Batch 577

Batch 577 emerged from the oven at 1300 this afternoon, complete with distinctive bubbles. But a big advance on what had been happening recently, with the bread not holding its second rise and collapsing either before it made it into the oven or shortly afterwards. Here we had more care with the timing of the second rise and just a partial collapse after entry to the oven, followed by recovery during cooking.

Part of this failing to hold the second rise was using exotic wholemeal flour - with reference 2 being about one such flour (Khorasan) and reference 3 about another (Waitrose essential wholemeal), part was not using my usual very strong white flour from the Waitrose Leckford Estate (discussed, for example, at reference 4) and part seemed to be just trying for too much second rise, with it now being clear that more rise is not necessarily better. This last having been a problem with the Ponder's End bread flour and the Italian yeast which I took to using in default of my regular supplies from Waitrose.

Today on the Ponder's End bread flour cut with some of Carr's wholemeal, the people noticed at reference 5. The people who make the famous table water biscuits, still to be found in the better eateries. Next batch, back on my usual Waitrose stoneground wholemeal from the prairies of Canada.

Although not as much of a problem as at might first appear, given that some of the earlier rises were fakes, such as that snapped at reference 1, with the surface, the skin of the bread being a good way above the bread proper. Bread with an unwanted cavity, although BH liked to chew on the skin. Cavities which I think are absent from the two loaves illustrated here.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/05/lost.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/06/pre-historic-flour.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/06/disaster-567.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/11/background-processing.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/04/table-water.html.