tl;dr

Knowing what to expect out of your dough is half the battle when it comes to artisan bread baking. And the only way you can get to the point where you can expect to achieve certain results takes time, practice, and incredible amounts of patience.

The artisan bread baking world is filled with lots of publications, both print and electronic. Of course, included with those are pictures of perfect loaves of bread with amazing crumbs and blistered crusts. There really is a lot of great bread out there made by incredibly talented and skilled bakers!

Sadly, though the pictures in the publications are beautiful and set a general aesthetic for prospective bakers to achieve, they don’t really tell the whole story and oftentimes end up building unrealistic expectations in the readers. Look at all the craze behind achieving an open crumb! You can blame Tartine Bread books for this! 🙂

The picture of the bread above was taken from the book, “Tartine No. 3” by Chad Robertson and is a picture of his White-Wheat Blend loaf. The flour blend for that loaf is: 50% high-extraction, 25% whole wheat, 25% white whole wheat flour. That crumb is gorgeous! And it’s a fitting example of presenting something in such a way that it sets expectations on how a slice from an ideal loaf of bread should look.

Unfortunately, most people wouldn’t even question the picture and would take it at face value that the whole loaf was like this partial slice. But if my experience with baking with flour blends that include a high ratio of whole grain flour has taught me anything, there are certain things I’ve come to know and expect. And though I won’t go as far as saying the picture’s misleading, I will say that it doesn’t really tell the whole story.

First, notice how the photographer only took a picture of the end of the slice and from the butt-end of the loaf. Especially with flour blends that have a high amount of whole grain and high-extraction flour, you don’t get as open a crumb as you move towards the middle of the loaf. The loaf is the heaviest there, so void formation is much lower in that area, even if you build good dough strength. But the sides will present a much more open structure; hence, the picture of the end of the slice.

Also, notice the shape of the slice above. Based on its widest point, that loaf didn’t get much vertical rise, which is consistent with whole-grain flour blends with super high hydration. That White-Wheat recipe has a hydration of 85%+! People might think that with the open crumb that’s shown in the picture that the loaf must be getting some incredible vertical rise. But it’s not. I immediately asked: Where’s the cross-section of an entire loaf?

Even Chad Robertson said in Jon Favreau’s Chef Show that the crumb pictures in his books are of the aspirational crumbs when Jon made mention of the open crumb. So, Chad knows exactly what’s going on! 🙂 Mind you, I’m not trying to rip on Tartine at all. Rather, I’m elucidating the inconsistencies between what gets shown to the world and – for lack of a better world – reality.

Whether published in hard copy or digitally, most pictures are expressions of the publisher putting their best foot forward. We look at these pictures and say, “Damn! I want to do that!” Then we follow the author’s instructions, create some dough, process then bake it, then once it has cooled, we cut it open, see the crumb, and exclaim, “Where the f$%k is the open crumb? I followed the instructions to a ‘T!'”

For example, with the crumb shot of the loaves directly above, I wanted to demonstrate the difference in crumb openness from the butt-end of the loaf and what it looks like in the center of the loaf. As you can see, the butt-end slice is super-open while the middle is moderately open. Though I know that some will marvel at the super-open crumb of the slice, it was not something I desired as I prefer a much more consistent, moderately open crumb like the middle of the loaf. But I wasn’t mindful of my dough temp during bulk fermentation, and it was WAY too high at 85℉. I had to cut bulk fermentation short because the yeast was going crazy! So I expected the result.

If you are after a certain aesthetic in your bread, like an open crumb, you must bake enough with your ingredients and under your conditions to understand how it all works together. It’s repetition that gives you that sense of what to expect. Put simply, the only thing you can expect is to set your own expectations based on YOUR set of ingredients and baking environment. And you can only achieve a level of expectation with reps – plain and simple.

As another example, I made the loaves below a couple of days ago:

I used a flour blend like the Tartine No. 3 White-Wheat Blend recipe, though I used 50% high-extraction, 25% whole wheat, and 25% whole-grain dark rye. My overall hydration for the loaves was about 87%. As you can see from the pictures, I got a great oven spring, but not much vertical rise. Consistent with what I discussed above, the centers of the loaves weren’t as open, while the sides presented a nice, open structure. I expect to get results like this every time, and I do unless I mess something up along the way, which is rare. But mind you, I’ve only been able to achieve this by doing it – a lot!

