All About Ciabatta: notes from a class

Ever since last May when I attended All About Ciabatta, a Bread Bakers' Guild of America's (BBGA) class taught by Master Baker Didier Rosada (see Of Bread and Bridges: A Baking Weekend in San Antonio), I have been meaning to share what I learned as well as some photos and videos but most annoyingly, life intervened, notably in the shape of a shattered wrist, and I didn't get around to it. Since I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to the Italian bakers who invented ciabattas (the only bread I was able to tackle one-handed last summer because it requires no shaping) and to Didier for teaching me how to make it without fuss or fear, I am more than happy to pick up the slack today. As my indulgent mom used to say, better late than never! Except where otherwise indicated, all the information below comes from the notes I took during the class. 

Tools

• All the doughs were mixed using a spiral mixer
• At home, I use a 6-quart mixer with a dough hook

Flour

• The bread flour used during the class was hard red winter wheat (11%-11.5% protein)

Preferments: a recap

What's a preferment?
"A preferment is a dough or batter prepared prior to mixing the final dough and composed of a portion of the total formula's water, yeast (natural or commercial) and sometimes salt. The dough (or batter) is allowed to ferment for a controlled period of time and then added to the final dough."
From Didier Rosada, Your Guide to Preferments, an online article I recommend reading for a better understanding of the various preferments and their applications

Old dough
Old dough can be used as a preferment for ciabatta. A good average is 40 to 50% of total flour. Using old dough is an easy way to have a quick preferment. But old dough has already been mixed fully once, which means it should be added at the end of the mixing time (so that it doesn’t get mixed again). Which is NOT the case for biga.

Biga
Biga is a very stiff preferment which came originally from Italy. If you choose biga, use 1% of yeast and let the biga ferment for 18 hours at 60°F. Remember to watch the water percentage in the final dough: hydration may need to be adjusted. If necessary, you can keep biga at 45°F (just up the yeast a little bit). As a preferment, it is more strongly flavored and more acidic than poolish.

Poolish
Poolish was invented by Polish bakers and brought to France by Austrians. A transition between sourdough and commercial yeast, it is one of the first preferments made with the latter. It has a sweet nutty flavor profile. A poolish is ready when it shows lots of bubbles and crevices and offers some resistance.

The amount of yeast to use in the poolish depends on the length of the fermentation. In the table below, please note that "total flour" refers to the total flour used in the poolish.

If you choose to let your poolish ferment overnight, always add to it 0.1% salt (1 g of salt for 1000 g of flour) as it will help you control the fermentation much better.
For reasons of personal convenience, I have always let my poolish ferment overnight. Ever since I took Didier's class, I have been systematically using in it 0.1% yeast and 0.1% salt and I am delighted with the results: no more overripe and defeated poolish!

Sponge
Sponge was invented by the British. Hydrated at 60%, it ferments overnight at the same temperature as the poolish.

Gluten development

• When the gluten is 100% developed, the gluten window is transparent. The finer the veins on the window, the more developed the gluten
• Always relate dough temperature to gluten development: if your recipe calls for full development of the gluten, use a lower water temperature
• Adequate dough consistency, gluten development and dough temperature will give the process a good start. If careful thought isn't given to all three, troubleshooting will be necessary 

Ciabatta: a historical perspective

• In the old days, Italian wheat was very weak and a very stiff preferment was needed to reinforce the dough. Accordingly ciabatta dough was traditionally leavened with biga, then set to ferment overnight at low temperature. A long fermentation at low temperature produced acidity which made the dough stronger. One can still see biga cellars in old Italian bakeries
• Most of the wheat in Italy now comes from France and Germany and is low in protein (10 to 10.5%). It is stronger than the old Italian wheat, which means that biga is no longer the preferment of choice for ciabatta: it makes the dough too strong
• Even though today's Italian bakers still call most preferments biga, they generally use poolish in their ciabatta. (In the United States, the term biga is often preferred for marketing reasons: it sounds more romantic than old dough!)
• Today in Italy, ciabatta is often made with straight dough and therefore less flavorful

