>
>Here is a fine opportunity for the expert advisor to punctuate his
>prose with graphics. An easy way is to scan a slice on the platen
>of a scanner, and put the result in evidence in web space to be
>referenced in one's post(s). www.zippyimages.com is good
>for that, probably the easiest among the many possibilities.

http://www.zippyimages.com/files/100448/DSC00758.jpg

is a picture, which I may have posted before, my short term memory is not the
most accurate of tools.

It's the sourdough Ciabatta for which I posted a recipe a few months back.


>Regards per cent hydration, consider this conundrum: If I make
>my dough to 80% without regard to say, the flour's normal 14%
>moisture content, the actual hydration will be considerably higher
>than I suspect. If the normal 14% is conventionally be ignored
>when stating the bakers' per cent hydration, how should one
>manage the potential errors due to moisture adsorption in a humid
>atmosphere (which could take the base moisture content to 21%,=20
>I understand), or moisture depletion due to desiccation in an arid=20
>region?

I don't see it as a conundrum, just one of the many variables to be taken into
account when making bread. The major problem is not the allowance for moisture
content variations, you just add more flour or water, but describing the
viscosity, texture and "feel" of the dough the recipe is describing so that
someone making the bread for the first time will have something for which to
aim. Given extremes of moisture content that may vary from, say, 7% to your
quoted maximum of 21% (chapter and verse for that one would be appreciated,
I've never seen a figure that high, you live and learn) the "actual" hydration
of a dough made from 1 kilo of flour, at a nominal 14% moisture, and 800 gm
water would be a total water/dry matter ratio of 940/860. At 21% the ratio
would be 1010/790 and at 7% the ratio would be 870/930.

So, "actual" hydration, including flour moisture content, could range from 127%
to 93% with a median of 109%.

And if you think that makes casual discussions of an "80% hydration" bread
imprecise you're perfectly correct.

Any formula makes assumptions and a flour moisture content the same as or close
to the flour used to develop the forrmula in the first place is one of those
assumptions.

>
>For instance, actual per cent hydration obtained by adding .8 pounds
>of water to 1.0 pound of flour which came at ~14% moisture, which=20
>soaked up another ~7% of moisture, would be closer to 130% than
>to 80%. I would have different results with my soggy flour, I suspect,
>than do the Mountain People and the Desert People.
>
>I expect that this thread's respondents are weighing. Measurement
>in cups, which have been precalibrated by weighing the amount of=20
>flour contained, may fail in an additional way -- as the flour sits =
>around
>and soaks up moisture, it settles down and becomes more dense.
>
>In this vein, I should like to ask how the big-hole folks are coming
>along with the "window-pane" test.
>

I don't know if you're employing irony here but all my "high hydration",
intensively worked doughs "windowpane" very nicely but then, I've never been
convinced of the power of the
"windowpane test" to provide a reliable prediction of bread quality.