Gonorio Dineri wrote:

>The Dough Formula I Use
>
>
>I like this sourdough formula of:
>
>1.0x = Sponge weight (assuming starter weight = 50/50 water/flour weight
>3.0x = Water weight
>5.0x = Flour weight
>0.1x = Salt weight
>0.02x = Ascorbic Acid powder
>
>
That's a LOT of ascorbic acid - usually it's added in parts per million,
or grams per hundred kilograms of flour. How concentrated is your
ascorbic acid? If it is already fairly dilute, the numbers you mention
might be on track, though they could confuse someone who went to their
local health food store and bought pure ascorbic acid crystals.

>
>Rightly Forming Loaves
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>
>
That's a nice description of making boules.... or seemed to be at a
quick scan. However, Hutchindi was trying to make sandwich loaves in
bread pans.

My suggestion for making such loaves....

Weight out an appropriate amount of dough. What's appropriate? It
depends on your bread pans and your dough. Some breads you'll use more,
some less. You want to let your dough rise fully without going too
high. So, start with a pound or a pound and a half and adjust from there.

Put the dough on your counter top or work surface. Use a rolling pin to
roll it into a rectangle just slightly wider than your bread pan and
about twice as long as it is wide.

Starting with the edge farthest from you, roll the dough towards you.
Use your thumbs to lightly crimp the dough together where it rolls.
It's easy to show, easy to demonstrate, but hard to explain. It's where
the roll of dough meets the dough that's still on your table.

If you crimp/roll too tightly, you'll get swirls in your bread. If you
crimp/roll too loosely, you'll have separate layers of bread. The "OK"
range is pretty wide. Again, you'll have to play with it.

Once you've rolled the dough all the way, pinch the seam where the dough
ended to the roll. Once it's pinched shut, place the seam down on your
table top. Using the edges of your hands, crimp the ends of the loaf of
dough to the width of the bread pan. Tuck the excess dough under the
loaf. You want a little undertuck, not much. If you have too much, it
causes a weakness in the loaf.

Pinch the flaps to the main mass of dough. Oil your bread pan if you
haven't already done so. Put the dough into the bread pan, seam side
down. You need to keep the dough in a moist environment to let it
rise. If the dough surface dries out, it will act as a girdle and
prevent the dough from fully rising. You can put some steam into a cool
oven. You can humidify a room or other enclosure. You may spray the
top of the dough with oil to trap moisture, or you may cover the dough
with a saran wrap "Quick Cover", or just plain cling wrap. If you don't
want to oil the bread, you can lightly oil the cling wrap to prevent the
cling wrap from clinging too tightly to the dough once it's risen.

Once the dough has risen, bake it. After a while, you should know how
long it takes different recipes to fully rise and start pre-heating the
oven at an apporpriate time. Some people prefer to start bread in a
cool oven, which also works. However, if you want to use the cool oven
technique, don't leave your oven stones, if any, in the oven. Oven
stones slow the oven heating considerably and if you are working from a
cool oven, you want it to heat as quickly as possible.

Hope this helps Hutchindi with his loaf forming for sandwich loaves in
bread pans,
Mike