Ciabatta: basic concept

• Today's preferment of choice: a poolish using 30% of the total flour in the recipe
• Ciabattas require no shaping although some people like to give the dough a fold to make it fluffier
• Ciabattas are proofed top down on floured linen
• They are baked flour side up without any scoring
• Do NOT dimple the top of the ciabatta

Double hydration technique

• The baker adds enough water at the beginning to get the consistency of baguette dough; develops gluten to about 80%; then adds rest of water (always in increments)
• The dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl when mixing is done

Retarding ciabattas: tips

• Retarding is only for convenience. Longer in the cooler doesn’t necessarily mean better. You will never get as complex a flavor as with a room temperature fermentation
• If you plan to retard your ciabatta, choose a stiffer preferment (for instance a biga or a sponge), increase the amount of yeast in the preferment, shorten the preferment fermentation time (5 to 6 hours instead of overnight) and increase the amount of preferment in the final dough
• Use the double hydration technique (see above)
• Use olive oil
• Increase mixing time to give the dough more strength: mix to improved (gluten at 90%) before adding the second water
• Shorten the first fermentation before putting the dough in the retarder: 30 minutes, one fold, then into the retarder. Next day: take the dough out, divide it, proof and bake (right out of the retarder) OR: take the dough out, wait for one hour, then dump it on the  table, wait 30 minutes then divide and bake

 Miscellaneous tips

• Always adding a bit of salt to a preferment is a safety: it will slightly penalize  the flavor of said preferment but it will ensure that it works
• It is important not to put too much water at the beginning of the mixing: start at 68-70% if the formula calls for no oil (65% or a bit less if using oil)
• Always put the liquid ingredients in the bowl first
• Always add yeast and salt to the flour. Especially important if using cold water, so that the yeast doesn't come in contact with the cold water
• Be very careful when dumping ciabatta dough on bench for scaling, you want to avoid any accidental folding
• When scaling ciabatta, add scraps on top. Since ciabatta proofs wrong side up, the scraps won’t show in the final product (see photo immediately below)
  
  
  
• You can add 10% natural starter to the formula for added flavor and longer shelf life
• Steam is very important as ciabatta will always turn out better with steam. But only at the beginning of the bake. It is actually important to vent the oven towards the end of the baking because ciabatta can get soggy (in my house, I use the handle of a wooden spoon to keep the oven door ajar for the last five minutes of baking)
  
• If the dough is too cold when done, increase the fermentation time
• Milk makes ciabatta a bit more tender

Videos

Mixing ciabatta dough

(The sound is quite poor at the beginning but the video is still worth watching because it gives you an idea of the soft consistency and high gluten development Didier was looking for in that particular dough.)

Folding ciabatta dough
(For very wet doughs: soupy consistency and underdeveloped gluten)

"Shaping" ciabatta

Another ciabatta "shaping" (or rather, dividing) video

Ciabatta: loading the oven

What we made

We made nine different ciabatta doughs during the class, covering various techniques, preferments and grains. For all, except the first one, Didier used the double hydration technique.

• Ciabatta with poolish (short-mix technique): the dough is mixed until all the ingredients are just incorporated and the gluten is developed by a series of folds during fermentation. This technique is the most traditional
• Ciabatta for retarding, with sponge: allows for more flexibility in the baker's production schedule 
• Ciabatta with biga: this version uses the most traditional preferment
• Ciabatta with poolish: more modern version
• Multigrain ciabatta with whole wheat poolish and multigrain soaker: higher nutritional value
• Ancient grain ciabatta (with teff sponge and amaranth poolish): a functional bread*
• Ciabatta integrale (with sponge and cracked wheat soaker): 20% of the bread flour is replaced with whole wheat flour and a soaker is added for higher nutritional value
• Ciabatta with whole wheat poolish and flax soaker: a functional bread
• Breakfast ciabatta with poolish and chocolate pieces: plain yummy!

* The functional movement started in Japan: it centers on the idea that certain foods can improve the functioning of the body (ex: oats help control cholesteral, flax seeds add omega 3, etc.) and help prevent or cure diseases.

