Pan Bread too sticky?
Steve W
been more than tripling in volume at 100% hydation so I felt it was ready
for a test. I started with the recipe at:
<http://home.att.net/~carlsfriends/dickpics/panbread.html>
But I cut the amounts in half because I wanted to experiment with a single
loaf to start.
I began with 1 Tbsp. of my new rye starter, added equal amounts of white
bread flour and water to make about 1/2 Cup of starter. I let this ferment
for 12 hours at 80-85F. I think this may have been too long a time at too
high a temperature as the starter was flat after 12 hours.
I added 1 Cup of bread flour and 1 Cup of water to make the sponge. I
fermented overnight at 72F for about 9 1/2 hours. Sponge had froth on top
but seemed rather "soupy" and smelled a little sour.
Made dough by adding salt and about 1 1/2 cups flour, about 67% hydration
at this point. After machine kneading the dough was hopelessly soft and
sticky. About the consistency of hot bubble gum and very shiny.
In order to form a workable dough, I kneaded in a least another 1/2 Cup of
flour resulting in about 58% final hydration. Clearly this was way too
much flour but it was needed to reduce stickyness to a manageable level.
I formed the loaf, placed in pan, and let rise 7 1/4 hours at 70F enclosed
in plastic bag. Loaf did not reach top of pan. Baked 37 minutes.
Did get some oven spring which brought top of loaf above top of pan. Very
nice brown color. Excellent sour flavor, but crumb was closed, tough and
dull looking.
My guess is that the starter and sponge got too sour and that resulted in
the highly sticky dough. All suggestions welcome. Thanks.
--
Steve W.
Kenneth
Hi Steve,
Here's a suggestion that may be a bit of a surprise:
When working with rye doughs by hand, keep dipping your hands in cold
water. That will prevent the sticking. The same is true for tools that
might be in contact with the dough. A few minutes ago I put some
(78%!) rye dough into a pullman pan. (That's a square cross-section
pan with a slide on lid.) The dough was, as you might expect,
incredibly sticky. In order to get it into the pan properly, that is,
with full contact with the pan, I kept smoothing it with a rubber
spatula that was dipped in cool water.
HTH,
--
Kenneth
If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."
Steve W
news:qphqcukrqu1181lod...@4ax.com:
> On Mon, 29 Apr 2002 12:29:37 GMT, Steve W
> <s....@REMOVEverizonTHIS.net> wrote:
>
>>I began with 1 Tbsp. of my new rye starter, added equal amounts of
>>white bread flour and water to make about 1/2 Cup of starter. I let
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>I added 1 Cup of bread flour and 1 Cup of water to make the sponge. I
^^^^^^^^^^^
> When working with rye doughs by hand, keep dipping your hands in cold
> water. That will prevent the sticking. The same is true for tools that
> might be in contact with the dough. A few minutes ago I put some
> (78%!) rye dough into a pullman pan. (That's a square cross-section
> pan with a slide on lid.) The dough was, as you might expect,
> incredibly sticky. In order to get it into the pan properly, that is,
> with full contact with the pan, I kept smoothing it with a rubber
> spatula that was dipped in cool water.
Thanks for the suggestion, I hope to soon be working with a rye dough and
am sure this will come in handy. I don't have a Pullman pan, hope I can
get decent results by covering with foil. Do you use 100% rye? Any coarse
meal or cracked rye?
--
Steve W.
Kenneth
<s....@REMOVEverizonTHIS.net> wrote:
>Do you use 100% rye? Any coarse
>meal or cracked rye?
Hi again Steve,
The one that I did this morning (and I am sorry that I don't have the
percentages here with me now) was rye starter (100% hydration), rye
flour, rye chops (super coarse cracked rye berries), water, salt, and
caraway.
The benefit of the pullman pan is that it contains the rising loaf so
that it comes out with flat sides all around.
I would doubt that foil would have the same effect. I would ask why
you are using the foil at all. Why not just let the loaf rise without
it to form a pleasing curved top?
