Well for Pete's sake, I totally forgot about this thread. Guess I don't have to start a "Making Bread" thread now. @John Brunner -- there are tons of videos on Youtube about making ciabatta. I found this one interesting and thought you might find the technique with parchment paper a solution to the spreading issue. (FYI, I watch these videos on 2X speed without sound so I can just get the drift without wasting time. ) Check the parchment paper at 5:58...
LOL@FF Thanks for that. I'll watch it when I'm more awake. I once found Part 2 of an interesting video where the guy let the dough rise as a single batch in a deep casserole dish (so there was no spreading), then he dumped it out, cut it into rolls with a pastry cutter, and threw them in the oven. It was an old video, and I could never locate Part 1 that had the recipe and the # of rises. This might get me back on the hunt for a large stone (or sets of individual tiles) to cover an entire rack in my main oven. My pizza stone is not large enough to do a batch of rolls. If I could perfect making ciabatta rolls, I'd never buy another sandwich roll or burger bun again.
I am a Gourmet Vegan Chef (L'école des Coups Durs). I no longer work in restaurants, though I still cook up great dishes, almost daily, at home. I have a great sourdough bread recipe. Thing is, the sourdough starter helps make the bread, and mine was made and nurtured in my house and grounds, as I walked Thomas, my sourdough starter, around. Sourdough Bread Ingredients: 90 grams active sourdough starter 350 grams warm water (non-chlorinated water) 500 grams unbleached bread flour 9 grams sea salt extra flour for dusting (about 1/2 cup) Instructions: It is best if you use a kitchen scale to measure ingredients. It works best if it is measured by grams. Place a large glass bowl on a kitchen scale and set to "0". Add 90 grams of active sourdough starter to the bowl. Add 350 grams of warm water. Use a whisk to mix the starter and water. Add the flour and salt. Use a sourdough spoon (or a rubber spatula) to mix the ingredients together to form a rough, shaggy dough. Allow this dough to sit for 30 minutes. (This is the autolyse stage.) Work the dough into your glass bread pan that has been thoroughly sprayed with canola oil. Allow the dough to rise until the dough has almost doubled. This usually takes about 8 hours for us, but it will depend on how active the starter is and the temperature of the ingredients. (Most people plan for anywhere from 4-12 hours for this bulk fermentation.) Preheat the oven to 450º Fahrenheit. Turn the oven down to 425º Fahrenheit. Then, bake the bread in a tented, aluminum foil covered glass bread pan for 25-30 minutes. Put on your headlamp. Check the sides for browning. Carefully turn the pan to check the bottom of the loaf. If everything looks a nice, light, golden brown, remove the foil cover and continue to bake for another 15-20 minutes or until the top of the loaf is golden brown, and a bamboo skewer, inserted in the middle, comes out dry. Remove from the oven and allow the bread to cool completely on a wire rack. This bread will have the best flavor when it is served the next day, but it is also so good, fresh from the oven. For the best texture you'll want to wait at least an hour before slicing the bread with a strong serrated bread knife. Slice with the loaf upside down, to keep from shredding the top. Store the bread in an airtight container. Notes: *If the dough is too sticky for the environment you live in, reduce the water by 25 grams and/or increase the flour. It is definitely a sticky dough, which is the way we like it, but you can add more flour if you’d like. I had a few people over when I took out a loaf from the oven. That loaf lasted less than a half hour, no lie. I am a Certified Arborist, ISA. I own a tree services company, but I am cutting back on my involvement with it, pun intended.
My Italian bread: -Rests for 20 minutes in the bowl partway through mixing -I add the biga that's sat on the counter for a few hours before going in the fridge overnight -It rises for an hour and then gets turn over onto itself -It rises for a second hour and then gets turn over onto itself -It rises for a third hour and gets made into loaves -It rises for a fourth hour and goes into the oven All of that makes those great air pockets, and [obviously] yields that deep yeasty flavor. The downside is when you make the biga the night before, you gotta plan to be around for most of the next day. When I make the loaves I put them into a French bread pan lined with parchment paper to stop them from spreading: The loaves go onto a stone in a 500°F oven for 10 minutes to set them, then get rotated 90° to finish off at 400°F. I leave them in the pan for that first 10 minutes so they set shaped like loaves without spreading out in the heat. The parchment paper makes it easy to move them around. One other thing I noticed is that when using the diastatic malt powder, I have to tent the loaves with foil pretty early on in the baking process to prevent the crust from burning. The recipe says to tent them after 25 minutes, but with the malt powder I gotta do it no later than the 10 minute mark.
Has anyone use natural yeast they have captured from the ambient air? I've mentioned the non-profit I was with that did home repairs for folks. We worked at one place where the woman of the house baked bread several days a week. She sold some for church fundraising and some as a second source of income, having a cadre of regular customers with standing orders. Anytime you walked in, there was the mess (and the aroma) of mass-baking. They had moved here from another part of the state, and while we were discussing bread baking, she said "You all sure have some good yeast here." Apparently, there is wild yeast in the air all around us (I don't know if this is a regional thing or not, meaning arid Arizona might be a yeast-free state while humid Virginia might be a free-yeast state.) I've read a little about it and it seems this is quite common for many home bakers. There are different techniques for capturing the yeast and for preventing mold from growing in your capture jar. We worked at their place for several days, and were fed sandwiches made from her thick-sliced homemade bread. Yeh, it was good. And there was nary an envelope of Fleischmann's to be seen.
OK, I have never understood the concept of "great air pockets." Exactly why are they "great?" I find holey bread annoying. (And one vid I watched about ciabatta used a biga. Also no one seemed to have problems with the dough spreading.)
My recommendation: Start the process of making your own starter. I found that by naming mine and talking to him, I got more into the creation of a successful starter. I walked Thomas around, in his open jar, outside, so he could benefit from any wild strains of yeast that might come floating by. It's pretty cool when you make your first dough with your starter, put it in the oven, overnight, with the oven light on, and in the morning........."It's alive! Alive!" It has doubled in size, and you only have your starter to thank! Yay!
LOL L'ecole des Coups Durs. I think I went there too. I was told the whitish film on natural grapes and apples is actually yeast. I have tried using it twice, once with success and once it grew mold. (a close cousin?)
I thought starter was a piece of dough or biga left over from someone else's dough, and it was kept alive in the fridge until someone used it to start a fresh batch of dough. Then that person reserved part of their dough and saved it for the next batch, and people would share their starters with each other...and the starters would almost have a lineage, knowing that it was nth generation of the starter that Trevalius Guyus shared with a friend. Honestly, I never thought of making my own...I always thought it was something you got from someone else. I always thought that a starter always existed, and you would have to seek one out.
I think air pockets are indicative of an active yeast. I don't know why my ciabatta is always loose. I even bought a 24" length of 3" pvc pipe and cut it down into 2" rings. I used those for the ciabatta buns to rise in so they would not spread. It worked, but as soon as they hit the oven heat (with the rings removed), they pooled and became thin.