Here is an overview and a quick, handy guide to everything we’re discussing in the Use Your Loaf series. I’ll update this with key terms as the series progresses.
Useful equipment – I go into what equipment I find helpful with baking bread in this post, and discuss many alternatives you probably have in your kitchen already.
Hydration
The total amount of liquid in a bread dough. Lower-hydration doughs (think bagels) are firmer yet easier to work and shape, whereas higher-hydration (think focaccia dough) ones are very soft, sticky, and need a bit of practice to work with.
Fermentation
What happens when yeast starts eating the sugars from flour and releases carbon dioxide bubbles and alcohol, resulting in a strong and tasty loaf. Generally speaking, the longer the fermentation, the tastier the loaf, however, this has to be judged correctly before the yeast has exhausted its energy.
Kneading
This is the process of stretching the dough after it has been mixed. Kneading essentially builds strength in the bread, warming up the protein in the flour to develop stronger gluten strands and give a better rise. It’s hard to over-knead bread, but possible to under-knead, so it’s always best to look for the visual signs of the dough becoming lovely and smooth. This is a good how-to video where you can see the change in the dough.
I like to stretch the dough by pushing it with the palm of my dominant hand and then clawing it back to the middle. Then I turn the dough 45° anti-clockwise with my non-dominant hand and repeat. Yes, you could do this part in a mixer and avoid sticky hands, but to learn more about our bread it’s best to feel and see how it’s changing during the process. You should be able to feel the dough becoming softer and a little stretchier as you continue kneading, and it will be visibly smoother. As all of our baking areas are different, these visible clues are a better indication of where your bread is at than the clock.
Bulk Ferment
This refers to a dough’s longest rest period, and can even be done overnight in the fridge in some recipes.
At this point, the dough has taken a pounding and turned into a taut, smooth ball, and now needs time to expand and develop flavour. It’s here where the yeast starts to shine: eating up the sugars from the flour and releasing carbon dioxide bubbles that strengthen the gluten, increasing the size of the bread.
We move to the next step once the dough has doubled in size, which normally takes between one and two hours depending on how warm or cold the environment is. Over or under-proofing here can result in a few different issues, namely a flat loaf.
Proofing
The term used for when a dough is having its second and final rest. Now,] the yeast is coming to the end of its energy supply and is beginning to ferment, slowly developing the flavour until we’re ready to bake. Knowing when the time is right to bake is difficult, but as with the other stages, you’ll get used to what visual cues to look out for.
Poke-Test
A way of judging if a dough is sufficiently proofed before baking. Poke the bread dough and if it springs back slowly but not entirely, it is perfect.
Gluten
A protein found in flour. It gives bread its texture and traps the carbon dioxide bubbles the yeast releases.
Oven-Spring
During the initial stages of baking, the bread increases in volume (known as oven spring) as the yeast gives its last gasp of CO2 before its energy finally runs out. Steam is important to aid oven spring as it prevents the crust from forming for a short while, giving the yeast room to move and increase the size of the loaf. Bakery ovens have steam incorporated, but we can use a Dutch oven, or add a tray of ice cubes to the bottom of the oven to get a similar result.
Baker’s Percentages
Bakers use percentages when developing a recipe to easily scale a dough up or down depending on their needs. In our case, it also makes it easier to compare different recipes at a glance, and easily alter them if needed. So how does it work? We always take the amount of flour in a recipe, usually 500g or 1kg, as 100%, and then everything after is a percentage of the flour. So if there’s 500g flour and 300ml water, that’s 60% water, or in baker’s terms, hydration. Let’s look at the table of recipes I’m working from to see it in action.
