[Sca-cooks] Bread Puzzles

[David Friedman]

On 2/2/16 7:12 AM, Terry Decker wrote:
> 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, 
Why do you assume the "additional flour" isn't coming from the 58 lbs? 
The point of the trial seems to be to start with wheat and end with 
bread made from that wheat.
> 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.. 
How do you get 13 lbs 2 oz of the ingredients recovered? If they were 
pulling out starter for the next batch of bread they should be pulling 
out 10 pounds, that being the amount of leaven they put in. And it 
should be ten pounds of dough, not of flour, so some of the weight would 
be water.

I've made a first try at my interpretation, which is a little different. 
The white bread went in at 15 ounce but came out at 13 oz, which may 
mean I didn't bake it long enough (internal temperature 195°). I messed 
up on my calculation on the dark bread, went in too heavy and went out 
too heavy. I plan to repeat the experiment tomorrow.

Here is the calculation for the white bread, assuming the leavening and 
additional flour is divided in proportion to the ratio of weight of 
white flour to weight of sifted dark flour:

On your reading, you have 58 lbs of white flour plus about 8 pounds of 
leaven (dividing it between white and dark) plus 2 1/2 lbs of additional 
flour, totals 68 1/2 lb, almost all flour minus a little water in the 
leaven. Suppose we take all of the leaven out of that, leaving us with 
58 1/2 lbs for the white bread /before/ we add any water. But the white 
bread comes out of the oven at 52 lbs 13 3/4 oz. So we are back with my 
puzzle--the finished bread weighs much less than the ingredients, even 
without counting the water.

For the dark bread: 9 lbs of sifted flour +1 2/3 lbs leaven +8 oz 
additional flour = 11 1/6 lb. It comes out of the oven weighing 13 lbs 3 
3/4 oz. so not impossible.

But we have another problem. The weight of the dark loaves going in was 
13 lbs 3 3/4 oz. The weight of the dark loaves coming out was 13 lbs 3 
3/4 oz. As you note. That's impossible--either it's a scribal error or 
we are missing something.

And on your calculation, as I read it, 67 lbs 6 oz of dry ingredients 
for both dark and light produce 66 lbs 1 1/2 oz of bread, which isn't 
possible.

Am I misreading your calculations or didn't you try comparing the weight 
of the ingredients other than water going in with the weight of the 
bread coming out?

If we assume that the "additional flour" comes from the initial 58 lbs, 
you then have 64 lbs 4 oz of dry ingredients (ignoring that there is a 
little water in the leavening) producing 66 lbs 1 1/2 oz of bread, which 
is a little better but not much. And the numbers still don't work for 
the white bread.

Looking at your figures, you have 58 lbs of flour and 17 lbs of water 
(ignoring the leaven, which should be about the same ratio). 17/75=.227 
so it's 22.7% water. But the white bread loses 27% of its weight in 
baking, comparing the weight of dough going in to the weight of bread 
coming out. So the bread coming out weighs less than the flour going in. 
How is that possible?
> 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/