When time came to taste the ciabattas we made, we were hard put to choose and opinions differed wildly. For what it's worth, my three favorites were the plain one with poolish (which I found more delicately flavored and more interesting than the biga one), the functional one with whole wheat poolish and flax soaker and the one with candied orange and chocolate pieces.

Related Posts:
Ancient Grain Ciabatta (coming up)
Chocolate ciabatta with dried cherries and roasted hazelnuts

Sprouted Spelt Bread At Home: a Baking Saga

Remember my visit to Larry from Tree-Top Baking and his demo of baking with sprouted spelt? Well, once I got home, I couldn't wait to get started and I immediately set some spelt berries to soak. But since I can never leave well alone, I also read up on the notes I took at WheatStalk during Frank Sally's* Baking with Ancient Grains workshop. Frank said (and I quote): "Spelt sprouts real fast (one day). When sprouting, keep them submerged for ten hours, then drain and let them rest. Do that again two or three times, then they are ready to grind in the meat grinder." He added: "The grain is often very wet. If that's the case, hold back half of the water when mixing. On the contrary, if it's dry, you need to add more water."
Frank also recommended adding the oil and honey towards the end of the mixing (holding off with the water even if the dough looked a bit stiff because the oil and honey would help loosen it up) and he said to add gluten as spelt didn't have much of a push and the resulting dough wouldn't have a lot of strength.
Food for thought there! I had seen Larry's sprouted spelt and it had been soaking wet. So, in accordance with SFBI's original formula, he had used very little water in the mixing. But mindful of Frank's advice, I had drained the grain for twelve hours, it ended up much drier than Larry's. Therefore I knew I would need to add water.
As far as gluten was concerned, I really didn't care to add any. Since I have seen what gluten strands look like once all other matter has been rinsed out of a dough (basically like an used chewing gum such as those you see stuck on the sidewalks in New York City), I have not been too keen on gluten as an additive. So I decided to follow Larry's example (he had not used any the day I visited although he sometimes does) and skip it. So far so good.
I made the dough, added as much water as I thought it needed, followed all the advice on mixing duration and speed, and ended up with a dough I really liked only to realize I didn't have the proper pans to bake it in (I had thrown out my old pans when we moved - they had been very cheap to begin with and had become gross - and never gotten around to buying others!) I had no choice but free-shape the loaves and hope for the best.

We actually liked the resulting bread very much (nice nutty taste and pleasant texture) but the dough had spread a bit too much during the proofing and I still wanted good sandwich bread for slicing.

So I bought two pans and tried again. This time though, I didn't bother to re-read the recipe (why would I do that?) and just winged it all the way. I made the sponge, thawed the ground-up sprouted spelt (leftover from the first batch) overnight and proceeded with the mixing. Of course I didn't remember not to add all the liquids upfront and since the dough did indeed seem stiff, I was generous with water too. Also, as I didn't recall that gluten had to be fully developed (improved mix) before the dough was set to ferment, I did my usual short mix (usual when mixing by machine, that is, as I normally hand-mix) and called it a day (see Modern Baking  magazine for more info on the various mixing methods).
To add insult to injury, I baked with steam. Which means that the breads were not only gummy from over-hydration and under-mixing but they also burst open in the oven!  Some people have bad hair days, others bad bread days! Others still (like me) have both...

