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

JT's 85x3

This bread with an improbable name is the one which won its creator John Tredgold (aka JT) a spot on Bread Team USA 2010, so you'd better believe it's good. It is in fact awesome, so much so that it will become a fixture in my house on baking days. You should have seen the speed at which it was wolfed down by my grandchildren when I brought the loaves over. Everyone went back for seconds and thirds, from the 3-year old twins to their teenage brother and sister. Of course the older kids were completely unaware when devouring it that they were ingesting the very same healthful whole grains as the ones they scorn when listed on the wrapper of a supermarket sliced loaf. Nothing like a deliciously crunchy crust and a complex taste to make you forget your dearest principles!

The 85x3 gets its matchless aromas from a high-extraction flour as well as from the use of three different preferments, a biga, a poolish and a levain. The biga and the levain are made with 100% high-extraction flour while the poolish uses regular bread flour.

JT used Artisan Old Country Organic Type 85 malted Wheat Flour (ash content: 0.85%) from Central Milling. I didn't have access to that flour, so I used La Milanaise's "farine tamisée" which contains just a tad more bran. La Milanaise flours are not sold retail in this country. I got mine from a friend who owns a bakery. If you don't have access to a high-extraction flour, a reasonable substitute would be to use 80% organic white flour and 20% whole wheat flour.

I didn't have raw wheat germ, so I left it out of the recipe. Also because it was cool in my house (much cooler than in the bakery at Semifreddi's), the poolish and the biga took their own sweet time to ferment and I ended up mixing the final dough too late in the day to contemplate baking before night. So I left the dough at room temperature (about 64 F/18C) for one hour, folded it once and put it in the fridge (on the top shelf where it is a tad less cold). The following morning, I took it out, gave it a fold and let it come back to room temperature (one hour and a half to two hours) before dividing, shaping, etc.

JT's original formula can be be found here. The recipe below is my interpretation.

Ingredients: (for 2 bâtards, 1 fendu, 2 crowns and 1 boule)

Biga 190 g high-extraction flour 114 g water 0.003 g salt (a tiny tiny pinch, basically a few grains) 0.003 g instant yeast (a tiny tiny pinch too) Poolish 190 g organic white flour 209 g water 0.003 g salt 0.003 g instant yeast Levain (mine was 40% whole-grain, mostly wheat and spelt with a little bit of rye) 380 g high-extraction flour 209 g water 190 g firm starter Final dough 631 g high-extraction flour 353 g organic white flour 761 g water (I used slightly less water than JT, probably because my flours were less thirsty than the ones he used) 34 g salt 0.17 g instant yeast 305 g biga 400 g poolish 780 g levain

Method (this bread is made over two days)

1. Mix the biga, the poolish and the levain and leave them to ferment at room temperature for 10 to 12 hours
2. When the preferments are ready, mix flour, poolish and 80% of the water in the bowl of the mixer until the flour is completely hydrated and let rest for 30 minutes (autolyse)
3. Add the biga, the levain, the yeast, the salt and remaining wateras needed and mix until the dough starts to develop strength, then add more water until medium soft consistency is reached (JT says: "A second water addition is used for this mix. I tend to prefer this style of mixing. Instead of holding back say 5-10% of the water and dribbling it into the bowl when you feel comfortable. I like to create the final dough and on the last minute throw all the water in one go. The dough will start to shred and start 'swimming'. Do not panic and add flour! It’s a bit like accelerating through a skid, Don't put your foot on the brake")
4. Transfer the dough to an oiled container, cover it tightly
5. Give it a fold after one hour then put the container in the fridge overnight
6. In the morning, take the dough out of the fridge and give it a fold
7. Let it come back to low room temperature and divide by 500 g, preshaping as cylinders or boules according to the desired shapes
8. Shape and let proof, covered, for one to one and a half hour
9. Pre-heat the oven to 470 F/243 C one hour before baking (my oven doesn't heat very well. A lower temperature setting might work just fine in your oven), taking care to put it in a baking stone and, underneath, a heavy metal pan for steaming (mine contains barbecue stones which we bought solely for steaming purposes)
10. Dust with flour and score as desired (as can be seen from the above pictures, deep scoring and angled surface scoring yield very different "ears" in the final loaves)
11. Pour a cup of water over the barbecue stones in the steam tray, lower the oven temperature to 450 F/232 C and bake for 40 minutes
12. JT recommends turning off the heat after 30 minutes and leaving the bread an additional 15 minutes in the oven with the door ajar. I will try that next time as I found the crumb a little bit moist when I first sliced open one of the cooled loaves.

Related post: Meet the Baker: John Tredgold

JT's 85x3 goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast for Yeastpotting.

