Welcome to the fourth season of the Troubleshooting Innovation podcast. Stephen Hallam, brand ambassador for Dickinson & Morris and chair of judges for the Tiptree World Bread Awards, explores the elements of artisan bread baking that can — and should — be incorporated into commercial bread production. This episode focuses on time and temperature, two of the most important aspects of the artisan process.
Episodes will be released every Sunday through Sept. 11. Learn more here, and listen to Troubleshooting Innovation on Apple, Spotify, Google and Stitcher.
Joanie Spencer: Welcome to Troubleshooting Innovation, a Commercial Baking podcast. I’m your host, Joanie Spencer, editor-in-chief for Commercial Baking. I’m speaking with Stephen Hallam, brand ambassador for Dickinson and Morris and chair of judges for the Tiptree World Bread Awards, which will take place at IBIE 2022, Sept. 18-21 in Las Vegas. This season, we are exploring the principles of artisan bread baking that can and should be incorporated into commercial bread production. In this episode, we are focused on time and temperature, often considered to be the most important factors in the artisan process.
Hi, Stephen, I’m so excited to talk to you about this particular topic, because I think that time and temperature apply to any bread baking process. But I think that it’s an important lesson that has to be mastered for the commercial process.
Stephen Hallam: I wouldn’t disagree. A majority of breads are fermented. Fermentation by its very nature introduces flavor. That flavor comes as a byproduct of the fermentation, which is acidity. The more you ferment, the more acidity and flavor you get. The other important asset of fermentation is the gas being produced. It’s stretching the dough, we’re assuming the dough has been mixed appropriately. You have your gluten matrix and your framework, this contains the carbon dioxide that is fermenting, and therefore rises. This stretches the gluten and it’s beginning to nurture and temperate so that it’s not inert and hard. The importance of doing that, is that when the loaf is eventually going to go into the oven, it will rise, and it won’t just snap and then fall because the protein hasn’t been correctly tempered. Now assume we’ve mixed it appropriately and we’ve got enough water in there, because the water absorption of the flour is important. The speed at which fermentation happens can be influenced by initially the amount of yeast one uses or if let’s assume we’re not going to use yeast, we’re using it from a sponge, but that will influence it as well as the temperature of the dough itself.
Let’s assume that we’re doing something wrong and we’ve made dough, we’ve mixed it very quickly in a machine, because we’re in a hurry. We don’t want to be hanging around slowly letting it mix, we’ve done it very quickly. The first thing that will happen is that you’ll have introduced quite a lot of heat into the dough through the friction of mixing, you can help counteract that by chilling your flour and chilling your water. But in creating too much heat, the whole process can run away with you too quickly. Now, there is an infatuation within some elements of the baking industry to do everything very quickly. Loads of yeast in the dough to increase the fermentation, time of the proof and into the oven. Say you’re in and out and in double quick time and producing more because you’ve got a lot to do. Whereas if you work on a cold dough, you allow fermentation to happen overnight. It creating a stronger structure within the dough and therefore the finished loaf, you’ll have created more flavor. Some schools have thought it is going to be more digestible. If you’re doing things very quickly you’re going to have to add things to it to help speed it along. A combination between fermentation and temperature, keeping things cool with fermentation. With a sour you have an ongoing sourdough that you refresh by adding more flour and water to it, that keeps it ongoing. It keeps a fairly consistent level of acidity and if you have too much acidity it’s going to end up destroying your gluten framework in your dough. Keep that consistent, that controls your acidity that you’re putting into the dough. You make your dough, cold water, leave it to ferment, possibly overnight, different bakeries will do different processes or different lengths of time that suits them. This is what we would call a Bulk Fermentation. At some point, the domain may be “knocked” back (baker’s term there). As its rises, you knock it back, that introduces more air in there and refreshes it. But it also, refreshes the fermentation process so that more stretching of the gluten framework will happen. Then you’ll eventually come to dividing the dough and molding it into its final shape, which from an authentic sourdough point of view, you hardly have do anything with it. You’ve created all the structure inside there. Now, all of that can be sped up, but you’re going to lose a lot of texture, you’re going to lose a lot of flavor. And you’re not going to be in control of what you’re doing, if it’s too hot.
