Sponge and Gear

Pre Treatment

This mix of bread will use a sponge method, where a small amount of yeast is allowed to ferment overnight, then mixed with the remaining flour and water.


The basic pre-mix (100:60 flour:water)

• 300 gm King Arthur Whole Wheat (WW) + 700 gm King Arthur All Purpose (adds wheat fiber and amylase)
• 600 gm water heated to 40C
• 7gm La Vahiné yeast (relatively slow acting)
• 15gm Melao

Mix the water, yeast and melao, let proof for 20 minutes. Then mix 7 minutes at second speed to make a tight ball of dough.

Cover mixing bowl with wrap and let stand at 26C (Miami room temperature) for 8-10 hours.




Mixing

The following morning, take the risen sponge:

and mix with the required water for the additional flour

• 3kg King Arthur Bread Flour
• 1.8kg water at 40C
• 80 gm salt (based on 4kg total flour)

Heated water to 40C and dissolve salt. Then added to sponge in mixer and mixed for 20 minutes. Add flour and mixed 9 minutes at first speed.

Use a serious mixer; sponge being mixed in water and salt

It looks like this after flour and water are incorporated at 9 minutes

Rising

Since the yeast has limited mobility in a stiff dough, the first risings will be weak.

Raised at 25C for one hour, then knocked down. Repeat twice, but after the third knockdown, begin dividing and forming bread.

A Note on Non-Stick Spray

Non-stick spray simplifies handling divided dough on rising trays. A light coating keeps plastic wrap from sticking and individual boules sticking to each other. This is a simple recipe for making large amounts of non-stick spray for baking sheets.

The mix depends on water, alcohol, lecithin, and vegetable oil. Water and alcohol are used to dilute the oil so it is capable of being sprayed. Lecithin emulsifies the mixture to prevent it from separating in the sprayer. Lecithin has an immense emulsifying capacity, provided it is whipped highly enough to provide a large, effective oil emulsifying area. Harold McGee has a good treatment of the effect here.

Ingredients

For 100 parts of non-stick spray:

• 47 parts vegetable oil (canola is a good high temperature oil)
• 48 parts cachaça, or vodka. (Cachaça is Brazilian cane alcohol that can be purchased in Brazil for 60-95 cents per liter. You can also drink it.)
• 5 parts liquid soy lecithin. (This is overkill, but you are not going to drink non-stick spray)

In a blender, mix the soy lecithin with the cachaça until the lecithin is fully dispersed. This is critical since the small lecithin droplets in the alcohol-water suspension will emulsify the oil.

Lecithin in Cachaça

Add the oil slowly with high agitation of the lecithin-cachaça mix. The oil will emulsify on the lecithin droplets. You can add HUGE amounts of oil to this mix and it will not separate. Since the idea is to keep the non-stick spray from becoming too oily, I stop at a near 1:1 mixture.

Oil emulsified and finally put into the sprayer

Sprayed on baking sheets--Note the even sheen

Forming

This baking was intended for shipment. Therefore, Kaiser style rolls were formed by overhand knotting. The 6.4kg load was divided into 64 100 gm balls, allowed to rise for 35 minutes, the rolled into strands for knotting.

Scaling and rolling into balls

Baking

Baked at 230C, oven stones soaked at temperature >45 minutes. Bake time 13 minutes on stone.


Results