The loaves had a nice, long nap in my retarding fridge of about 20 hours, but it took several hours for dough to come down to a temperature that would slow down yeast activity; thus, that super-open crumb because the yeast was still active. Based on experience, I implicitly knew this was going to happen.

And hey! As an aside, I can do the same thing as Tartine! The picture to the right is of a similar loaf I baked a while ago. It was 88% hydration and used a combination of high-extraction and Kamut flour. Look at that open crumb! But truth be told, the middle wasn’t as open as the sides and the rise wasn’t as vertical as a loaf baked with regular flour. In fact, the crumb was more consistent with the loaves above.

Speaking of using regular flour, look at the loaf below. That was made with 25% high-extraction and 75% unbleached white flour. Hydration was about 80% for that loaf. But notice how much more even the crumb structure is in the picture. It’s a real contrast to the crumb of a loaf that contains much more whole-grain flour. Moreover, look at the vertical rise. Because there’s not as much bran in the flour to cut the gluten strands, that loaf popped right up!

I realize that it might look as if I’m just showing off the bread that I bake. I’m proud of them for sure, but those results aren’t novel for me. I’ve baked these loaves many, many times, and over time I’ve developed both technique and familiarity with my ingredients that baking these has become SOP.

I’ve written about calculating ingredient amounts from the baker’s formula. But while I was lurking in a bread baking forum, I read a thread where the home baker wanted to know how much preferment they should use for the bread. A responder correctly showed them how to calculate the amount. And reading that, I had my own question: How much bread do you want to make?

Before I started my micro-bakery, like most home bakers, I’d just make a couple of boules or batards or a few baguettes and I had figured they’d get eaten anyway, so no big deal. But once I started baking at scale, I needed to know precisely how much I needed to make so I wouldn’t be short bread nor make too much and have a lot of waste. To be honest, I’d give my surplus away to friends and family, but as I got more into it, I had to keep an eye on my expenses, so I had to start employing some economics.

To that end, I created a very precise dough calculator which would tell me how much of each ingredient I would need to achieve a certain yield. That helped me immensely. But I also had to figure out what my yield needed to be. I couldn’t just arbitrarily say I’d need six loaves at 650gr each. I needed to know just how many loaves. And that was a little trickier.

When I bake for a shelter, as I’m doing this coming Tuesday, bread is merely a component of the meal. It would be one thing if I were just making garlic bread. I’d be less careful in my planning. But in this case, I’m making BBQ pulled pork sandwiches. So, not only do I have to calculate the bread, but I must also calculate how much meat I need! It can get complicated pretty fast!

But here’s what I know: I will be feeding forty residents and five workers. Given that, each sandwich will have two ounces of meat, and two ounces of coleslaw. I already barbecued the pork and made over six and a three-quarter pounds of pulled pork (just to be safe). Serving sizes will be about two ounces of meat and two ounces of coleslaw. Those will go on 4″ ciabatta. My ciabattas are 20″ long, so I will get five pieces from each loaf. To feed forty-five, I’ll need ten loaves of ciabatta, which will give me fifty pieces (a few always want seconds).

So given that I need ten loaves I now know how much I’ll need to bake. So, here’s my yield calculation:

My formula for a straight-dough ciabatta is as follows:

And based on that formula I will need the following ingredient amounts (in grams):

For most folks, stuff like this really isn’t that important or even relevant most of the time. But it’s still helpful to know how much you should make at times. For instance, if you’re planning a big party and want to serve bread as part of the food offerings, it’s a good idea to plan ahead. It helps keep the stress of preparation much more controllable!

Sorry, no picture for this one recipe, but I thought I’d share it anyway because it is super-easy to make! With sandwich loaves, I’ve found that the trick to them is adding fat. Many will use milk, but I prefer to use olive oil because the resultant crumb has a chewier texture than one made with milk, and you can cut thinner slices.

As I’ve shared in the recent past, I haven’t been baking bread much as of late, except to fill orders when my wife needs bread for a local shelter. But a couple of weeks ago, she brought home white sandwich bread from the grocery store with the intent that we would make sandwiches with it. Unfortunately, no one ate the loaf, and it went bad. When my daughter saw that the loaf had molded, she asked if I could make sandwich loaves. But she wanted to white sandwhich loaves, and not whole grain.

