The one in the original post that Bittman posts with the video with Lahey.
Thereās definitely a lot of strings of dough sticking to the bowl.
I will try that. I skipped the proofing.
The flour is Central Milling Organic Unbleached All-purpose Flour. I believe the protein level is 11.5%. I would think that this type of flour should be good for this bread?
The pot is a Staub with a very heavy pot cover. I believe that cover should be tight, and that human error shouldnāt be an issue over 3 triesā¦
Itās not the yeast. If the yeast rises once, itāll rise twice. If it came out the same size it went in then you didnāt rise it the second time. If the yeast is active & does itās thing, the rest is just physics.
Compare with brand-new yeast packet. I buy my yeast in bricks, and store it in the fridge. As it ages, Iāve noticed I need a little more to get the same action. A tiny pinch of sugar in the water will also give the bugs a little boost.
Lahey also says the proofing is optional, so heās all about minimalism.
Also, have you considered your rise and proof temperatures? Iāve always tried to do both where I would be comfy in a t-shirt.
Aloha,
Kaleo
Probably few people have done as much trial and error with no knead as I have. Easily I had 30 tries before I got it acceptable (for the love of bread, I guess.) The first thing I would suspect is overhydration. Youāll still get stringy, sticky dough with too much water. Second thing is to make sure when it rises after shaping, itās not too short or too long. It was just trial and error for me to figure it out. When I make slashes in the bread, I can feel if itās right at that point. I kind of can tell now by how it feels, too (careful, be very gentle.) Definitely wasnāt easy to get the hang of.
Even when you do get it right, itās a different kind of bread, you may not even realize you got it right. I purchased an instant thermometer to make sure. It might take you a while to accept it as every day bread. We have a local bakery with high-hydration, flavor-developed Ciabatta that is very similar, so I still canāt get my family to accept it as anything other than Ciabatta-ish. Also, Lahey and Five-minute Artisan are very similar. I use the Lahey dough for recipes in the 5-minute Artisan book all the time. Lastly, I am currently in the anti-refrigeration camp for large loaves. Refrigeration makes it easier to handle, but I personally think it affects the rise ā both after shaping and in the oven ā especially for large rounds. Lots of more talented bakers than me disagree, though.
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One great variable is measuring by volume. You could try weighing your ingredients. I use the recipe that Clotilde of chocolateandzucchini.com figured out:
470 g flour
350 g water
10 g salt
0.8 g instant yeast.
If you wish to vary the amounts later, at least you know what youāre working with.
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Let us know if you try again.
Also, you can jot down the brand of flour (and even yeast) in your dough log. Additionally, I use Active Dry Yeast with no issue.
Edit: I looked at my ratios. The chocolateandzucchini recipe is actually lower than Iāve ever seen. I just started a batch based on those ratios out of curiosity. My instincts tell me it canāt self-knead with such little water. The original Lahey recipe (volume based, 3 cups flour) has far too much water for me. I always think of 1 cup flour = 128g flour. The weight measurements Bittman gives in his fine-tuning are pretty much exactly what I use.
Zucchini itself will add a lot of moisture.
This. Iāve made it about a hundred times now and every time itās a different bread and a new lesson 
Good thing is that mine (always a sourdough and contains various amounts of rye) looks and tastes a lot like sourdoughs I eat in Germany. The partner loves every loaf but I say thereās room for improvement (just like everything else).
PS: the slashing part is hard!
The chocolate & zucchini recipe works out to about 74% hydration. The earlier and later no-knead recipes work out to 100% or 92% hydration, taking 1 cup of flour to be 128 g. So how did your experiment turn out? I myself usually make a sourdough version, so my memory of the yeast version is fairly indistinct.
It was so wrong, I attribute it to user error. It had hardly self-kneaded. All I had on hand was a super-budget all-purpose flour. Iāll try again with a higher quality, higher protein flour I usually use, like King Arthur or Trader Joeās. And my scale sometimes doesnāt weigh small quantities correctly, so the yeast quantity may have been too much (affects flavor.)
Well, I have some King Arthurās bread flour now, so I guess Iāll try the standard recipe again. Iāll try with 92% hydration.
IMO 92% hydration is too high for this bread to bake up well as a boule. I believe the version I used when I was introduced to this method called for 1.5 cups of water (12 oz) to 3 cups of flour. The accepted weight of a cup of flour varies from source to source - King Arthur recommends 4.25 oz, Cookās Illustrated says 5 oz. If Iām using a recipe from a source that has its own recommendation, I use that measurement, but if no weight equivalent is listed I generally go with CIās recommendation, and thatās what I did with the no knead recipe. So, 15 oz of flour to 12 oz of water is 80% hydration, and I have always had success at that level. In my experience you can even go as low as 70-75% hydration and still get away with no kneading, although I generally do at least a few slap and folds at that level.
92-100% hydration has you in focaccia or ciabatta territory, where the dough will be so wet that it simply wonāt form a boule or other loaf shape - it will just spread into a puddle. This is fine if you want a ciabatta, but you will have to alter the baking time/temp/vessel to get it to turn out appropriately.
Yup, thatās what I had to do this time. Whenever I end up with a soupy mess because gluten doesnāt form for whatever reason, itās ciabatta time. Higher temp, no need for dutch oven or steam, otherwise by the time crust forms, inside will be overbaked.
75% hydration, more or less, is what I used to use. But this discussion prompted me to look at the new Bittman/Lahey video, and it appears that they call for 92%. Of course, my calculations may be wrong. But did you see the way the dough plopped out of the plastic container that Lahey had it in? If I end up with a dough that is completely impossible to work with, i.e., fold, then I can always add more flour.
I hadnāt watched the new video until just now, but they used 4 cups of flour (2.66 white and 1.33 whole wheat) and 2 cups of water. If you use a 5 oz cup of flour, thatās 20 oz flour and 16 oz water or 80% hydration. IMO the dough they show is much closer to 80% than 92%, so my guess is that they go with a 5 oz cup. A 92% hydration dough will be much, much soupier than that.
