@anon44372566 I’m moving the Pan Gallego conversation over to a new thread, using the video you shared as a starting point and giving it a go.
I decided to try Warthog hard red winter wheat as my whole grain component, with no idea how it actually compares to Galician wheat varieties. I went with the lower of range of water in the dough because my starter/masamadre is 100% hydration and was ready to go (rather than build her slightly dryer starter).
So far:
330g bread flour (edited to show the bump from 315g to 330g necessary to do slap and fold mixing, and even then super wet)
105g warthog wheat flour
395g water
130g starter
8g salt
Never heard of that flour Melissa but I notice it’s a strong wheat and you’ve gone for wholegrain. I believe that it should be soft wheat for the 25% local Galician wheat and white. In fact I think it’s typical of Spanish breads to be white.
What is this warthog wheat flour? Sounds interesting!
Following with much interest and hope it turns out as good as it looks in the video. Let me know what you think of the technique and any advice would be greatly appreciated!
P.s. Just had a great idea… Save a piece of dough for the next bake. You’ve made enough to keep some dough as a starter for the next bake and still have a good sized loaf. It’ll be a stiff starter as called for in the recipe and will have a nice flavour. Keep in the fridge and use within 3 days.
In that case no need to save some dough but if you wish I still think it’ll be flavoursome if you do so and keep it in the fridge to use within 3 days.
I did an initial mixing, 15 min rest, slap and fold for 15 min. Then I had somewhere to be for two hrs. I came home, did 6 rounds of stretching and folding every 20-30 minutes up until the end of the bulk fermentation which was 5 hours after the initial mixing.
Here are not-fancy videos of the high hydration slap and fold, and one of the final stretch and folds.
After last stretch and fold, I started a 30-minute oven preheat with my stone in the oven, and pan under it at 500F (habit, I think video is 480F - I’ll do 480F next time).
10 minutes into the preheat, I poured the dough onto a floured counter, folded it inward, flipped and tightened it a little, then placed it on floured parchment. Covered with towel like the video.
After a twenty minute rest and completion of oven preheat, I floured the dough, grabbed the middle and twisted. I made the moña/bow but didn’t quite lift the dough off the parchment like some videos show; I more spun the parchment.
Into the oven with a cup of boiling water thrown on the drip tray under the stone (like my ciabatta strategy).
15 min at 500F
15 min at 400F (I had to put a foil hat on the bow because it was way dark and I need to experiment with oven temps)
(Video says 45 minutes at 400F !?)
A little denser on the bottom. Not sure if lifting the dough while making the bow would’ve made a difference, or a hotter stone, or more refined flour – but I’m very pleased nonetheless.
I’m loving the crust texture: thick and crispy, but not hard. And the crumb is damp and chewy, but not soggy.
That’s lovely Melissa. I’d be well pleased with that. Outside and in look perfect. Good write up with explanations and accompanying videos. First bake of Pane Gallego and you’ve but the nail on the head. Hope to see this on a featured recipe sometime soon. I need to pluck up the courage to give it a go.
Thank you Melissa for trying it out for me. This numbering of Spanish flour is confusing. I’m not sure if Galician flour is strong or soft. Been trying to read up on it but there are so many numbering systems. She says if you don’t have Galician flour then use flour of W270-300 but that is bread flour with an absorbency of up to 75% water. However the recipe is much higher then that. What do you advise? I’ve got some 12.6% protein bread flour.
Galician flour apparently is grown in low nitrogen soil (?) Which would make it a soft flour but the hydration is extremely high. Too high I would have thought.
P.s. I’ve just had a look at the written recipe and even in Spanish I can make out that the mother dough is a pate fermente made with flour, water, salt and yeast. It’s 78% hydration. My plan will be to make the pate fermente using sourdough starter. I think making it this way should add strength to the dough. The additional yeast is optional in the final dough but it is a yeasted bread.
I think you could do all bread flour (420g) and then start with maybe 380g water, which would be 90% hydration. It’s a little less than the range she gives but still plenty wet. The strength of the flour, plus active gluten development, plus a heavily floured bench should make everything work nicely.
If you do use another wheat, I’d just pick a flavor you like since we’re flying blind and just stay at or under 25% and again start low with the water. Warthog is no gluten powerhouse despite being high protein, so I was very much relying on the bread flour component.