Have fun,
Samartha
At 12:29 PM 4/29/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>I used my new rye starter to bake a loaf of pan bread yesterday. It had
>been more than tripling in volume at 100% hydation so I felt it was ready
>for a test.
What it looks like is that you have a working starter
but seem to run into too much sourness repeatedly.
What stands out, is that you seem to
ferment fairly long when multiplying your starter.
I do it somewhat different, in such a way that
I do the initial tripling quicker and then run
the last step into sourness as far as I like it.
That does not mean it _has_ to be done that
way.
In your first step lasting 12 hours at that
temperature and then going flat indicates
that your starter pretty sure has gone overripe.
>I added 1 Cup of bread flour and 1 Cup of water to make the sponge. I
>fermented overnight at 72F for about 9 1/2 hours. Sponge had froth on top
>but seemed rather "soupy" and smelled a little sour.
I would have to recalculate the hydration to verify
the consistency of this step. But were there any bubbles at that
time? Could you recognize gluten strings in the starter at this
point? Was there activity which increased, was active for
a while and then stopped or was the activity just soso - half-ass
lazy?
>Made dough by adding salt and about 1 1/2 cups flour, about 67% hydration
>at this point. After machine kneading the dough was hopelessly soft and
>sticky. About the consistency of hot bubble gum and very shiny.
>
>In order to form a workable dough, I kneaded in a least another 1/2 Cup of
>flour resulting in about 58% final hydration. Clearly this was way too
>much flour but it was needed to reduce stickyness to a manageable level.
Was there any gluten strings in the dough, springyness - i. e.
it was responding to your touch/dugg, "talking back"?
>I formed the loaf, placed in pan, and let rise 7 1/4 hours at 70F enclosed
>in plastic bag. Loaf did not reach top of pan. Baked 37 minutes.
7 1/4 hours for rise without punch down and subsequent rise appears
long.
>Did get some oven spring which brought top of loaf above top of pan. Very
>nice brown color. Excellent sour flavor, but crumb was closed, tough and
>dull looking.
probably overripe starter and dough.
>My guess is that the starter and sponge got too sour and that resulted in
>the highly sticky dough. All suggestions welcome.
Instead of doing long and sour starters and doughs, try to make
happy, bubbling starters and rising doughs with shorter fermentation
times. Once you got the mechanics for this down with your
starter, then go after the longer stuff.
When doing white flour doughs, stay below 6 hours of
fermentation with your starter, once it is active, maybe
even less works as well. Just get it going and then multiply.
Avoid running it all the way into overripe collapse.
When making dough, start with 1 1/2 - 2 hour fermenting, which
may not show much rise. Then do a punchdown which gets new
nutrients to the organisms and the second rise should be stronger.
By then, the activity of the dough should be so strong, that
subsequent punchdowns and rises look possible.
Shape your dough into the forms you want - round, long,
flat. Let it rest for a brief period until it puffs up
again, then bake.
Good luck,
Samartha
remove "-nospam" when replying
Samartha
At 10:11 AM 4/29/2002 -0400, you wrote:
...
>The benefit of the pullman pan is that it contains the rising loaf so
>that it comes out with flat sides all around.
>
>I would doubt that foil would have the same effect.
It has to some degree - restricting rise.
When the strength of the foil is stronger than
the rising power of the dough, it will keep the
dough shape low and crumb dense.
I have this effect with my pumpernickels where
the rising power of the very coarse dough is weak.
As for giving flat sides all around - no.
> I would ask why
>you are using the foil at all. Why not just let the loaf rise without
>it to form a pleasing curved top?
well that of cause gives rise to the question: why use a form?
prioritized:
- aesthetics, can make photos with picture borders parallel to bread
- safety, keeps this dangerous creature confined, a must for Australian yeasts
- helps with hangover - can bake dough unable to keep shape and running all
over the oven
- pride, hey, I can get four pans on one level of my oven!
- dehydration, prevents it by getting high dough/crumb humidity when hiking
- kitchen peace, it fits better, makes toaster happy
- finances, baking pan vendors make more money
...