Spencer: You’ve kind of sparked something for me, because last week, you said something about how from a business perspective, commercial bakeries are often focused on efficiencies. I do agree with you that we are in a culture of sort of immediate gratification, we have to do everything faster. But I think it’s so important to recognize the difference between efficiency and speed, because you can do something efficiently without speeding up the process and sacrifice of the quality of the product. I think that, the fermentation process can be automated, but not for the purpose of making it go faster, because that is counterproductive to what we’re trying to accomplish.
Hallam: Yes, I was talking to a colleague earlier this week and they make a sourdough that is eight percent hydration. There’s huge amount of water in there. His biggest challenge is to make sure the bakers don’t abuse the recipe and put less water in so it’s easier to handle. When it came to scale of the dough, all they needed was one kilo piece. They would have five people for about five hours scaling this and it is very difficult to handle. It then is placed into the baskets that they used, then left in the fridge overnight before they bake it the next day. He’s now obtained a machine, it’s an Italian dividing machine that has incredibly improved this whole dividing process with absolutely no detriment to the dough whatsoever. Everybody hated doing it, because it took so long and they were dealing with a product that was so sticky. That was the nature of the loaf. He’s found this dividing machine that within sort of ten grams divides this dough. You wouldn’t think there would be a machine available to do it, but there is, it’s actually enhanced his products. He’s made it more efficient, because his baker’s could have been 30 or 40 grams out with hand dividing. They were feeling the dough, not meaning to but they were stretching it and doing things with it that they didn’t want to be because it was so sticky. That no longer happens. It’s an indication that a small craft baker has found a piece of equipment that’s made the process not just more efficient, but actually improved the product for it.
Spencer: Yeah, that’s amazing. The other factor is temperature. It’s obviously very critical to the process. But temperature means more than just the oven, right?
Hallam: It does, you have the temperature of the dough, first of all, you want to be keeping that consistently cool. Don’t try and speed it along by keeping it in a hot environment. A hot environment can introduce other faults, it can cause the dough to skin, it won’t actually increase the rate of fermentation that’s going to be fairly consistent by the amount of yeast or let’s say natural yeast, whatever it might be that’s in the dough, putting it into a hot environment isn’t going to radically speed that up at all. It just creates other problems further along the line. But it also just creates instability for the dough because you won’t to be able to handle it. That refers to the bakery itself, they can be pretty warm places. But it’s about the dough and how you protect the dough from its surroundings, you want to be presenting that dough when it goes to the oven in the best possible. Chilling the dough can actually help set it up, because it’s been fermenting for quite a long time. You’ve given its final mold and proof. If it’s been into a warmer place, it will be unstable. The bread should be a little bit chill, I’m not suggesting it be put in a fridge or freezer or anything like that. But certainly giving it time, if you’ve taken your final loaves out of a of approving cabinets and then having them go straight into the oven, you’ll get a very different result. You can almost see them rise. I’ve seen bread rolls for an example, come out of an approver and they’re almost a bit sticky, because there’s been too much steam and the baker has been trying to move it along too quickly. Just by leaving them in the bakery that was naturally cooler from where they were, you just see them set up as they rise. And you will get a much better result once they’re baked.
Spencer: Yeah, I talked to a baker once that told me between the proof box and the oven, they had a conveyor system set up where he just wanted the loaves to take a ride and chill out if you will before they went into the oven. They circled this area of the bakery where they just rode around the perimeter on the conveyor belt so that they could have that rest time.
Hallam: Totally agree, couldn’t agree more. There’s a science behind all of this. Because baking is a science, cooking is an art.
Spencer: I agree with you 100%.
Hallam: Scoop of this and a scoop of that. Whereas baking you have a recipe, there’s a reason that it works and theres the recipe balance and technicality of it. Associated with that is this understanding of temperature. Since we mentioned temperature of the oven is important, that it’s neither too cold or too hot. When put the dough into the oven it is going to rise. This is assuming it’s a good hot oven, bread ovens are at 450 Fahrenheit and if you’re doing pizzas even hotter. Assuming that the dough is in a good condition, when it’s presented to the oven, it will rise. If you’ve injected steam to get a nice bloom and get good crust on the dough that’s done initially, then we might just want to turn the temperature back a little bit. If it is a traditional sourdough, you’ve got to be a lot more careful because it’s a very dense loaf, and the bottom of the loaf will be on the soul of the oven. You need to be controlling your top and bottom heat there. It’s going to need to be in the oven longer. Remember there is a lot of water in that loaf and you need need to bake it out. It is quite interesting with what I would call archetypal traditional sourdoughs. They are very dark in color not because they burn. There’s a richness from all the dextrins and caramelization that’s gone on during the baking. That’s happened during this long fermentation process. Because that is a natural trait and a natural characteristic.
