Well, I made it and was pleased. Thanks, Kenneth. Photos and a write-up are
he http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/449...ne-style-miche

--
Jeff

"Jeff Miller" > wrote in message news:mailman.13.1192248784.79045.rec.food.sourdoug ...
> Well, I made it and was pleased. Thanks, Kenneth. Photos and a write-up are
> he http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/449...ne-style-miche

That looks really good, Jeff. But I guess it would be folly to try it with my
scale which weighs to a precision of only 1/4 ounce.

That looks really good, Jeff. But I guess it would be folly to try it with
my
scale which weighs to a precision of only 1/4 ounce.

I can loan you one of mine.

I wonder why everybody calls their bread "Poilane" or "Poilane style"
while it has nothing to do with Poilane's bread.
Poilane bread= flour t80, sea salt, water, ferment from last dough.

"viince" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>I wonder why everybody calls their bread "Poilane" or "Poilane style"
> while it has nothing to do with Poilane's bread.
> Poilane bread= flour t80, sea salt, water, ferment from last dough.
>
Then please give us the real recipe and method!
Graham

> Then please give us the real recipe and method!
> Graham

This is basically how they make their bread at Poilane:

Take old dough(from previous mix), make a preferment with it adding
flour and water to it (100 flour, 40 old dough, about 60water) making
it a tight dough.
Leave it for about an hour to proove.
Then mix the main dough, using:
100 flour T80 (a fine wholemeal. If no T80 available, I guess you can
just sieve wholemeal flour)
2 coarse sea salt
30 preferment

Enough water to make a nice dough, not too tight.

Mix for 7mn first speed, put in a wooden box for prooving, about and
hour and half. Scale your dough 2.2Kg, round up, put in a banneton
with lots of flour. proove these for about an hour, or however long it
will take. 15 mn before they are ready to proove, put lots of wood on
your oven, leave the flame warm up the oven for 10mn, then put water
for steam and start loading your oven, slashing the top with a nice P.
Bake for about an hour. When taking out the bottom of bread should be
almost black.
Of course that's if you have a wood oven like them

They don't actually weight the flour like I said there, instead they
weigh the water and have the matching amounts of preferement and salt
to the water weigh, after they just add the flour until the dough is
good. But I recalculated it for the flour weigh because I think it's
easier.

This is what I learnt when I went for a trial at Poilane's
I know it is pretty disapointing, all these dreams of long
fermentation, and technology of baking, there's nothing like that
there. I'm not saying their bread is not good, it's really good bread,
but it's far from being the best. That's why it makes me laugh when I
see people exchanging Poilane recipes and Poilane starters on the
internet

Keep up the good work anyway!

On Oct 15, 5:53 am, viince > wrote:
> > Then please give us the real recipe and method!
> > Graham
>
> This is basically how they make their bread at Poilane:
>
> Take old dough(from previous mix), make a preferment with it adding
> flour and water to it (100 flour, 40 old dough, about 60water) making
> it a tight dough.
> Leave it for about an hour to proove.
> Then mix the main dough, using:
> 100 flour T80 (a fine wholemeal. If no T80 available, I guess you can
> just sieve wholemeal flour)
> 2 coarse sea salt
> 30 preferment
>
> Enough water to make a nice dough, not too tight.
>
> Mix for 7mn first speed, put in a wooden box for prooving, about and
> hour and half. Scale your dough 2.2Kg, round up, put in a banneton
> with lots of flour. proove these for about an hour, or however long it
> will take. 15 mn before they are ready to proove, put lots of wood on
> your oven, leave the flame warm up the oven for 10mn, then put water
> for steam and start loading your oven, slashing the top with a nice P.
> Bake for about an hour. When taking out the bottom of bread should be
> almost black.
> Of course that's if you have a wood oven like them
>
> They don't actually weight the flour like I said there, instead they
> weigh the water and have the matching amounts of preferement and salt
> to the water weigh, after they just add the flour until the dough is
> good. But I recalculated it for the flour weigh because I think it's
> easier.
>
> This is what I learnt when I went for a trial at Poilane's
> I know it is pretty disapointing, all these dreams of long
> fermentation, and technology of baking, there's nothing like that
> there. I'm not saying their bread is not good, it's really good bread,
> but it's far from being the best. That's why it makes me laugh when I
> see people exchanging Poilane recipes and Poilane starters on the
> internet
>
> Keep up the good work anyway!

Very interesting. Reminds me of Hamelman's book. He does a lot with
pre-ferment stages. And it suggests that the starter is never
refrigerated... :-)

What we do not know is whether or not the flour supplied to the
Poilane bakers is already blended. I assume Poilane has custom flour
so I would not discount the spelt component.

On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 06:09:27 -0700, Will
> wrote:

>What we do not know is whether or not the flour supplied to the
>Poilane bakers is already blended. I assume Poilane has custom flour
>so I would not discount the spelt component.

Howdy,

The Poilne website describes their use of spelt...

