November 12, 2023 - 7:33am
Mixing more water in after kneading...
Hi all! Some time ago I bought Kitchenaid Artisan 6.9L and mainly for kneading bread doughs. Only later I found out this was a bad idea, since kitchenaid sucks at mixing bread dough. It does ok (nothing more) when you have low hidration dough but anthing above 60-65% it sucks terribly.
I want to know, from scientific point of view, what happens with gluten if I mix the dough with kitchenaid for example 55% hidration dough for 10 minutes and then later add more water to get to 70%? Will the gluten developed at lower hidration be enoguh for powerfull bread dough or not?
thanks for any insights and opinions.
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Wont hurt a bit - but if possible - try mixing with required water and a slower speed. It will take longer though. Enjoy!
Hi -
There is plenty of information noted throughout The Fresh Loaf on "Mixing more water" (Bassinage Technique).
A quick search using Bassinage as the search term should point you in the right direction or at least give you a clue or two.
Rafe
you will probably find that it slides around the bowl quite a bit trying to get that 15% added in.
For many if not most bread styles, you can get equal or better results mixing and kneading by hand, if you allow for a few rest periods. If you were to make large amounts of dough it would be different, but for typical home batches, I hardly ever use a mixer. This is for wheat-based doughs without too many inclusions, not rye or (maybe) highly enriched doughs.
Foe example, instead of machine-mixing for 15 minutes, mix by hand for 2 - 3 minutes, wait half an hour, knead or stretch for say 3 minutes, wait half an hour and stretch again for a few minutes.
Of course details depend on the recipe and the flours involved.
TomP
Not a good idea to do your initial mix at 55% hydration; your mixer will have to work hard and also the dough will be reluctant to accept extra water.
I would suggest to do your initial mix at 65-67%, do an autolyse, eg 20 mins, then add salt, mix to develop gluten, then trickle in bassinage slowly to get to your desired hydration.
Lance
I have made the mistake of not having enough water at the first mix. Realizing that more liquid was needed, I kneaded in more. But I found lumps that were hardened off from accepting more water. I had to really feel each part of the dough and flatten the lumps to get a uniform dough.
I prefer an 80% hydration. I have become lazier and use my KitchenAid to mix to almost windowpane at 70-72% (which it handles just fine), then out on a wet counter for some slap and folds to complete the process. The combination of wet hands and wet counter bring the final result up to 80% (the difference between 70 and 80% in a double batch of dough using my standard recipe is only 20g...an easily worked in amount while bringing it up to windowpane on the counter). No hard bits of flour as it is already a nicely developed dough right out of the mixer.