Despite the gummy crumb, the bread is actually okay toasted and we are half-way through the second loaf. But still...
Not to be deterred, I tried again last week: I soaked a humongous amount of spelt berries (enough for three two-loaves bakes) and decided to follow Larry's example and not to drain the grain at the twelve-hour mark. But a baker's life is full of surprises: at the twenty-four hour mark, the berries had barely moved. So much for spelt being a quick sprouter! I guess it all depends where you live and what the season is. I live in the American Northwest and temperatures in my house aren't exactly balmy in early December. It took all of 48 hours before the berries were tender enough for the endosperm (the white stuff) to start coming out (it had been way faster in early October when I had made my first attempt and of course even faster in Chicago in late June).
I knew the sponge would keep well in the fridge, so I wasn't worried on that score. But the 24-hour delay had thrown off my baking schedule so that the berries reached their peak on the morning I was due to watch my fifteen-month old grand-daughter while her mom was running errands and keeping doctors' appointments and so forth. I don't know if you have ever baked with a toddler around but believe me, it has its own constraints. Lily being the ninth grand-child, I knew it from experience. So I waited and hoped that the berries would too. I was concerned though because when I took SFBI's Whole Grains workshop in San Francisco back in 2009, Keith Giusto had forcefully underlined the fact that if you saw even the beginning of a germ on the sprouted grain, then the enzyme activity was too far along and you might just as well throw everything out and start again. Accordingly I didn't dare leave the berries in the water a minute longer than necessary and I drained and rinsed them before the baby arrived.
A few hours later when my baking day actually started, the berries still looked pretty much the same and I was relieved. We ground them (a team effort in my house), I packed two one-kilo ziploc bags which I put in the freezer and started the mixing process with the remainder. This time I did everything by the book. I still had to add a bit more water than the first time to get the proper consistency but I was careful to hold it off until after the addition of oil and honey. I mixed to improved and got a nice gluten window. The dough fermented for about 90 minutes at 80°F/27°C in the little countertop proofer (truly a welcome tool in my part of the world in the winter) then, once divided in the two pans, proofed for one hour at room temperature (I had the oven on so the room had warmed up a bit). I remembered not to steam. The bread came out just as I hoped it would and the best part is that Lily loves it! Baking with her will have to wait a bit but baking for her sure carries its own reward: she is already a true bread head.

The following recipe is based on SFBI's and Larry's formula, slightly adapted.

Ingredients (for two 800 g-loaves)
Sponge

• 93 g whole spelt flour (I used freshly milled)
• 79 g water
• 1.9 g salt
• 1.9 g malt
• 0.5 g yeast

Final dough

• 877 g sprouted spelt berries, ground in a meat grinder or a food processor
• 292 g whole spelt flour (I used freshly milled)
• 77 g water, divided
• 93 g raisins, briefly soaked and pureed to a slurry
• 19 g salt
• 12 g instant yeast
• 47 g honey
• 23 g vegetable oil
• 175 g sponge (all of the sponge)

Method

This time, except for the fact that I drained my berries earlier than he did his and consequently had to add more water and I held off with the oil and honey,  I followed Larry's directions to a tee.

The Sprouted Spelt Bread is going to Susan for Yeastspotting.

*Frank Sally who teaches at SFBI and with whom I had the pleasure and privilege of taking not only Baking with Ancient Grains at WheatStalk but also Artisan I and Artisan II in San Francisco is all set to open his own bakery, La Fournée, in Berkeley, CA, at the beginning of the year. Take a look at the photos already posted on the website and even if you don't personally know Frank for the amazing artisan baker he is, you'll understand why I can't wait to go and visit!

Larry's Sprouted Spelt: A Felicitous Case of Mistaken Identity

As is often the case with the best things in life, it all started with a mistake. Larry Lowary of Tree-Top Baking on Whidbey Island, WA, was stirring the grain he was soaking for his weekly bake of sprouted wheat bread (a customers' favorite) when he noticed that the berries were already germinating when they should have been barely waking up. He checked the bag and realized he had sprouted spelt instead of wheat (spelt sprouts much faster). It was too late to go back, so he ground the grain, mixed the dough and baked. Other than the fact that it tended to crumble a bit under the knife,  he thought the bread had turned out pretty well and as I happened to be visiting the next day, he kindly gave me a loaf to take home.
Eager to have a taste, I sliced it open that very night and was somewhat surprised not to find it as tasty as I thought it would be. Spelt is one of my favorite grains and I expected more depth. But my disappointment turned to wonder when I had another slice at breakfast the next morning. The flavor had set in (the crumb had probably dried out just enough to concentrate the taste) and the bread was all I had been looking forward to and more. I immediately begged Larry to please make the same mistake again and invite me to come and watch.
Not that I hadn't already seen sprouted berries turned into loaves... When I took Whole Grains at SFBI with Didier Rosada a few years ago, Keith Giusto came and demonstrated the making of his popular Power Bread (which involved sprouted wheat, required the addition of almonds and walnuts and was marvelously sinful). We also made a simple sprouted whole wheat pan bread. The latter recipe is the one which Larry had adapted for use at his bakery. I had never made it at home since I took the class because I didn't own a grinder until very recently. A refresher's course was therefore most welcome.
Between one thing and another (notably a very busy market season on Larry's side and school vacation and grandchildren on mine), a few months elapsed between the day Larry made his propitious mistake and the day I finally boarded the ferry to watch him make it again. It had been early summer then. Now it was early fall. But the boat ride and the island were as lovely as ever...

