[Sca-cooks] Bread Puzzles

[Terry Decker]

The finished bread weight is 66 lbs. .75 oz. for both white and brown bread. 
The total dough weight for both is 84 lbs. 7.75 oz.  Finished weight is 78 
percent of dough weight.  You lose roughly 25 percent of the weight of the 
dough in baking, so these numbers are within the rules of thumb.

There are 58 lbs. of flour.  To which is added 10 lbs. of leaven, 3 lbs. 2 
oz. additional flour, 6 oz. salt, and 9 lbs. of fine siftings to produce 
bread of the second quality.  Total weight, 80 lbs. 8 oz..  13 lbs. 2 oz. of 
the ingredients are recovered from the dough, so the total ingredients in 
the dough other than water are 67 lb. 6 oz..  Subtracting 67 lbs. 6 oz. from 
total dough weight of 84 lbs. 7.75 oz. yields 17 lbs. 1.75 oz. for the 
weight of the water.  There is an issue with the calculations in that the 
hydration of the 3 lbs. 2 oz. of flour isn't properly accounted for, but the 
quantities of ingredients being used make it negligible.  Flour to water 
ratio by weight is roughly 3.4:1.

These are professional bakers.  They use their leaven daily.  Mixing the 
fresh dough is enough of a refresh of any old dough starter.

The dough is assembled with 58 lbs. of flour, 10 lbs. of starter and 17 lbs. 
of water, total 85 lbs.

The following day, suggesting an 8 to 12 hour first rise which is reasonable 
for sourdough, 3 lbs. 2 oz. of flour are added to refresh the dough.  This 
is approximately 1 oz. of flour per lb. of original flour.  Whether or not 
the dough has collapsed, this adds fresh starch to restart the fermentation. 
88 lbs. 2 oz.

6 oz. of salt are added, 88 lbs 8 oz..  13 lbs. 2 oz. of dough are 
recovered, 75 lbs. 6 oz. of white bread dough remain.  I would have 
recovered the dough before adding the salt, but I'm going with the order of 
items in the report.

The dough is used to produce 76 loaves of 15 oz. each, 71 lbs. 4 oz..  The 
remaining 4 lbs. 2 oz. of dough is added to the 9 pounds of fines to yield 
13 lbs. 2 oz. of brown bread (the report gives this as 13 lbs. 3.75 oz. both 
as the pre-baking weight and the finished weight).

There is roughly a 2 hour second rise until the bakers decide the bread is 
ready to bake.  Then it is baked until done.

And that is the process as I see it.  I'm intrigued by the idea of 
refreshing the dough before the second rise.  It should kick fermentation 
into high gear during the second rise and produce a better aerated and 
lighter bread.

Bear


-----Original Message----- 
From: David Friedman
Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 1:20 AM
To: Cooks within the SCA
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bread Puzzle

If you assume 58 lbs of flour and 9lbs of bran (not actually bran but
flour with a good deal of bran in it) plus ten pounds of leaven, how do
you end up with a total weight of bread, white and dark, of only about
68 pounds? Even if you assume that, at some point in the process, ten
pounds was pulled out to leaven the next batch, which I don't think the
text says, you have 67 pounds of flour producing only 68 pounds of bread.

And it's even worse for the white bread, where you have 58 pounds of
flour (plus salt and perhaps leaven) producing just under 53 pounds of
bread. Not possible. Which is why my interpretation starts with
substantially less than 58 pounds of white flour.

I was assuming that your version of the leaven added flour and perhaps a
little water to the old dough, left that over night to freshen the
sourdough, then added that and water to the main flour to make the
dough. But I gather that on your interpretation, the leavening goes into
the main body of flour, with water, rises over night, then a little more
flour is added.

I'll be trying it on my assumption tomorrow.

On 2/1/16 9:10 PM, Terry Decker wrote:
> Right.  Assuming 58 lbs. of flour, 9 lbs. of bran and 6 oz. of salt with a 
> total shaped dough weight of 84 lbs. 7.75 oz. make right at 17 lbs. of 
> water.  That means the white bread is about 3.4:1 flour to water by 
> weight. A little heavy by modern standards but lighter than the manchet 
> recipes I've worked with.
>
> My thoughts about rasfraichir come from experience.  Modern practice is 
> not to let dough collapse.  It usually occurs when the yeast is too 
> active. I've had it happen and recovered by adding flour to stiffen the 
> dough. Letting the first rise collapse or come close to collapse when 
> working with sourdough ensures the dough is thoroughly leavened.  By my 
> reading (which may be shaky) the dough was assembled (water, flour, 
> leaven) on the 25th of February and allowed to rise and (maybe) collapse 
> (probably 8 to 12 hours). "Lendemain," "the next day," the 26th of 
> February, the "paston," "dough roll," was refreshed with 3 lbs. 2 oz. (of 
> flour).  The salt was then added. The prestir was recovered.  The dough 
> was then divided, shaped and allowed to rise (about 2 hours) until the 
> bakers declared it ready for the oven.
>
> Bear
>
>
>
> On 2/1/16 7:34 PM, Terry Decker wrote:
>> Without a measure of the liquid in the dough, there is no way to use this 
>> description as a recipe.
> The description includes the weight of the dough before you put it into
> the oven. Subtract the weight of the flour and leaven and salt and you
> have the weight of the water.
>
> Your reading of raifrescir is interesting. It would explain why you seem
> to do this the day before you add the leaven to the flour.
>

-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/

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