Hamelman's Poolish Ciabatta

[Marc52]

Just found this forum and it looks like a great place.

I just made the best bread I've ever had with an odd, but easy, technique. I made a very wet dough, 80% hydration:15 oz KA bread flour, 12 oz water, 1/4 instant tsp yeast, 1/34 tsp kosher salt, and 1 tbl olive oil.

I used room temperature water, dumped in the yeast and let it sit for a minute, then put in the oil and mixed in the flour/salt by hand. I covered it and let it sit on the counter until it about doubled and then put it in the refrigerator. I left it there for about 36 hours without touching it once.

I took it out and let it warm up for a couple of hours and then dumped the whole wet mass onto a piece of floured parchment paper, being carefull to not degass it. I roughly pushed it into the ciabatta shape, floured the top a bit, covered it and let it rise for about 3 hours. I then baked the thing on a stone (still on the parchment paper... it's too wet to do anything else) at about 450 degrees until it reached 205 degrees internal and let it cool.

It was great! Crisp but chewy crust, soft open crumb with nice big holes, and a wonderful sourdough aroma from the 3 days of fermentation. Next time I think I'll try a week.

No kneading, no folding, no nothing. I think I've found ciabatta nirvana.

[Frances]

Ok, I'll put my my second effort at ciabatta here, the first recipe I have tried out of Hamelmann's book...

The only thing I didn't do was the folding - the dough was so very wet and just sat there for so long without rising at all, I couldn't face removing the few small bubbles that had formed. Probably a mistake.

After shaping it just sat there for three hours getting flatter and floppier, until I got fed up and shoved it in the oven anyway. I put it in the oven right on the baking tray, thinking that this would reduce handling... good idea? I don't know.

Actually none of my bread rose properly before baking yesterday. Maybe we should turn up the heating for bake days? That and put everybody in chains who leaves the outside kitchen door open!!

All things cosdidered it turned out better than I expected, but that's not saying much! It does taste nice, still lots of room for improvement though.

[egalecki]

I'm sorry your bread didn't rise properly. I know how you feel! I'm trying again with sourdough today. I spiked my dough with a little IDY, and I'm going to put in in the fridge overnight. We'll see what I have in the morning...

I've been feeding my sourdough everyday for nearly a week- throwing away half and building it up. Hopefully that has increased activity.

I keep our house between 65 and 68 degrees, so I'm wondering if maybe that's a problem for my bread.

[lizy-s]

I just received Forno Bravo's email (dated 1/29) with a recipe for Ciabatta. As I bake by weight rather than volume, does anyone know the weights for the recipe? I'd really appreciate it.....

[Frances]

Hey people, look at this picture!

One Ciabatta was made in my conventional oven a few days ago, the other came out of the WFO this afternoon... and they looked identical before baking. Now guess which is which...

This has to be THE picture to show any doubting spouses/friends/neighbours who think you're mad to build your oven.

[james]

That is SOOOOOOO COOOOOOL!

Thanks Frances,
James

[james]

Hi Lizy-s,

Welcome aboard! I just checked and saw that the Ciabatta recipe did not have a Baker's % version. Sorry about that -- our oversight. I have made that change to reflect the way I have been doing it for some time.

You can find the new recipe here:

Ciabatta Italian Hearth Bread

Let us know how it goes for you.
Regards,
James

[Mitchamus]

I'm trying the recipe mentioned in the latest forno bravo newsletter, I hope this is the right place to post...

I have found a few problems with the recipe on this page:
Ciabatta Italian Hearth Bread
(this is the one linked from the newsletter)

for the poolish - not sure what kind of pancake batter you guys use, but 300g of flour and 300g of water produced a sticky gooey mess, nothing like the described "pancake batter consistency" you can ladle into a pan..

also if you look at the differences in the by weight and by volume recipes for the dough:
(copied and pasted verbatim)


By Weight
The poolish, plus
700gr flour
20gr salt
9gr yeast
430gr water (73% final hydration)

By Volume
The poolish, plus
2 7/8 cups flour
! Tbl salt
1 1/4 tsp yeast
1/2 cup water

in the by volume recipe it call for 1/2 cup water
1/2cup of water is 125ml which is 125g ....
but in the weight recipe
430g of water is used... this is 430ml or about 1 & 3/4 cups... not 1/2 cup as mentioned in the volume???


surely this can't be right.... right?... or have I been smoking cigars with the plastic still on?

cheers,
Mitch.

(sorry for the "thinking out loud" posting....)

[Dutchoven]

Originally Posted by Mitchamus

surely this can't be right.... right?... or have I been smoking cigars with the plastic still on?

cheers,
Mitch.

(sorry for the "thinking out loud" posting....)

I don't think you've been smoking cigars with the plastic on...sounds like there was something inadvertently omitted there...perhaps a character or two...we'll get it figured out
Best
Dutch

[Pdiff]

I've been having better luck with Hammelmans recipe. The folds are a bit messy, but help. I have also started using bricks in my conventional elec. oven. I use 3 standard red building bricks spaced evenly about 8" above my pizza stone. The oven is started at 500* 1-1.5 hrs before baking (usually turn it on as the final proof starts). This seems to work well for boosting the spring. Not as good as WFO, but until I get one built, it will do :-)

Does anyone here have opinions on the recommendation of adding a small amount of milk to the liquid to prevent excessive (large) pockets? The latest Cooks Illustrated suggested that. That is one issue I'm trying to clear up.

Pdiff