When I arrived at the bakery, Larry was ready for me. The only things he had done ahead of time were to soak the grain in water for 26 hours (stirring every eight hours or so) and to mix the sponge (which had to ferment overnight). For good measure, he had sprouted spelt AND wheat (he had soaked the wheat for two days), so that we could see how spelt compared. From the photo below, it is clear that it performed very well in terms of rise and plumpness. But even though spelt is probably my favorite by a tiny margin, I also love the taste and texture of sprouted wheat. Something happens during sprouting which not only greatly boosts the nutritional value of the grain but also maximizes its flavor. Heady stuff for a bread lover!

The process

Mixing raisins and water in the food processor

Rinsing and draining the sprouted grain

Grinding up the grain

Combining sponge, salt and ground-up grains and starting to mix

Mixing, checking gluten development and taking dough temperature

Fermenting and folding

Done!


Dividing, pre-shaping and shaping


Proofed

Baking


Finished!

The Formula (an SFBI original, as adapted by Larry)

Ingredients
Sponge

• Flour - 100 %
• Water - 85 %
• Instant dry yeast - 1.5 %
• Salt - 2 %
• Malt - 2 %

Final dough

• Sprouted spelt - 80 %
• Whole Spelt Flour - 20 %
• Water - 5.25 %
• Gluten (optional) - 2 %
• Instant dry yeast - 1 %
• Salt - 1.65 %
• Raisins, soaked and puréed - 8 %
• Honey - 4 %
• Canola oil - 2 %
• Sponge - 15 %

Method

• The original formula called for raisin juice concentrate which is both very difficult to find and super expensive. Larry's solution is to add warm water to raisins in the food processor and make a slurry. It works just fine. The bread can probably be made without it but as Larry explained, raisins have mold-inhibiting properties. They have been used for years to prolong bread's shelf-life
• It is best to sprout more than needed as sprouted grain can be kept in the freezer (scale the quantity you need in ziploc bags and take it out as needed 24 hours ahead of time)
• If whole spelt flour isn't available, white spelt can be used instead. The crumb will look a little bit lighter
• If the sprouted grain has been kept in the fridge, use hot water
• The sponge can be made up to four days ahead and kept in the fridge
• The water percentage is very low because the sprouted grain is soaking wet. In case you need or want to drain the grain ahead of time, you will need to adjust the water amount
• Mix ground-up sprouted grain with all of the liquids for two or three minutes on first speed, then add all the dry ingredients and mix again on first speed until desired dough consistency is reached (4 to 5 minutes)
• Then mix on second speed for 5 to 7 minutes
• Desired dough temperature: 80°F/27°C
• Ferment for one hour
• Scale at 800 g
• Pre-shape as hard as possible in a tight roll
• Shape as a tight batard
• Proof for about one hour at 85°F/29°C
• Bake for 50 minutes at 400°F/204°C (or lower depending on your oven as the raisin slurry and the honey put the dough at risk of burning at high heat)
• You know that the bread is done when the sides are brown and no longer pliable
• Enjoy!

Thank you, Larry, for being such a patient instructor and a wonderful source of information and inspiration, not to mention a very dear friend! I am currently sprouting some spelt and hope to be able to bake tomorrow. I'll report on the experience as soon as I get a chance and post the ingredient amounts for just two loaves.