Yawn,
Darren
Hi Steve
Hopefully I am not rehashing stuff, but I had a few comments on things
you might what to consider next time you bake your pan bread.
1) I am assuming you are using a rye starter, but wheat bread flour
when making your bread. If you are using wheat flour, a 67% hydration
rate might be too high. depends upon the protein content (among other
things) of the flour you are using. Since you said that you were
using a machine to mix an easy way to get a sticky dough (not
necessarily so for a 100% rye bread) to come together for you is to
sprinkle flour into the bowl until the dough forms a single mass and
pulls away from the sides. Some of the closed crumb you spoke about
in the final bread could be that the wet dough was not mixed long
enough to develop the gluten sufficiently. Furthermore the "drier"
your mix the longer the fermentation will take to achieve proper
gluten development etc etc etc
2) What was the temperature of your dough coming out of the mixer.
You mention the texture of HOT bubble gum...was the dough hot? In
general you would want to shoot for a temperature of between 74-78 deg
F coming out of the mixer. If you have not gotten into the habit of
measuring the temps at every stage of the mixing process I highly
recommend you do so. Not to get overly scientific, but if you keep
accurate records of temps, what the dough looks and feels like etc. it
becomes much easier to troubleshoot problems that arise (no pun
intended) in the future.
3) Are you shaping the loaf right after it comes out of the mixer with
out a primary fermentation? This might explain the coarse crumb
structure in the end product.
4) Given the fact that you didn't get much ovenspring in your final
product, but you still got a nice brown color, I would rule out that
the dough was overproofed. Was the pan too large for the amount of
dough you used?
5) Another thing you might look at is the method you are using going
from your initial rye starter to your intermediate starter. Your
inoculation percentage (i.e. rye starter/intermediate starter)by
volume is 1tbs/8tbs = 12.5%. This is OK, but you might have to let it
sit longer than 12 hours to allow the yeast population to grow
sufficiently. Your next step you add 1/2 cup starter to 1 cup flour
and 1 cup water which further dilutes the yeast population. (I usually
mix my sponges equal parts starter, flour, and water) Next time try
letting the sponge sit longer until it at least doubles, looks, feels,
and tastes active. You can always adjust the amount of starter you
use, but remember that time will have to increase or decrease
accordingly.
In my book one the biggest challenge baking at home (as opposed to a
bakery) is devising a baking schedule around the rest of your life :)
This can be especially difficult with sourdoughs, but not impossible.
Anyway, hope the above ramblings help out. Good luck
Darren
cecilk1
"Steve W" <s....@REMOVEverizonTHIS.net> wrote in message
news:Xns91FF56628DD2...@199.45.49.11...
Hi Steve
Dick Adams
"Steve W" <s....@REMOVEverizonTHIS.net> reported in message
news:Xns91FF56628DD2...@199.45.49.11...
that he had some problems following the procedure at
<http://home.att.net/~carlsfriends/dickpics/panbread.html>
including that his dough did not rise much, and was too sticky.
Or maybe there is a problem with the procedure, or the clarity of
its presentation. If the procedure is unclear or flawed, it
should be corrected. It has been tested, and updated, but no
doubt could bear further improvement. Please send any suggestions
to my email.
However, it did not seem to me that Steve followed the procedure
very consistently. Otherwise, for instance, he might have
corrected the stickiness by adding enough flour.
The procedure is for Carl's starter, but should be general.
Carl's is a specific culture which is maintained on white wheat
flour. I suppose you could call it a "wheat" starter, but, if
that is all you knew, you would not know much. Steve prefers a
"rye" starter. Hard to guess what that may be, but it does not
suggest that he followed the instructions he referenced very
carefully.
A purpose of those instructions is to avoid the complexity of
weight measure, which is basic to the concept of (Bakers')
hydration. It is good for beginners without weighing devices (and
me) and allows hydration (and some other Bakerspeak) to be
forgotten or never considered in the first place. But Steve is
likkitysplit into hydration. With cup measure??!
