My failing no knead bread- why??

I always calculated a cup of flour as 125g or about 4.25 oz. But I’m all in favor of minimizing work and maximizing success, so I’ll try it with 80%, as you suggest. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I took your advice and made a dough with 80% hydration. It looked like Lahey’s dough, and seemed to act like it when I folded it. Here’s what the bread looks like. I hope that I uploaded the pictures properly.

(Don’t see any pictures.)

Nor do I! I must have done it wrong. Any suggestions? Size?

The green tinges are a gift of the camera. They do not appear on the bread!

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used a cast iron cocotte, real hot when I threw the dough in. No its not as suave as how Jim Lahey did it, but nonetheless the dough got in. (Though when the dough got in, it was back to the pre-fermentation size since I folded it a few times)
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I think something is happening at this point. The dough should rise before going into the pot. And overly rough handling will deflate it to the point where the initial oven spring doesn’t happen correctly - causing a very squat dense loaf. There could be temp and hydration issues compounding this but my first guess is dough handling.

I would guess not a long enough second rise (or the temperature in your room was too cool for sufficient rise to occur in the time allotted), old yeast and/or possibly insufficient gluten formation. Dough handling maybe as well, although in my experience this dough can overcome a lot of abuse if the gluten forms properly during the bulk ferment and is then allowed to rest/rise sufficiently.

Do you know what the temperature of your room during the bulk fermentation and/or second rise? Was the bowl sitting on a stone surface, wood, Formica, on a rack, etc. - and what was the bowl itself made of? How long did you let it rest/rise after folding? When you took it out of the bowl after the bulk fermentation, how did it feel? Gassy/bubbly and light, or heavy and clay-like? Were there any large, stretchy bubbles visible or only small ones? What brand of flour did you use? And how much salt (salt retards yeast)?

Well, the first thing to say is that the bread was delicious. I didn’t have any whole wheat flour around, so I added some whole rye flour, not 1/3 of the weight, more like 1/6 of the total flour weight. Salt was 2%. The kitchen, actually the whole house is not overly warm, since we are having one of the coldest winters of the last 25 years.

Nevertheless, the dough rose very well. So well, that it appeared to be more voluminous than I am used to. So I used a larger container to bake it in. So when I dropped it in, trying not to burn myself, it probably deflated a little. The rye flour would also affect the volume, since it is basically lacking in gluten.

But it did show, at least to me, that 80% hydration is ideal.

Glad to hear you had some success bc. Baking, like anything else requires practice. Keep at it.

Well it was a success, if not a complete success. Most of the bread I make is sourdough, so most of the no-kneads that I make are are with leftover sourdough. Many of them are much uglier than this one!

That crumb looks fine to me. If flavor is fine, use more dough or a smaller pan for a taller loaf? The green color is off, but if that’s just the camera…

The original pictures don’t have that green tinge. I had to reduce them to 5% of their original size to get them to load, and that’s when the discoloration showed up.

Given that you added rye flour, I am not surprised that this loaf was a little dense. Not only does rye lack gluten, the bran has sharp edges that will effectively cut gluten strands, creating a denser loaf with smaller bubbles (this is true of whole wheat flour also).

What you say about the inclusion of rye flour is entirely true. The only point I wanted to make is that if one measures by weight instead of by volume, one has a better idea of what the dough contains, and if one wishes to adjust the dough, one has a better idea of how to do so.

Agreed. I bake almost exclusively by weight for this reason.

Gorgeous crust!

Thanks.

Was reading Five Minute Artisan Pizza today and saw a note that bleached AP flour has too low a protein content and is not recommended. Although the Nutritional Facts indicate protein is the same as unbleached, I have learned those Facts are sometimes inaccurate.

Interesting. Is their pizza dough recipe substantially different from their bread? I add gluten to my pizza dough but not bread - the little bit of added gluten makes the pizza dough easier to stretch to the proper thinness without breaking. Bread works fine with all-purpose flour, although I do usually buy unbleached. Do they recommend a specific brand? I prefer Heckers or King Arthur to the other brands usually available at my grocery store (Pillsbury, Gold Medal, etc.). I think protein content varies a bit by brand, which may make a larger difference than bleached vs. unbleached.

The pizza dough is not substantially different, but there is more flour from what I remember. Will give exact ratio when I get home. They actually use Gold Medal Unbleached All-Purpose, but I agree KA is superior.

I’m confident that protein level is the key factor. King Arthur AP flour is a bit higher in protein than most (all?) other AP brands, but still I use KA Bread Flour, which is even higher in protein, for bread making and pizza.

This thread prompted me to look more into the science of “bleaching” flour. I always have used unbleached. Turns out that bleached flours don’t use bleach these days but various chlorides, peroxides, bromates, all of which serve not just to whiten the flour but also to speed the necessary aging of the wheat. I’m sure speed is the driving economic factor for producers, just as using gobs of commercial yeast is why you can buy some bread loaves for $1 while most retail artisan loaves (which take longer) go for north of $4.

At home I go for KA flours but also find unbleached Gold Medal to be a good flour for everyday things like pancakes, biscuits, even pizzas in most pizza styles.

Buying tip: try organic grocers or even a bread maker to find 25lb bags of King Arthur bread flour. If a store sells plastic bags of King Arthur flour in bulk, they are producing that from these bigger bags. Vastly cheaper to buy that way. By the way, you might find that the commercial bags of KA bread flour are labeled not as “Bread Flour” but as “King Arthur Special.” That’s not a labeling to be found at retail or even on King Arthur’s own site. It only goes to commercial buyers.

Years ago I got a food-safe storage bucket–essentially a huge tupperware thing–that holds 25lbs:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/flour-bucket-large

Something akin to that, maybe Cambro brand, could probably be found at a local restaurant supply store.