Pan Bigio

I borrowed this recipe from Carol Field's The Italian Baker and I mostly followed it , except that I didn't make the biga out of yeast and that I used more whole wheat than she does.
When I am home, I keep my starter on the kitchen counter and refresh it daily, which means that I have either to use it or throw some away. Since I don't like to throw any away if I can avoid it, I decided to make a sourdough biga and I actually loved how it smelled and tasted. I fail to see in what way it differs from a regular stiff starter but since it goes into an Italian bread, I'll still call it biga.
What I find amazing is that, with the addition of more water, the dough understands it is supposed to act Italian and that the end result and the taste are completely different from those of a French bread.
Carol Fields says in her introduction to the recipe that this bread is the classic bread of the Italian peasant.
We had it with dinner last night (a huge salad of mixed greens with creamy Gorgonzola) and it was excellent.

Ingredients (for 2 large or 3 smaller round loaves):
For the biga

• 361 g unbleached all-purpose flour
• 255 g mature liquid starter (100% hydration)
• 159 g water

For the final dough

• 400 g unbleached all-purpose flour
• 350 g white whole wheat flour
• 560 g water
• 18 g salt
• 3 g instant yeast

Method: This bread is made over two days since the biga needs time to ferment. As the dough is very wet, it is best to use a stand mixer.

1. The day before: Mix all the ingredients until a sticky dough is formed. Remove to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise overnight or up to 24 hours at cool room temperature. Refrigerate after that if not using immediately for up to 72 hours (the recipe will not make use of all of the biga, so you can plan to incorporate the leftover into another dough if desired or to freeze it for a later use)
2. On the day of the baking: place the biga and 80% of the water in the bowl of the mixer equipped with the paddle attachment and mix until the biga is well broken up
3. Mix the yeast with the flours and add to the mixture together with the salt. Switch to the dough hook and mix at medium speed until dough reaches low/medium consistency (when you pinch off a piece of it with wet hands and stretch it, you should see a thin membrane - or "gluten window" - with opaque spots, which means the dough is ready)
4. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the rest of the water (it might take a while as you truly need to add just a trickle at a time)
5. Finish kneading the dough by hand on a well-floured surface, sprinkling the top with more flour
6. Place in a lightly oiled large bowl or bucket, cover tightly and let rise until tripled and full of air bubbles, about 3 hours. Do not punch down
7. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and shape into 2 big round flats or 3 smaller ones, making sure to pull tight on the surface of the dough with cupped hands to make it taut
8. Place the loaves, rough side up on well-floured parchment paper sheets set on baking sheets (it is very important that the parchment paper be extra well-floured as the dough is extremely sticky and might not detach itself easily later on)
9. Place the baking sheets in large clear plastic bags, tightly sealed and let proof about 1 hour
10. Thirty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450 F/232 C after placing inside a baking stone and a shallow metal pan
11. Dimple the top (rough) side of the loaves all over with your fingertips and let rest for 10 to 15 minutes
12. Just before baking, sprinkle the baking stone with cornmeal
13. Gently invert the loaves over it
14. Bake for 45 (small loaves) to 55 minutes (larger ones)
15. Let cool on racks.

The Pan Bigio goes to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for Yeastpotting.

Orange & Plum Miche with Two Preferments

This miche wasn't supposed to be. Always eager for the taste of whole wheat, I had decided to make a "pan bigio" from Carol Field's The Italian Baker, a book I have owned for quite a while and certainly not used enough as it is full of attractive recipes which I have yet to try. Most of them are yeast-based but they can and should be converted to natural starter. Maybe I'll give it a try this summer.
Anyway I had dutifully made the biga (starter dough made from small amounts of flour, water and yeast allowed to ferment for at least 24 hours) two days before and when it had become deliciously and deliriously effervescent, I started to prepare the other ingredients for scaling.
But (why so many buts in life?), just as biga requires commercial yeast (fresh, dry active or instant) , so does the final dough for Pan bigio and, as I was reaching for it, my eyes fell on my liquid starter, forlornly bubbling away in its glass jar. As I hadn't baked with it the day before, I actually needed to use some of it (or throw some out) to make room in the jar for its daily meal.
So I made up my mind on the spot, decided to keep the pan bigio recipe for a day when I wouldn't have enough starter (as if that was likely to happen anytime soon) and to strike for a new (to me) frontier in bread-baking: use two preferments in the same dough (I wasn't about to throw away the biga, as you can imagine).

