75% hydration ciabattina with biga

[amolapizza]

Here's my latest try at 75% hydration ciabattina using 90% of the total flour for a Giorilli style biga.

Twelve ciabattine at 110g each makes for 1320g dough

746g Flour (100%)
559g Water (75%)
15g Salt (2.0%)

90% of the total flour for the biga leads to the following formula for the biga.

671g Caputo saccorosso (100%)
297g Water (44%)
6.71g fresh CY (1%)

Since it was quite warm I use the rule of 55 for the biga.  Water temperature = 55 - flour temperature - ambient temperature.  In my case it was 55-24-25=6, so I used ice to cool down my water to 6C.  Supposedly this is to offset not having 18C to store the biga at for 18-24 hours.  I wonder if that's true, and maybe it's aimed more at arriving at around 18C after mixing the biga.

I mixed the biga with a wooden fork and finally with my hands to work in most of the flour.  The final dough temperature of the biga was 20.5C.  I covered it with some cling wrap and punched a few holes in the surface so that it's not hermetically closed.  The idea is that the low hydration, the minimum gluten development and the access to oxygen allows the yeast to multiply instead of only doing alcoholic fermentation.  Of course there will be a lot of other processes taking place while the preferment matures.  Again I find that there is less alcoholic smell than when I close it hermetically.

I put the biga to rest at room temperature, yesterday it was 25C and today it is 23C. I let it go for about 22 hours, so due to the higher than ideal temperature it's probably more fermented than it should be, but this is for bread and IME it's ok and not all that critical.

The dough is made up of the the biga and the missing flour, water and salt.

Biga
75g Caputo Tipo 1
264g Water
15g Salt

I mixed the dough in my spiral mixer. I added the biga, the missing flour and 188g of ice cold water, then I let it run for about 5 minutes at medium speed (110 rpm) after the pumpkin had formed and gotten strength I upped the speed to high (220 rpm) and slowly added the remaining 76g of water and the salt).  It took a total of 9 minutes and the final dough temperature was at 22.7C.  I closed it on the bench with some slap and fold and a "pirlatura" with my dough scraper.  After half an hour I tried some more folding, but I don't think it was really necessary as the dough already has a lot of strength.

After two hours rest on the bench, I cut the dough into 2 and then cut 6 ciabattine from each for a total of 12.  I just dunked them in semolina rimacinata without any further shaping.  They proofed for another 2 hours on a floured couche loosely covered with cling wrap.

Finally baked on a static program at 240C for 25 minutes.  I threw some ice cubes in a tray to get some steam for the first few minutes.

[texmex]

Fascinating.   

[amolapizza]

It's funny to see the difference in browning between the last bake and this one.

The first was more or less the same recipe, except that it was 45% instead of 44% hydration for the biga.  The thing is on the first I had the cover partially closed on the tupper, and in the second I had some perforated cling foil on top.  Looks like that if you restrict the air, the biga will consume more sugar which judging by the alcoholic smell might well be true.

Both bakes were 25 minutes at 240C with some initial steam.

I'll have to redo this and see if the same thing happens..

Edit: The other difference is that in the first bake I shaped the dough, while in the second I just cut it..

[Yael]

Terrific