Artisan Sourdough Shaping Technique | Proof Bread

people often ask like why shape bread and you know i'd really love to do an experiment on camera where we have a loaf that we did that we have a loaf that we shape and then we have a loaf that we don't shape so that we can kind of see the difference the difference really comes out in the final portion of the bake you can see based on how someone's shaped if they've shaped too tightly or if they've shaped too loosely or if they've shaped just right or you know like you can kind of tell at the end who shaped a loaf because of how it's shaped because we don't really mandate like you must shape this way i just try to tell everybody go for a tight chipotle burrito just like that the reason that we shape is to get that final form that we are desiring so if you don't shape you're going to end up with a lot of if you don't do the final shaping that is you'll end up with a lot of flat squatty loaves and a shape at the end of the day that you don't even want to have a sandwich on you know like nobody wants to eat a sandwich on a biscuit so that's really why shape john can give you more of the science behind it i'll tell you i work mostly on intuition i say that a lot but and i also don't it's like goes in hand in hand with also my like management method too it's like if i'm training people how to do something i like to say here's the final product find your path to get there because i think i've said this before but shaping is a very personal experience this can be really meditative if you allow it to be if you allow yourself to be open open to receiving you know whatever you're going to get from this the other week we had like a really a really rough week john and i you know like the business was hit on all angles you know one thing like several fires going at once and and that forced us back into the in a production quite heavily and to do a lot of it um but it was almost like a blessing in disguise because all the stress of the outside kind of melts away when you're in here doing something that you love and something that um you're good at after many many years of practice to where it's like almost not mindless but just quiet you know your brain gets to be a little bit quiet just to process everything that you're going through we like threw some loud music on in here i think it was florence in the machine that day and just like went at it it's rare that i shape every single loaf the same because like i said i'm just trying to go for the final product but not every loaf hits the table in a uniform way so i kind of let the loaf dictate to me that's why i use all the elements that are around me like gravity like i'll pick this up and now i know like this is as far as it'll go that's i want to add tension so i fold it completely in half and then i stitch it like this but you know that might not be the same way that i shape the next loaf i always kind of end in the last way to like move it back and forth because i don't like to have the butts because like i said you can tell who's shaped by how they shape it um some people will leave the rolly pulleys in the end so this one came out like triangular so i'm gonna just i guess the keys are there's some steps that i go for so the first part is kind of like do your thing and then the second part is like i try to make it to this sort of tardigrade shape i guess it's a nice little like this is about this the length of the loaf that i want maybe a little bit longer and then i just roll that up and so some people will like just leave it and then you get this little roly-poly but there at the end of the day you'll see it when you bake that so i like to pull the tops over and just fold it under get a little bit of extra tension and then seal that bottom another thing is um don't beat yourself up if if your loaves are coming out not as smooth as this they won't for the first you know 100 times you do it to be honest um because your hands have to also kind of get used to it you are harriet is a living breathing thing and you're kind of like getting to know each other you and your starter and your hands she's to trying to get to know you know your hands and the bacterias that live on your hands naturally even if you wash them and it's just uh don't beat yourself up you want to go for a smooth one that's how you know like oh yeah i made it you know that's probably the the the moment where i was like oh yeah i was made for this i can do this [Applause] when i had this perfect loaf that i felt was perfect to me but everybody's different and we want to leave space for that this kind of goes hand in hand with you know what john was saying about regulatory bodies like who really likes to be told what to do i mean even your kids don't like it so why are we doing this all the time to adults i don't want to tell somebody you must take this step and that step and that step because i think like everybody's journey is very personal if you know where you just have to know where you're going and it's up to you to get there and then as far as like squeezing out the bubbles you don't want to be mashing this thing to death but you want to find that right balance to where you're respecting the dough but it's okay if a few bubbles pop so when you're rolling in on itself sometimes you can get the tendency to have a bubble up at the top here that will form you do want to avoid that sometimes i'll get it even and i'll just kind of push it down in itself because that could translate into the final the final proof it could translate into becoming a bigger bubble where you would get where it would become in the oven it would become just like an air hole and nobody wants to have a piece of a loaf with like a giant air bubble at the top of it we've had that before in the very beginning when we were making our sandwich loaves we were having some proofing issues like not really knowing when and or how long to proof we were either undershooting or overshooting and we always knew that because the crust would basically separate from the rest of the bread so that is not a good thing everybody wants to put flour all over everything don't do that so you want flour on the top of your loaf that's a lo that's the part that's going to hit the table but you want your table to generally be where you're working to generally be flourless because you're going to need that tension on the table or that sticky stickiness on the table you want that to help you build your tension like you don't have to do this all by yourself the table can help use your tools so see if you have too much flour like i this one happened to hit this part of the table it had which had some rice flour it's like having trouble sticking which is not what you want okay so i'm gonna throw a bunch of flour here and try to have the same experience and i'm not getting as tight of a loaf like this versus this one this is the one who just shaved which one i couldn't get it as tight it's kind of hard to see on camera but it's more of a feeling thing but until i move some of that flour off my table or or stretch the dough enough to where it's it's hitting fresh onto the table you're not going to get a really good source easy source of tension there so this one is super loose right so i just did one stitch and i didn't like the way that felt so i'm going to continue and just keep going until i feel like okay that's enough tension for me to roll this up and get a good result so how much would you say that is like six inches maybe and i just tuck in the ends it's good to go and this is like this is what you want your seam to look like when you first take it up it's kind of you can barely tell it's there until it starts to split which it will split because gravity but once you put in the benetin it's going to help retain its shape a little bit more some early things that we learned that i don't know if i've mentioned before are if you get to your loaf and it's it's over proofed like it's bubbling out of this thing and it's like starting to get flaps on the side you can actually just take that loaf out reshape it and stick it back in and let it re-proof um you probably have one maybe two times like depending on where your starter is and how much gas is left in the tank to be able to do that um but just like if you get to that point don't think like oh all hope is lost you you can you can come back from that i really gravitate towards the oven but shaping actually i would say shaping now is my favorite thing i really love the oven before but i really like shaping for the like communal aspect of it you know you can get a bunch of hands here it's really fun i like it because it's the step before what's the final step where you get to manipulate things before you bake it so i also like that you know i get to know it's like a sneak peek like how is the dough behaving here on the table will tell me how it's going to behave over there in the bake room you

Channel: Proof Bread

Views: 428,484

Keywords: sourdough starter, sourdough bakery, microbakery, proof bread, proof bakery, sourdough, bread, baking, cooking, food, gourmet, artisan, homemade, handmade, handcrafted, flour, recipe, how to, kitchen, ingredients, cottage bakery, rustic, small business, entrepreneur

Id: WhmboEstDPo

Length: 11min 21sec (681 seconds)

Published: Sat May 15 2021