I still wanted an at least partially whole-wheat bread but now that I was no longer bound by a recipe, I could give free rein to my imagination as to the other ingredients. So I gazed out of the window: looming dark clouds, misty lawn, dripping trees. It felt like fall, or maybe early spring (it was cold in the house with the heat off), and I tried to think of a flavor that would warm us up.
I closed my eyes and must have been visited by the ghost of Christmas past because, all of a sudden, I had a craving for dried plums and oranges, very little of both, just enough to give the bread a different fragrance and make it more festive. I briefly considered alternatives (mango and Brazil nuts?) but in the end, I stuck with the plum-orange flavor, which is a traditional one in French cooking and baking (although not in bread, at least not in the old days) and very pleasant in a quiet sort of way.
Since the two preferments had been made with regular bread flour, I decided to put at least 50% whole wheat flour in the final dough, and as a final treat (I love huge breads), I decided to make a very big loaf, so that I could give some to family and friends. It did come out big (1.8 kg) and fragrant, not sweet at all which is what I wanted. Too bad web-sampling hasn't been invented yet. I'd love to have you taste it and tell me what you think...

Ingredients:
For the biga

• 135 g unbleached all-purpose flour
• 115 g water
• 1/8 tsp instant dry yeast 

For the final dough

• 445 g whole wheat flour
• 420 g unbleached all-purpose flour
• 390 g water
• 250 g biga
• 225 g liquid starter (100% hydration)
• 50 g plump dried plums, chopped
• 18 g salt
• 5 g dried orange peel, soaked for 20 minutes in hot water, drained and finely chopped

Method:
For the biga

1. At least 1 day before but preferably 2, mix yeast and flour in a small bowl and add water
2. Stir to incorporate thoroughly, knead briefly until smooth and leave to ferment for 24 hours
3. After 24 hours, if not using immediately, refrigerate for another day
4. On the day of the baking, bring back to room temperature before using

For the final dough

1. Put the biga and the starter in the bowl of the mixer and mix slowly with the paddle attachment until incorporated
2. Add 250 g water (reserve the rest), mix again and add the flour
3. Mix on low until well incorporated, stop the mixer, cover the bowl and let rest for 20 minutes (autolyse)
4. Add the salt and mix on medium speed (3 on my old Rival Chef Excel) with the dough hook, adding water as needed for at least 6 minutes (depending on the flour you use you may have to use more water than I did in this recipe. I used a Hudson Valley artisanal whole wheat flour which doesn't absorb water readily and I had to adjust for that), until the dough has achieved the right consistency (neither too firm nor too slack, one clue would be to see how well defined the edges are. If the edges are sharpish-looking, you need to add water)
5. Give the dough the windowpane test (wet your hands, pull a piece of dough from the mass and gently turn and stretch it. If you manage to create a "window" in the dough without tearing it, it is ready)
6. Add the fruit and orange peel
7. Mix on low for a minute
8. Take the dough out of the bowl, transfer it to a (lightly) flour-dusted countertop and finish incorporating the plums and orange peel by hand making sure they are evenly distributed in the dough
9. Oil a big bowl or dough bucket and transfer the dough to it. Close the lid tightly
10. The first fermentation should take 1 1/2 to 2 hours
11. After that time, the dough should have at least doubled. Take it out and shape it roughly into a ball. Let it rest covered for 20 minutes
12. Shape it into a tight boule (ball) and put it, seam down, on a semolina-dusted board. Stick the board in a big clear plastic bag. Blow once into the bag before closing it to create a dome and stick the whole thing in the refrigerator for the night (or 8 to 10 hours during the day if more convenient)
13. In the morning, turn on the oven (450 F/232 C) after putting in it a baking stone (if using) with an empty metal pan on the rack under it
14. Take the bread out of the refrigerator and let it rest a while at room temperature while the oven heats up (or a bit longer)
15. Take the bread out of the bag and transfer it to a semolina-dusted parchment paper
16. Stencil and score the loaf as desired
17. Pour a cup of cold water in the metal pan, transfer the bread (still on the parchment paper) to the baking stone and spray some water on the walls of the oven (taking care not to aim towards the oven light) to create even more steam
18. Close the oven door and let bake for 40 minutes
19. After 40 minutes, open the oven to take a look at the bread. It is so big that it will not be done yet but it will probably be already brown enough. If that's the case, remove the parchment paper, lower the oven temperature to 390 F/199 C and bake another 15 minutes
20. Take the bread out and use an instant thermometer (insert on bottom surface) to check its internal temperature. (Mine had been put in the oven while still pretty cold and after 55 minutes, its internal temperature still hadn't reach 200 F/93 C)
    
21. If necessary, let bake another 10 minutes on 335 F/168C) until the bread's internal temperature reaches 204 F/96 C
22. Take the bread out of the oven and let it cool on a rack. It'll take a while but it's well worth the wait...

As always, the loaf has been submitted to Susan, from Wild Yeast, for her weekly Yeastpotting feature. I can't thank Susan enough for her beautiful, instructive and fun blog and for the kindness with which she displays other bakers' work. If you haven't visited Wild Yeast yet, you are in for a BIG treat! Enjoy!