Spencer: Have you ever had a scenario where you’ve been with someone, maybe a consumer, who doesn’t have the level of expertise or expert senses that you have? And you’ve seen someone sort of make an erroneous assumption about a loaf of bread?
Hallam: Yes, simple answer. What I find encouraging nowadays, and this has come to the fore since the pandemic so it’s a positive side of the pandemic, is people are much more attuned to the texture of homemade bread and sourdough because it has gone back to simple ingredients. They’ve not been throwing loads of fat, butter or lard in there to make a softer crumb. They haven’t been putting sugar in there, they’ve just been using the basic three or four ingredients. That naturally gives a different color to the crumb. It’s not bright white, it’s not springy, it’s not particularly soft or resilient. They now have changed their opinion of it. That is how bread should be, and not necessarily what we would call wrapped white sliced. Over here in the UK where it’s something that is very soft and it’s a very close texture, or be seen in a slice loaf. You’re going to get cross panning happening when it’s put into a tense which holt alters the structure of the dough or together which makes it stronger, when it’s sliced, makes it look lighter. On a cut slice, when the light shines on it, there aren’t such deep holes in the crumb that would absorb the light. You’ve got yourselves going from top to bottom of the slice, as opposed to through the center. It’s a characteristic of cross panning that commercial bakeries use unacceptable, totally acceptable to increase the strength of the structure of the crumb, and that relates to the housewife because they’re going to go and spread some butter, Nutella, peanut butter or whatever it might be on it. If the crumble separates from the crust, they will deemed it to be bad bread. The baker doesn’t know what he’s doing. So to increase that the strength across planning is used. But we’ve departed a little bit from temperature, the golden rule with temperature is keep it cool. You get a much more stable dough, all the way through the fermentation process and for molding, proving, baking, etc. If you’re just using cold flour and cold water, I think there’s a principle that you will read in the student baking books that water temperature of a dough should be twice your flour temperature minus a particular factor of the building. But that ends up with quite a warm dough. You’re not in control of it, it’s in control of you.
Spencer: You say keep it cool. I love that because I feel like this is probably an extremely basic observation, but I’ll throw it out there anyway. It’s a really big mistake when you mentioned that people are a little bit obsessed with time and doing things very quickly. The last thing a baker wants to do is bake at higher temperature for a shorter amount of time, right?
Hallam: Oh my goodness, well, you’re not going to get the penetration in there. Absolutely diabolical. If somebody’s doing that, they’re not a baker, are they?
Spencer: Beyond a rookie mistake.
Hallam: Yes. You know, the loaf is baked when it’s baked. That takes as long as it takes and you shouldn’t be trying to influence it by pushing it along and cutting corners here or higher temperature so it to be in five minutes shorter, it won’t be properly baked. I sincerely hope we don’t see loaves like that at the Bread Awards, because it is evident to see.
Spencer: Now when you’re judging, can you experience a loaf when you’re using all of your senses. Can you tell by experiencing the loaf with your senses? This was baked incorrectly, they misused time and temperature. Is that something that you can see through?
Hallam: Yes, is how I would answer that. Because it won’t be a stable crumb. Again, it depends on the category and the other type of loaf. But yes, if it’s all together rushed, and rushing comes by putting loaves of yeast to move it along and using hot water because you’re in a hurry, etc. It’s almost like cotton wall, the crumb. I keep coming back to this word stable, because nothing explains it. And it probably won’t have the flavor either. It’s such a shame because why do you want to do that? You know if this is one of nature’s most natural foods, and has been around since Bible times. Old sourdough was a great expression from the Californian pioneers, what they were doing each day they would always put a piece of the dough into the knapsack and that was the start of the next day. I always had this aroma about them of acidity. Well, that’s because of the lump of sourdough that was in the knapsack on the back. It’s such a shame when you can have such a pure, natural made with passion and emotion certainly from an artist or baker’s point of view, will save 20 minutes here. If you’re not careful, you could gelatinous starch too early. You could be killing yeast off if you’re using, say hot water for goodness sake, need to go to school and earn a little bit of science. And that’ll give you a bit more respect, I hope.