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

> Very interesting. Reminds me of Hamelman's book. He does a lot with
> pre-ferment stages. And it suggests that the starter is never
> refrigerated... :-)

I've been keeping mine between 64-70 F and have noticed a difference
in the flavor of the bread which I find favorable. It seems to have a
fuller flavor and pleasant lingering finish. This might, however, be
the result of other variables I am overlooking. What are your
experiences with keeping your starter at different temperatures?

> What we do not know is whether or not the flour supplied to the
> Poilane bakers is already blended. I assume Poilane has custom flour
> so I would not discount the spelt component.- Hide quoted text -

I've been dabbling in spelt here and there since I tried Ken Forkish's
bread in Portland, OR. My understanding is that he is also a fan of
Pain Poilane. I haven't had the latter, but Ken's bread has a
wonderful creamy mouth feel that I attribute to the spelt. I'm
endeavoring lately to discern the difference in the bread from
addition of spelt in the final mix and that of the starter maintained
with a portion of spelt.

-erich

"viince" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
>> Then please give us the real recipe and method!
>> Graham
>
> This is basically how they make their bread at Poilane:
>
> Take old dough(from previous mix), make a preferment with it adding
> flour and water to it (100 flour, 40 old dough, about 60water) making
> it a tight dough.
> Leave it for about an hour to proove.
> Then mix the main dough, using:
> 100 flour T80 (a fine wholemeal. If no T80 available, I guess you can
> just sieve wholemeal flour)
> 2 coarse sea salt
> 30 preferment
>
> Enough water to make a nice dough, not too tight.
>
> Mix for 7mn first speed, put in a wooden box for prooving, about and
> hour and half. Scale your dough 2.2Kg, round up, put in a banneton
> with lots of flour. proove these for about an hour, or however long it
> will take. 15 mn before they are ready to proove, put lots of wood on
> your oven, leave the flame warm up the oven for 10mn, then put water
> for steam and start loading your oven, slashing the top with a nice P.
> Bake for about an hour. When taking out the bottom of bread should be
> almost black.
> Of course that's if you have a wood oven like them
>
> They don't actually weight the flour like I said there, instead they
> weigh the water and have the matching amounts of preferement and salt
> to the water weigh, after they just add the flour until the dough is
> good. But I recalculated it for the flour weigh because I think it's
> easier.
>
> This is what I learnt when I went for a trial at Poilane's
> I know it is pretty disapointing, all these dreams of long
> fermentation, and technology of baking, there's nothing like that
> there. I'm not saying their bread is not good, it's really good bread,
> but it's far from being the best. That's why it makes me laugh when I
> see people exchanging Poilane recipes and Poilane starters on the
> internet
>
> Keep up the good work anyway!
>

Many thanks! I've saved it to try during one of those depressing, snowed in
days this winter!
Graham

On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:53:05 -0000, viince
> wrote:

>I know it is pretty disapointing, all these dreams of long
>fermentation, and technology of baking, there's nothing like that
>there. I'm not saying their bread is not good, it's really good bread,
>but it's far from being the best. That's why it makes me laugh when I
>see people exchanging Poilane recipes and Poilane starters on the
>internet

Howdy,

It is nice to hear that it makes you laugh, but your
comments above include the very reason for the behavior that
amuses you.

It is certainly true that commercial bakers often have
access to tools and techniques that home bakers lack.

But (particularly with regard to technique) home bakers
often have resources that commercial bakers do not, or at
least, would prefer not, to use. Very long fermentation is
probably the most obvious of those. If commercial bakers do
it, their costs soar. For home bakers, there is no such
cost.

As you have said, the Poilne loaf is "far from being the
best."

That would seem to leave some room for improvement. How
better to do that than by experimenting with different
approaches?

And regarding the starter:

Though they no longer do it, years ago, folks at the Poilne
bakery were happy to offer home-baker customers a pinch of
their levain.

It certainly makes sense to me that it would be shared with
others interested in having it.

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

> Take old dough(from previous mix), make a preferment with it adding
> flour and water to it (100 flour, 40 old dough, about 60water) making
> it a tight dough.
> Leave it for about an hour to proove.
> Then mix the main dough, using:
> 100 flour T80 (a fine wholemeal. If no T80 available, I guess you can
> just sieve wholemeal flour)
> 2 coarse sea salt
> 30 preferment

Are the numbers grams or baker's percentages?

Jonathan Kandell wrote:
>> Take old dough(from previous mix), make a preferment with it adding
>> flour and water to it (100 flour, 40 old dough, about 60water) making
>> it a tight dough.
>> Leave it for about an hour to proove.
>> Then mix the main dough, using:
>> 100 flour T80 (a fine wholemeal. If no T80 available, I guess you can
>> just sieve wholemeal flour)
>> 2 coarse sea salt
>> 30 preferment
>>
>
> Are the numbers grams or baker's percentages?
>
Hmmm..given that the numbers above total 332, that would be a rather
small loaf. Considering that the Poilane miche is supposed to be two
kilograms, I'd have to guess the numbers would be bakers percentages.
It is also interesting that there is neither yeast nor water in the
final dough. Old dough is usually a yeasted process, and the yeast has
to come from somewhere! Also, there isn't enough water in the
pre-ferment to adequately hydrate the dough.