There is a general problem for beginners, to obtain, recognize,
and maintain an active starter culture. A good way to do that is
to start with a known culture, like Carl's or one of SDI's, and
follow the instructions that come with it. That way you start by
observing how a sourdough culture is supposed to behave. Then if
you want to go rustic with grapes or dirty whole grain, you at
least know what to look for.
Making pan bread seems a very simple process to me. But I have
real trouble following the discussions in this thread. (How did I
get this far without ever owning a pullman pan?).
--
Dick Adams
<firstname> dot <lastname>at bigfoot dot com
Steve W
news:39oz8.57946$QC1.4...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
>
> "Steve W" <s....@REMOVEverizonTHIS.net> reported in message
> news:Xns91FF56628DD2...@199.45.49.11...
>
> that he had some problems following the procedure at
>
> <http://home.att.net/~carlsfriends/dickpics/panbread.html>
>
> including that his dough did not rise much, and was too sticky.
>
> Or maybe there is a problem with the procedure, or the clarity of
> its presentation. If the procedure is unclear or flawed, it
> should be corrected. It has been tested, and updated, but no
> doubt could bear further improvement. Please send any suggestions
> to my email.
I did not say there is a problem with the procedure and I am not trying to
criticize it. I am trying to make bread. I would like to be able to
successfully make a loaf of white sourdough pan bread in a single rise.
Sometimes I just don't feel like dealing with multiple rises, and shaping a
boule.
> However, it did not seem to me that Steve followed the procedure
> very consistently. Otherwise, for instance, he might have
> corrected the stickiness by adding enough flour.
Well, actually that is why I DID add the extra flour.
> The procedure is for Carl's starter, but should be general.
I do not yet have Carl's available, so I used what I had. As noted I did
my best to convert my starter to white wheat flour before use in this
recipe. Admittedly this may be a source of error. I will have an all
white flour version available for my next attempt.
> Carl's is a specific culture which is maintained on white wheat
> flour. I suppose you could call it a "wheat" starter, but, if
> that is all you knew, you would not know much. Steve prefers a
> "rye" starter. Hard to guess what that may be, but it does not
> suggest that he followed the instructions he referenced very
> carefully.
I tried to follow the instructions as closely as I could but obviously my
technique could stand improvement that is why I asked for help.
<snip: discussion of relative merits of volume vs. weight measurement>
> Making pan bread seems a very simple process to me.
Yes, once you have a feel for it I imagine it is easy. But I do not have
experience with is particular process. It can be hard to know what to look
for at the various stages. Well I am sure practice will help.
> But I have
> real trouble following the discussions in this thread.
I doubt it :^)
I believe that my primary failure was, as Samartha suggested in another
message, letting the starter and sponge get too sour.
--
Steve W.
Steve W
news:mailman.1020095491.62...@www.mountainbitwarrior.co
m:
> What stands out, is that you seem to
> ferment fairly long when multiplying your starter.
Yes, I will change this.
> In your first step lasting 12 hours at that
> temperature and then going flat indicates
> that your starter pretty sure has gone overripe.
Yes, I will reduce.
> I would have to recalculate the hydration to verify
> the consistency of this step.
The hydration is quite high, something like 120% because all the water for
the dough has been added at this point in the recipe. One of my problems
is that I am not really sure how this step should go given how wet the
starter is at this point.
> But were there any bubbles at that time?
Yes. But activity had declined.
> Could you recognize gluten strings in the starter at this
> point?
Yes.
> Was there activity which increased, was active for
> a while and then stopped or was the activity just soso - half-ass
> lazy?
Not clear as this step took place overnight.
>>Made dough by adding salt and about 1 1/2 cups flour, about 67%
>>hydration at this point. After machine kneading the dough was
>>hopelessly soft and sticky. About the consistency of hot bubble gum
>>and very shiny.
>>
>>In order to form a workable dough, I kneaded in a least another 1/2
>>Cup of flour resulting in about 58% final hydration. Clearly this was
>>way too much flour but it was needed to reduce stickiness to a
>>manageable level.
>
> Was there any gluten strings in the dough, springyness - i. e.
