"Valmai Barbala" <valmai@epc.net.au> asked:
>I have started to make the leaven on page 58 and understand that, but when
>I have made the leaven, how do I calculate how much flour, water etc to
>use? They write of Bakers percentage, but that only confuses me further.
Commercial bakers normally measure ingredients by weight. At least in the
USA, home bakers usually measure by volume, which is less
accurate. (Flour, and other dry ingredients, may not always pack the
same. So the weight of a cup of flour can vary by 50% depending on the
flour, the humidity, how the flour was packed in the sack, and how the
baker filled the cup. Measuring by weight is faster and more accurate once
you're used to it.)
In order to make recipe scaling easy, bakers use bakers percentage. In
bakers percentage, the flour is considered to be 100%. All other
ingredients are scaled relative to the flour. If you are using more than
one flour, you are free to wing it. I prefer to consider the combined
amount of flour to be 100%. So, a baker's percentage recipe might call for:
Bread flour 100%
Water 65%
Salt 2%
Instant yeast 1.5%
The percentages are independent of the weight measurements you use... use
metric (or SI), pounds, troy ounces, avoidopois, stones, whatever, it works
regardless. The ratios are independent of the weight system.
If you wanted to make 1685 grams of bread with the recipe above, you'd use
Ingredient grams
Bread flour 1000
Water 650
Salt 20
Instant yeast 15
The ratio between the flour and water (and other liquids and oils) is the
hydration of the dough. This recipe is considered to have 65%
hydration. If the amount of flour and water is the same, the hydration is
100%. This gives you a ballpark guess as to the texture of the dough.
The big variable here is the kind(s) of flour used. Whole grain flours
tend to soak up more water than white flours, so a 80% hydration whole
wheat dough and a 65% hydration white flour dough might be pretty
simular. (Those numbers were pulled out of the air to make a point, they
are not being represented as being accurate or having any real world
signifigance.)
As a final note on hydration, many bakers consider oil, butter, honey,
eggs, or whatever to be water for the purpose of calculating
hyrdation. All of these things tend to act just like water for the
purposes of dough handling.
Finally, I REALLY like "The Bread Builders". However, I think any number
of other books are better books for the beginning baker. If you are at the
intermediate level or beyond, it's excellent. If you want to build a brick
oven, it's great! But, it isn't a great introduction to baking. If you
want to build an oven, you might also check out Kiko Denzer's earth oven
book. I have the book, but not here, and the title eludes me. Look up
Kiko Denzer at amazon or half.com, there seems to only be one
Kiko. [[Editor's note: <http://www.intabas.com/kikodenzer.html> ]]
If you want to get going on sourdough baking, you might check out Dr. Ed
Wood's books, Jeffery Hammel's book, Ortiz's "The Village Baker", or even
my guide to sourdough on my web page at
http://www.sourdoughhome.com. Another good resource is the
rec.food.sourdough news group.
Good luck,
Mike