I accidentally let it slip in front of the boss that I like to bake and now I’m stuck making the sourdough at the restaurant I work at, dog I’ve been here like a month, I don’t want to be workshopping your bread recipe. bread’s getting good though, but I hate baking in a combi steam oven.
like, it looks great, but the crumb is still too dense for my liking and doesn’t really get the squishy soft texture I’m looking for. It’s a slightly upscale buffet restaurant, and I really want guests to fill up on (good) bread so we can save on food costs and time refilling the actual dishes.
Does anyone have any tips for open baking in a combi oven?
We’re doing like 8-10 loaves a day when it gets busy.
Right now I’m doing a blend of manitoba, rye and a semi wholegrain heritage grain with high protein, 72% hydration and a starter that doubles in 4-5 hours. 4 sets of stretch and fold after kneading it in the bread mixer for around 5 minutes, total bulk ferment is around 5 hours and then cold ferment in the walk-in overnight.
Baked with 100% steam at 230c for 15 minutes with no fan, then no steam, still no fan, at 210c for 20-25 minutes and then 240c for a bit for the colour.
I think this one had some uneven fermentation for some reason, and the oven spring was lacking, even with the nice ear that formed, crumb is good, but dense
this one was really nice, but it spread out a little too much because I had too high hydration, around 80% (the other ones in the batch looked a lot flatter)
I feel like the bottom rack of the smaller oven produces the best loaves, but I can’t really justify only baking 3 loaves at a time when we only have 2 small ovens and 1 big and produce food for around 100-200 people on weekends
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I’m not a baker yet but they prove the dough for a somewhat long time on the great British bake off.
You accidentally made your new hobby into part of your job lol. RIP you
I’ve got a pretty solid bread game and my main guess is maybe you’ve just gotta let it sit longer before cooking. The photos look great but I haven’t chomped down on it. I can swing this by my chef tomorrow tho, his bread game has placed decently in international competition, just above middle of the pack but in a pretty high level contest. He might be able to give some more advice.
You’re thinking when the cold ferment is done and I’m ready to bake? Right now I take it out and let it sit at room temp for around an hour in the morning, but I could try letting them rise using the proofing function on the oven.
Any advice would be great if he has the time
I hear avian flu is popping off, so I expect you’ll have a few weeks/months coming up here to perfect your sourdough game.
it’s cold and i want to dip bread into soups and stews
that bread looks like it would be amazing for that
I think your bread looks nice I have nothing to offer here
i wish i could help, but i am like bullshit dilettante level with bread compared to the pros. yours look fantastic to me, and i would have to retrain my way of thinking to work a combi. i am still putting like pans of water in my shitty conventional.
but, i am highly opinionated about bread, and one of the trends that irritates me is it seems like everybody wants to make the perfect boule to start because it’s the boulangerie “peasant loaf”. to me, this is like some “I’m Picasso” move of trying to draw the hands of the peasants. peasant foods are simple in design but mastered in process and execution over, usually, multiple lifetimes with parents passing down wisdom to children.
if i was running the restaurant i would shoot for ciabatta. it’s smaller, so less waste, especially on the cock ups. it can be sliced for the table or ripped at the table to dip easy, and one can make pimp ass modest sandwiches with it. and it wouldn’t be a restaurant, it would be a deli, and so help me god if you 👈 don’t have your 🤚order🤏 figured out by time you get to the 🤌front of the line🤘, you’re outta👈👆👉 here.
You’re not wrong, Paulie, these goombas don’t appreciate a proper working man’s bread. We’re also doing a basic focaccia to provide some variety, but it’s baked in loaf tins so they get way too crispy. Trying to convince them to do it properly but I’m not about to take on even more tasks
Are you doing the stretch and fold on the whole wad or individual loaves? I would want the latter, just because that’s what I know. Otherwise the bread does look fantastic, and your boss should get you an appretinceship at a bakery if it’s important to him.
I’m doing the whole dough at once, it’s around 6 kg and can get kinda tricky to get even folds, so maybe dividing it into two after the initial mixing would help, good shout
if the flavor and crunchiness of the crust is there, 99% of customers will enjoy it despite the crumb or whatever
(disclaimer: I say this as someone who knows a little about baking bread, but more about eating it)
Do what you loaf and you’ll never work a day in your life
could it be that they’re overproofing by a bit? i have very little to suggest as an amateur baker that it seems like you might not have thought of. all of these look better than my best loaves.
You come in here posting this and asking for advice? how about if instead you tell us how to make bread this nice in a home oven where one doesn’t have steam control?
Nice bread for sure comrade, get it
Home baking is ‘easy’ if you have a good dough, just pop that shit in a cast iron dutch oven (to create a steamy environment) and uncover after 15-20 minutes to finish baking
Other tips:
Don’t worry about getting picture perfect loaves with nice ears etc, just focus on incrementally improving the dough according to your specific circumstances.
Choice of flour, ambient temperature, scheduling when to bake and when to feed the starter are more important than shaping technique and your oven.
Always keep a log of what you’ve been doing so you can reference specific variables.
Try to lower the hydration at first so you can have an easier time working with the dough and shaping the loaf, then gradually increase hydration until you get the result you want.
Sometimes flour from the same brand has more or less water content and you need to adjust to that.
Would love to be able to give feedback or advice like you’re asking for but all I can give are complements. That bread looks amazing. I would love it with some kind of butter or dip or soup. The crust-to-fluffly-inside ratio looks optimal too, and that’s the most important thing for sourdough for me personally.