Let's assume we are shooting for 80% hydration, which is reasonable for
a whole wheat bread. (also, if you grind your own wheat with a
micronizer mill, sifting probably won't help - the particles are too
uniform to sift well.) Instead of sifting the whole wheat flour, one
could also dilute it with some all-purpose or bread flour. All-purpose
is probably closer to a classic French flour, so mixing about 80% whole
wheat and 20% all-purpose would be close enough. Since some of the
water will come from the preferment, I'll drop the amount of water to
about 76%. It's close enough for bread making.

Finally, the yeast. How much to use? I'd guess is about .3% instant
yeast, again, as a bakers percentage.

To make a two kilogram loaf with that recipe, try:

Preferment:
144 grams Flour
58 grams Old Dough
86 grams Water

Final dough:
960 grams Flour
19 grams Salt
730 grams Water
288 grams Preferment
3 grams Instant Yeast

If anyone tries it, I'd appreciate hearing how it turned out. I'm not
sure when I'll be able to try it.

A few more interesting observations..... Bernard Clayton has a recipe
that was approved by Pierre Poilane, the father of Lionel, that was a
straight dough - no sourdough, no old dough, no poolish. Also no spelt,
and little whole wheat. If you go to their web site, they tell you they
use 30% spelt (it isn't clear if that is a bakers percentage or a more
conventional percentage) and a sourdough process. It seems that there
are a number of hints about the Poilane formula, and that they are all
different.

Mike


--
Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

Once seen on road signs all over the United States:
Spread it on
And lightly too
Shave it off
That's all
You're through
Burma-Shave

On Oct 25, 11:44 pm, Jonathan Kandell > wrote:
> > Take old dough(from previous mix), make a preferment with it adding
> > flour and water to it (100 flour, 40 old dough, about 60water) making
> > it a tight dough.
> > Leave it for about an hour to proove.
> > Then mix the main dough, using:
> > 100 flour T80 (a fine wholemeal. If no T80 available, I guess you can
> > just sieve wholemeal flour)
> > 2 coarse sea salt
> > 30 preferment
>
> Are the numbers grams or baker's percentages?

Yes obviously.
100 flour
65 water
2 salt
30 preferment
The water content depends on your dough, it could be 64 as it could be
68 at the end. This is something you need to adjust while you're
working your dough.

For poilane size loaf:

Preferment
170 flour
68 Old dough
102 water

Dough
1120 flour
730 water
22 salt
335 preferment

That's for 2.2Kg of dough, it should weigh about 1.9kg after baking.

Jeff Miller wrote:
> Well, I made it and was pleased. Thanks, Kenneth. Photos and a write-up
> are he
> http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/449...ne-style-miche

Looks nice, but is that red cast an artifact of the camera? Poilane
doesn't have that.

B/

The loaf was a reddish-gold color. The photo is more red than the loaf was,
most likely because of the flash, but there was definitely red in the crust.
--
Jeff

On 10/13/07, Brian Mailman > wrote:
>
> Jeff Miller wrote:
> > Well, I made it and was pleased. Thanks, Kenneth. Photos and a write-up
> > are he
> > http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/449...ne-style-miche
>
> Looks nice, but is that red cast an artifact of the camera? Poilane
> doesn't have that.
>
> B/
> _______________________________________________
> rec.food.sourdough mailing list
>
> http://www.otherwhen.com/mailman/lis...food.sourdough
>
> To unsubscribe send a mail to nd then reply to the confirmation request.
>

Jeff Miller wrote:
> The loaf was a reddish-gold color. The photo is more red than the loaf
> was, most likely because of the flash, but there was definitely red in
> the crust.

OK.

Just for reference, Poilane is more gray-brown, and the crumb is
opalescent in a way.

It's also not so fine-grained. It's not "open," mind, you with holes,
but the texture seems a bit coarser than the picture.

B/

Brian Mailman wrote:
> Jeff Miller wrote:
>> Well, I made it and was pleased. Thanks, Kenneth. Photos and a
>> write-up are he
>> http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/449...ne-style-miche
>
> Looks nice, but is that red cast an artifact of the camera? Poilane
> doesn't have that.
>
> B/
Red cast?

Norm

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Oct 13, 5:13 am, "Jeff Miller" > wrote:
> Well, I made it and was pleased. Thanks, Kenneth. Photos and a write-up are
> hehttp://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/449...ne-style-miche
>
> --
> Jeff

You bread looks very good though! nice crust. looks real yummy!, but
it doesn't really look like Poilane's bread. Yours looks a lot more
Wholemeal! You could try sieving your wholemeal flour to have a less
coarse texture to the bread.