> it was responding to your touch/dugg, "talking back"?
Yes, dough was smooth and stretchy with visible gluten strings.
> Instead of doing long and sour starters and doughs, try to make
> happy, bubbling starters and rising doughs with shorter fermentation
> times. Once you got the mechanics for this down with your
> starter, then go after the longer stuff.
OK, thanks again for all your help!
--
Steve W.
Steve W
news:dc333536.02042...@posting.google.com:
> 1) I am assuming you are using a rye starter, but wheat bread flour
> when making your bread. If you are using wheat flour, a 67% hydration
> rate might be too high. depends upon the protein content (among other
> things) of the flour you are using.
High protein white wheat bread flour (KA special). Yes, I did expect to
add some additional flour.
> Some of the closed crumb you spoke about
> in the final bread could be that the wet dough was not mixed long
> enough to develop the gluten sufficiently.
Thanks, this may be a factor. I will watch this.
> 2) What was the temperature of your dough coming out of the mixer.
> You mention the texture of HOT bubble gum...was the dough hot?
No, this was intended as description of viscosity only. I did not measure
the temperature, but it was a cool day and I would expect the dough temp.
was near the range you mention.
> 3) Are you shaping the loaf right after it comes out of the mixer with
> out a primary fermentation? This might explain the coarse crumb
> structure in the end product.
Yes, just a brief rest. The intent here is to go with one long rise, and I
know others have been successful with this approach.
>
> 4) Given the fact that you didn't get much ovenspring in your final
> product, but you still got a nice brown color, I would rule out that
> the dough was overproofed.
Agreed, did not appear over-proofed.
> Was the pan too large for the amount of dough you used?
I don't think so.
>
> 5) Another thing you might look at is the method you are using going
> from your initial rye starter to your intermediate starter. Your
> inoculation percentage (i.e. rye starter/intermediate starter)by
> volume is 1tbs/8tbs = 12.5%. This is OK, but you might have to let it
> sit longer than 12 hours to allow the yeast population to grow
> sufficiently.
Yes, I will increase to 20% next time. However I think actually I had the
opposite problem. I was using too high a temperature at this point and
starter was over-ripe. My error.
> In my book one the biggest challenge baking at home (as opposed to a
> bakery) is devising a baking schedule around the rest of your life :)
> This can be especially difficult with sourdoughs, but not impossible.
Absolutely. Thanks very much for sharing your time and experience.
--
Steve W.
Kenneth
<s....@REMOVEverizonTHIS.net> wrote:
>> Some of the closed crumb you spoke about
>> in the final bread could be that the wet dough was not mixed long
>> enough to develop the gluten sufficiently.
>
Howdy,
Perhaps this is just a semantics issue, but if by "closed crumb" we
mean tiny holes, then this may raise a question:
Ordinarily, less kneading (or none at all) and higher hydration, both
contribute to a coarse crumb (that is, larger holes)...
Ron
important. The lower the rate, the better the rise and gas retention,
even if it's 100% rye. The flour in your store may not give you much
room to experiment, but I've started with whole rye (100% extraction)
and strained out the coarse particles. Bread made with the fine
starchy flour (minus the coarse particles) is a lot different than
using the whole thing. Rye flour marked "medium" looks like it has
done the straining for you, though this flour is not available in my
area, where we only have the 100% extraction in stores.
The following web discussion is very valuable for this subject:
http://www.ryeheart.com/english/tutkimus_booklet_3description.htm
It mentions that even Scandinavia has big differences, with Denmark
and Finland at 100% extraction, but Sweden and Norway at 80%. I long
wondered why I couldn't get the rye crumb I saw in Russia, but then I
realized that I came much closer by not using some or all of the
coarse rye particles.
I also tried the approach of regrinding the coarse particles into
fine, to have my bread and eat it too. I'm not sure if this parallels
an industrial practice, since I'm only a rank amateur at this.
Ron
Steve W <s....@REMOVEverizonTHIS.net> wrote in message news:<Xns91FF650F9DC3...@199.45.49.11>...