of each dough is to have the right consistency for the process they need to pass throught.
From minimal manipulation of Pizza and Ciabatta (they are very similar doughs even if in pizza dough is more common to use olive oil than in ciabatta) to the more intensive of pasta dura breads.
However, we can do Ciabatta with 58% hydration, in example, and the structure of bread will be similar to a 78% one because of the same process.
This is proof that hydration is not so important in having open crumb.
Be aware that meanwhile the air pockets can be obtained at lower hydration levels, the texture of the crumb will be different without any doubt.
As while I' m writing this article I am eating a piece of high hydration bread, I can say that texture is softer and smoother than low hydration ones. Flavour also is different because in high hydration breads fermentation is producing more byproducts and faster. Meanwhile in low ones you can feel much more the grain itself.
To me the goal is to have a good texture, with good flavour and lightness. I do appreciate every hydration bread levels as long as they are made with the right fermentation and tech which bring to an open structured crumb.

About seasons and fermentation

Hello everyone!

I got a feeling every time that a season pass by and another one come. All my ferments, starters, kefir grains, pasta madre, change the way they work. Ok, you will say, nothing new! Temps are changing (either lowering down or getting higher depending on season) so fermentation times and quality change right? Well, I usually run every fermentation in a controlled way, so Temps are always under my control as well as time  etc...
But, I did notice that our little friends keep changing their behaviour either becoming more sluggish in autumn-winter or frenzied by the sparkling spring air or again overcharged of acids in the summer.
And this is not under my control. I can keep Temps always at 25°c, keep the same refreshing rates but the result of the fermentation it' s still slightly different accordingly to the season. May sound weird but it' s a fact. Natural ferments are alive and doesn't matter how one try to manipulate a living system, nature always have the last word !

Liquid sourdough

One of the most used and easiest pre-ferment for breads. Basically a rough mix of water and flour in the same quantity (1:1) inoculated by a starter and let ripen over time.
Altough other percentages of water in relation of flour can be used, (sometimes raising water quantity around 200%), the most practical is 100%. Due to the high hydration, the acidity built by fermentation is more on the lactic side.
Here you have a few examples of liquid sourdough build:

Ratio:                                         Baker's math:

1 part water                               100%
1 part flour                                100%
1 part starter                              100%

or

2 parts water                             100%
2 parts flour                              100%
1 part starter                               50%

or

4 parts water                             100%
4 parts flour                              100%
1 part starter                               25%


As you can see the difference is into the starter ratio. We will see later what does it change.



About the flour:

As in the Pasta madre, you can use different flours. Usually the flour for this ferment should be white and with a good protein content (<11%).
However different kinds of flours can be used, from high extractions to whole wheats and of course flours from different kind of cereals.
Mind that higher the ash content, the faster the fermentation will be. Therefore ripen times will change accordingly.
Nowadays it s more and more used to make liquid sourdough from spelt (if baking spelt bread), barley, oat etc...


About time:

When a healty starter is used to build this ferment, it will ripen in 3 hours at 25°c. Time may vary using different flours and ratios as I mentioned before, as higher extractions flours tend to speed up the fermentation and shorten the ripen time; Meanwhile ratios will change ripen time and characteristics of the pre-ferment. Here is how:

The 1:1:1 ratio is the faster build and can be used to bake in 2 to 4 hours (25°c). Is the best way to refresh if you need a young sourdough.
The 2:2:1 takes 4 to 6 hours (25°c). It gives you more activity and therefore more acidity.
The 4:4:1 can take up to 12 h (25°c) and will give you the more complex flavours and acidity.

This recipe can be used as a stand alone pre-ferment as well as a proper culture that can be refreshed and stored.
If using different flours, (i.e. whole wheat, spelt etc..) this difference can be quite remarkable.
In the first case, you will have a pre-ferment which is strong and will rise your breads with ease but will lack specific characteristics of the used flour because the bacterias don't have the time to set a new balance in the new substrate.
In the second case, after a period of refreshings (from 1 month it will be noticeable) you will have a proper specific liquid sourdough, with a strong character which also lead to a more complex flavour and different textures in final products.


Considerations
If you want a mild lactic sour flavour, good keeping quality and very good volume, this sourdough is the one you want to use.