In article
,
"Dick Adams" wrote:

"williamwaller" wrote in message
news:mailman.0.1095552750.243.rec.food.sourdough@m ail.otherwhen.com...

[ ... ]

("Roland hits a homer!")

Works like a dream. Loaves literally soared in the oven. Beautiful
wide-open
crumb.

We don't know what results Roland gets, or you either, until we get some
photos.





Well, I did bake over the weekend. 100 %sourdough, 25% Whole wheat, 65%
hydration. The results were not a show off loaf, but I can mail you
photos that you are welcome to post on your site. Can you accept large
pictures( 4 pics 500-650 KB each)?

The loaf did not have any oven spring because of constraints I had wrt
to timing but nonetheless illustrates my main point:

You will see that the large irregular holes (& incipient large holes
that did not swell) in the loaf I show actually follow a swirl pattern
that reflects how I rolled up the loaf (clear in at least a few of the
photos I will send you). Had there been better gassing and oven spring
(you will see the loaf is compressed on the bottom) the texture of the
crumb would have been better with the hole size range in the main body
of the crumb matching the large uneven holes - the swirl pattern of the
holes would not have been so obvious because the holes would have been
evenly matched.

Here is a link from a flour supplier whose ideas wrt to mixing are in
consonance with my own.

http://www.progressivebaker.com/class/section5.htm#


By the way they are a division of Cargil, and supply a number of Artisan
bakeries. While you can easily dismiss my opinions you can be assured
they would be stupid to promote misinformation because this is their
business.


Incidentally, I do not dispute that stretch and fold develops the dough.
With respect to the irregular hole texture I feel that it is really the
process of creating dough laminations (like puff pastry - only instead
of butter to separate layers, you are using a little flour) that is most
important. Secondly, I am not claiming that all holes originate this way
- only the large irregular holes.

Since I am a scientist I offer an experiment that might falsify my
theory:

Next time wcsjohn (or others) use the technique instead of stretching
the dough roll it out with a rolling pin with heavy pressure. Make the
same folds and roll out with heavy pressure with a rolling pin again.
Repeat cycles with rolling pin and heavy pressure. This will squeeze
out most of the trapped air bubbles and I would predict that the crumb
would not have the same amount of large irregular holes as simple
stretch and fold (fingers crossed ).

Roland