Ache de custom au levain

Just a few months in the past I used to be given some French flour by my sister after her vacation in Brittany. So it was time to have one other attempt at “correct” French ache au levain.

I’ve tried to make a very good ache au levain with correct French flour a number of occasions earlier than, however by no means had a lot success, typically ending up with a dry, lifeless crumb. The final time I attempted, I used the Prof Calvel’s recipe from his guide le Goût du Ache (the French model – he elevated the hydration within the American guide, presumably for American flours). I wasn’t proud of the end result. Additionally, as an apart, I discover his recipes are tough to observe! That is how the crumb appeared:

It was time to search for one other recipe. I am a member of BoulangerieNet.fr so I headed over there and appeared for a very good recipe.

Ultimately I got here throughout this one, which appeared good to me (translated to English):

“10 kg CRC t85 stoneground flour

7l of water

-autolysis 30 min

5 kg of stiff levain (at all times half the load of flour)

360 g of salt

10g recent yeast

400g water

11min in 1st then 3 in 2nd (fork mixer)

temperature on the finish of kneading 27°c and as much as 29-30°c when it’s chilly.

bulk approx. 30min then fold and one other 30 min

scale and preshape not too tight then shaping.

blocking in a 4°c room then gradual progress at 13°c roughly 11 hours.

chance of blocking for 2-3 hours at 4°c relying in your availability within the oven.”

Be aware the addition of recent yeast; French legislation permits addition of as much as 0.2% in ache au levain.

At first I did not perceive the blocage/blocking steps, but it surely seems that avoidance of night time work in French bakeries has at all times been an enormous factor, so a retarder/proofer known as a Panem got here into being.

This crash cools the formed loaves to 4c after which it has a ramping set level to extend the loaf temp to 13c prepared for baking within the morning.

I haven’t got a ramping controller, however I do have a small devoted dough fridge with digital stat.

So I crash cooled the formed loaves to 4C – as I usually would. Then at 11pm I modified the set level to 9.5C, baking at 9am the next morning.

I believe this system is used as a result of the majority time is only one hour, so the dough is underdeveloped after bulk.

I additionally did some analysis on the levain, to maintain issues genuine. Historically the French bakers have used a stiff (50% hydrn) levain (levain dur) and so they developed a 3 step construct, to make sure a minimal amount of previous levain went into the dough.

This was devised within the 18th century and is named  “Le travail sur 3 levains”:

I am afraid I discover the French levain construct diagrams over advanced and difficult to observe, however ultimately I got here up with my very own model which is proven in my bread log. It consists of some preliminary refreshes to get the levain in tip high situation.

My predominant levain is already a stiff levain (50%) consumed French T65 flour, so I used to be good to go along with it.

For the primary dough, I just about adopted the recipe from BoulangerieNet, with scaled down portions. I did not have any T80 or T85 flour, so I used a mix of T65 and T110. I stored the blending motion mild, with 6 min low velocity and 1.5 min excessive velocity (spiral mixer).

As anticipated, I noticed NO dough quantity rise through the 1 hour bulk.

I used to be fairly happy with how the loaves turned out, with good ears, skinny crispy crust and fairly open crumb. I used to be proud of the flavour, however I am unable to say that it tasted any higher than if I had used British flours!

Full recipe and course of particulars in my bread log

I believe if you’d like a real French style, the one reply is to eat the bread in France!