Spencer: Yeah. I think that just kind of reinforces my earlier point, that you can be efficient, you can automate the process for efficiency, if you’re doing it for the right reasons. Not to just shave off a minute here or a minute there, in order to crank out more, you can do more and do it efficiently. If you do it for the right reasons, and maintain those artisans principle..
Hallam: Totally agree. You’re doing this everyday. And in the business, it’s not just about the loaf that you’re making today. It’s about tomorrow, the next day, and the repeat business, and then the reputation you’re getting from that, and the word of mouth. That’s how you custom will grow. No matter how much marketing you could throw at what you do and who you are, and what the businesses is, it comes down to the product. If that’s not living up to what it should be, then the consumers will quickly tell you why by walking elsewhere not buying your product, and rightly so. It’s such a fantastic product is bread, it ticks all the boxes. It’s so nutritious and it’s emotive. It’s made by passionate people just doesn’t deserve to be messed around with.
Spencer: Yeah, absolutely. Stephen, when you think about all of these incredible loaves that you’re going to see during the Tiptree World Bread Awards. I mean, there are 15 categories. You’re gonna kind of see the whole gamut of artisan bread. If you were to talk to a baker who is either a commercial baker looking to create artisan products or an artisan baker looking to scale up what would be two or three pieces of advice regarding time and temperature that they should not let go of.
Hallam: Don’t rush for the sake of rushing, you know, let nature take its course. Always work with a dough. If in a small environment, as a small business, you haven’t got facility to chill your water and then chill the flour, store your flower in a fridge. That’ll give you total control allow you to process it. It’s surprising how easy that is. Just keep a few bags in the fridge and use it straight from the fridge. It’ll give a very different texture to your dough. When you’re mixing it will feel like putty. If you’re adding yeast, you may wonder, did I put the yeast in or not? Incidentally, you know, the quickest way to test whether you’ve put yeast in some dough or not?
Spencer: What is that?
Hallam: We have a golden rule in the bakery, you should never ever speak to somebody that’s weighing down ingredients. They should be left in peace and if anybody goes up to them, they should tell them to clear off. Because you know if you get your ingredients weighed down wrong, you’re not in a good place. Yeast is a classic in the base art, “Oh, did I forget to put yeast?” if you’re working with a cold dough, you won’t be able to tell because it’ll fell inert. You take a little bit of yeast, menthol sweet size bit of dough, and get a little jug and fill it with hot water, then just pop the piece of dough into the hot water and it’ll sink. Then within five seconds or so if yeast is in there, it’ll rise to the surface. If it stays at the bottom of your jug of hot water, there’s no yeast in it. Very quick, incredibly inexpensive way of checking. You think but my advice would be to always work with cold dough. This way you’re in control of the dough and it’s not in control of you, let nature take its time. If you’re able to retard so that you know what you’re making today. You’re going to slowly prove overnight and bake tomorrow. That will give you better flavor and in many people’s eyes and beliefs a much softer crumb as well.
Spencer: Okay, I think the word of the day for me, at least is control. You’ve mentioned it a few times. I love your advice about making sure that the baker is in control of the dough, and that the dough is not in control of the baker. I think that that is an incredible principle to maintain when they’re looking at automation, that they need automation that is going to put the control in their hands, and not in the control of the dough. That’s really good advice.
Hallam: Something always crops up. You might just have to leave the table and go and do something. If you have a dough that is fermenting away, because it’s too warm, it becomes what we call a wooly. It’s then hard to divide and mold, you might have to then further process by pinning it out. Whether you’re doing this by hand or big scale. Note that the same applies all the way along. But if you’re starting with something that’s nice and cool, and inert, it gives you breathing space, you’re in control of it, it’s not in control of you.
Spencer: Okay, I think that’s a really good note to end on for this week. Next week, we are going to take a little bit of a step back in the process. But I did that on purpose, because I think talking about time and temperature was really important to look at fermentation and going into the oven, but there’s something that you have to consider, and that is mixing. Sometimes when you look at where a dough is going wrong, or if a loaf comes out of the oven substandard, you have to go back and look at what happened in the bowl. That’s what we’re going to do next week is talk about the principle of mixing in the artisan process and the impact that it can have on that entire process. I’m excited for that.
Hallam: You’re absolutely right Joanie, because you can have the greatest of ingredients, you can have all the controls you like, but if you have not mixed the dough effectively, then you’re going to have problems later on in the processing. Yes, let’s talk about that next week. Looking forward to it!