What amazed me was that only 15g additional bread flour brought me from dough that wouldn’t lift off the counter in one piece, to coherent slop that I could slap and fold. So keep that in mind as you adjust flour and/or water.
Next time I want to make two…and I’m a little worried that the short time of bench rest to bake will be hard on a divided dough vs. the one dough blob poured out of the bowl. But I’m reminding myself that bakeries deal with dividing and all is well.
Beautiful! It looks great. I can’t wait to hear about what you did. I saw your P.S. about the pate fermente and plan for yeast in the final dough, and I’m curious how much you used and the timing of things.
This Instagram post that someone pointed me toward has 0.2% yeast in the Pan Gallego dough.
He does the bassinage technique - some of the water added after gluten is developed.
Didn’t use any yeast in the end. Made the 78% hydration “pate fermente” with sourdough starter, allowed that to mature and refrigerated till ready to use. Since the traditional recipe, as she explains, is to save a piece of dough from the previous bake and she makes a 78% hydration pate fermente instead I used that as a licence to make a 78% hydration final dough. Didn’t think the 100% bread flour I used would be able to take 90% + hydration. Should be high enough to produce an open crumb with the correct handling but not too high to risk a flop. Took some time to build up that strong gluten but once fully formed it behaved very well. Used an autolyse to get the gluten formation well on the way before adding the starter and salt. Didn’t use my usual mini oven as it was a large dough and wished to place it on a pizza tray (don’t have all the correct utensils like a baking stone) so used a different oven. However this oven is fan only and I think it didn’t suit the bread. Funnily enough in the mini oven I can toggle the fan on and off and use only the bottom or top coils. To my surprise it had completed the oven spring and the crust looked done after 15 minutes but according to the recipe it had 45 more minutes to bake still. I turned the oven down to 180°C and left it baking for 15 more minutes. So it had the more usual time frame of 30 minutes for a loaf of bread. Still it feels light as she describes and hoping the inside of the loaf is fully baked through.
Perhaps the hydration played a factor. The more dense side is where I gathered in the dough to make a ball and maybe compressed the dough too much. Maybe the crust formed too quickly and with no stone the baking didn’t help. Still the rest of the bread has a very open crumb for 78% hydration. The taste is very nice with the crust having lots of flavour.
Haha love the varied crumb assessment. I think squeezing the dough into a ball does interesting things to the insides for sure. Here’s a cross-section of my loaf. Also strange actual gluten strings
I see that gluten string! That’s kinda cool. I think where we both experience a more dense part of the loaf is where we gather up the pre-shape. When I do this again I’m going to bear that in mind. Where I live it’s hard water and she recommends soft water so next time I’ll source bottled water. I do think it should be 100% white flour but we have to make do with what we have until we can access the correct flour. Otherwise I think hydration can be altered according to the flour you’re using. No harm in an autolyse and making a pate fermente style preferment with sourdough starter (she uses yeast and calls it sourdough - lost in translation?) to replica a piece of dough from the previous bake is an interesting way of using your starter.
75% bread flour
25% whole grain home-milled kamut (someone on Instagram said this is a good approximate-Galician wheat possibility, she uses white kamut though, which I don’t have)
92.5% water (higher to account for lower starter amount and thirsty kamut)
20% starter (this was 1000g of flour and I basically ran out of starter, thought I’d built more, left myself a smear)
2% salt
I bulked less (longer time, incl refrigerator retard, but less fermented) and proofed longer because I wanted the divided dough to reform nicely. Crumb wasn’t as open as the warthog, though. Possibly due to less fermentation; possibly due to shaping abuse.
Baked one on a stone and one in the Challenger Bread Pan (cast iron baking vessel). I got more bow definition from the open oven and better crumb from the bread pan. I was also able to bake the bread pan one 40 minutes, whereas the open oven was much darker sooner. Same internal temps.
I keep forgetting to add that leaving the dough in the oven after it’s baked, with a wooden spoon to hold the door a little open, is good for the crust development, not getting soft.
and thanks for pointing me toward the video. It was super helpful.
and just stay at or under 25% and again start low with the water. Warthog is no gluten powerhouse despite being high protein, so I was very much relying on the bread flour component.
