Dutch oven breads, aka no-knead breads

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

I agree. There's hardly any clean up after baking bread in my LC DO. Just rinse it out.

It did discolor the white ceramic though.

Mine too! I was very perturbed !!!!
I did finally get it off with a No-Scratch 3M pad and Bar Keepers Friend/Liquid... it took ALOT of elbow grease and time, but I'm
a pretty stubborn Portuguese woman, and I think my grandmother all the time for that trait!

 

[CubsGal]

My latest sub-obsession is Dutch oven breads. I made one yesterday and it came out spectacularly. By accident. The recipe I followed called for 84% hydration. I realize more hydration is necessary to create the steam that creates that lovely crust, but it seemed a bit excessive. I followed the recipe, however (except I changed out the fruit and nuts), and found I had to add a lot more fluid to make the dough even semi-workable.

I checked out several other recipes on the web. Most of them call for 50% hydration, which seems a bit dry. And another recipe I found called for a whopping 94% hydration! Cook’s Country says that 68% hydration is maximal. I downloaded a couple of books on Dutch oven cooking, but they’re very camp-centric, and deal more with the number of charcoals to put on top of the Dutch oven’s lid. (Camping, to me, is having to stay at a Holiday Inn Express and not the J.W. Marriott).

I have to ask...can you explain what you mean by hydration; I get that it refers to moisture content, but how do you know? This is not something I've ever seen in a bread recipe, nor heard discussed before.

 

[tenspeed]

I have to ask...can you explain what you mean by hydration; I get that it refers to moisture content, but how do you know? This is not something I've ever seen in a bread recipe, nor heard discussed before.

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/9901-dough-hydration

 

[JustJoel]

I have to ask...can you explain what you mean by hydration; I get that it refers to moisture content, but how do you know? This is not something I've ever seen in a bread recipe, nor heard discussed before.

Most bread recipes start off as a percentage. Flour is always 100%, and the liquid is described as a percentage of that. My favorite pizza dough is 67% hydration, which means that if I use 3 cups of flour (about 380 grams) my water will be measured at 67% of that: 255 grams. The other ingredients can also be expressed as percentages, but since there are such minuscule amounts of, say, salt and yeast, they are usually expressed in volume measurement (1/4 teaspoon, for instance).

Most bakers of bread will insist that weighing ingredients and calculating the percentages is the the best way to get a delicious loaf. Oddly, not many of these same bakers write their recipes that way, leaving you the odious task of doing the math yourself. Knowing the percentage though, is a huge help if you want to scale the recipe.

 

[CubsGal]

Most bread recipes start off as a percentage. Flour is always 100%, and the liquid is described as a percentage of that. My favorite pizza dough is 67% hydration, which means that if I use 3 cups of flour (about 380 grams) my water will be measured at 67% of that: 255 grams. The other ingredients can also be expressed as percentages, but since there are such minuscule amounts of, say, salt and yeast, they are usually expressed in volume measurement (1/4 teaspoon, for instance).

Most bakers of bread will insist that weighing ingredients and calculating the percentages is the the best way to get a delicious loaf. Oddly, not many of these same bakers write their recipes that way, leaving you the odious task of doing the math yourself. Knowing the percentage though, is a huge help if you want to scale the recipe.

Interesting. I've never once seen percentages in a recipe. For anything. Obviously any parts can be expressed as a percentage of a whole, but I've never really thought of ingredients that way. Now I'm going to think about that the next time I prepare a dough.

 

[GotGarlic]

Interesting. I've never once seen percentages in a recipe. For anything. Obviously any parts can be expressed as a percentage of a whole, but I've never really thought of ingredients that way. Now I'm going to think about that the next time I prepare a dough.

It's typically more of an issue for professional bakers and bakeries, since it's easy to scale. It can also help people troubleshoot problems with bread.

 

[pepperhead212]

Several of the bread books I have give the "Baker's Percentages" in a sidebar, but always give the volumes and/or weights for the recipes. As Joel noted, the minute amounts of yeast, salt, and similar items, make it not really something doable for small, home recipes. You would need a scale that is accurate to maybe .1 grams! I have a scale that actually has a mode for baker's percentages, but I almost never use it, though it is useful for increasing a recipe - you just increase the flour by the amount you want, then zero it out (indicating that this is the 100%), then add the other ingredients up to the % number given for each of them, zeroing it out each time. I still measure the salt and yeast by volume, the few times I have used this.