Ugh! I thought to myself… White bread is SO boring. But white or whole grain, a handmade loaf is one hundred times better than the processed crap that passes for bread at a grocery. So, digging into baking formulas, I pulled out a super-simple recipe that you can do in a day that I’ll share here.

For this recipe, I use half AP flour and half bread flour. If I used all bread flour, the crumb would be too chewy. The AP flour helps cut it. I’ve also made it with 100% AP flour, but at this hydration, it makes the dough a little difficult to use. Also, this is a straight dough, so all processing and baking can take place in a day.

Overall Formula

Final Dough

Mix. Measure out and add all the dry ingredients to a large bowl and mix thoroughly. In a separate bowl, add warm water (~95℉-102℉) and the oil. They won’t mix, but that’s okay. Then add the liquid to the dry ingredients and combine well.

Knead. Once all the ingredients are incorporated together, knead the dough on your work surface until you attain a smooth consistency. If you do this by hand, it’ll take about 13-15 minutes. If you use a stand mixer, mix at medium-low speed with a hook for about 5-7 minutes or until the dough climbs the hook. Just make sure to regularly scrape the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl when using a stand mixer.

Bulk Fermentation. 2-3 hours. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a tea cloth, then place in a warm place. I use my oven with the light on, cracking the door so it doesn’t get too hot. Ambient temperature should be between 78℉-82℉. After an hour, fold the dough either on your work surface, or just do stretches and folds in the bowl, then place the dough seam side down. Bulk fermentation will be complete when the dough has roughly doubled in volume.

Divide and Pre-Shape. Remove the dough from the bowl and place it on your work surface. Tug it into a rectangle, then use a bench scraper to bisect it. You should be close to about 600g per piece. Form the dough pieces into tight boules, then rest them on your surface seam side down for 15-20 minutes or until they have relaxed.

Shape and Final Fermentation. I like to use a batard or baguette shaping technique to shape the loaves so that they fit in a 9″ X 5″ loaf pan. You need to ensure that as you shape, you create good tension on the surface of the dough! Once shaped, seal the bottom seam then place each loaf, seam side down, into a lightly greased 9 X 5 loaf pan, cover the pans then place in a warm environment to complete fermentation. Final fermentation will be complete when you poke the dough, and the indentation is slow to recover and doesn’t entirely fill in. If it recovers quickly and the indentation fills in, it is not ready!

Bake. Slash the loaves down the middle, then bake in a 425℉ oven for 30-35 minutes (10 minutes with steam to promote oven rise).

Cool. Allow the loaves to cool and cure on a wire rack for a few hours after baking. These loaves need time to evaporate any excess water and to set the crumb.

I was perusing a bread forum last night when I ran across a post of someone showing off the baguettes they had made. They were okay looking but a little mishapen. When I read the proceeding threads, in one post the baker mentioned – actually kind of boasted – that they didn’t have all the tools such as a couche or a lame or a transfer board. Once I read that post, I immediately asked out loud, “Why the hell would you purposely hamper yourself.”

Then I looked back on when I first started baking artisan bread and how proud I was that I was able to make something edible. I didn’t have a digital scale. I used an old analog food scale. I didn’t have a proper couche and instead used dish towels. I fashioned a lame out of hanger wire (I still use it). I did make a transfer board that I use to this day that’s made of 3/8″ sanded, untreated plywood that I sealed with beeswax. I also didn’t have a baking stone and instead used a loaf tray, which was fine, but the bottoms turned out round – not really what I’d call ideal.

Then I realized that I was working WAY TOO HARD to make baguettes and that’s when I decided to make a small investment in some crucial equipment. I got a digital food scale with 1-gram accuracy for $15. To measure out my yeast and salt precisely, I got a great precision scale (.01 gram accuracy) for $12. I bought a linen couche for $15. I already had the transfer board, but that piece of wood only cost me $6.

That small investment of less than $50 completely changed the game for me. It made the entire process so much easier; especially having the couche and the transfer board. Now I could manipulate my dough with ease and not worry about screwing them up with my hands. The transfer board could be used to straighten my loaves before I popped them into the oven.

The scale allowed me to create loaves that were all the same size. But also, with the loaves being the same size and weight, I could ensure a consistent quality for all my loaves.

It’s these kinds of things that I didn’t get when I first started. But it wasn’t until I got them that I truly understood just how important they were to making beautiful loaves of bread.