Hi Rasmus, nice write up on your website. We will give your ciabatta style bread a try very soon!

– The right flour and balance between water and flour – depends greatly on flour quality.
– The right kneading – enough to make the gluten into an elastic structure with long threads, but not too much as it will break the structure.
– The right handling of the wet dough – avoiding collapsing the gluten structure.
– The right baking – 25-30 minutes at 225-250 degrees on a baking stone.

You can read a detailed description on the page below. I also have including videos to help you see the kneading.
www.rkursem.com/food/…ffy-bread/

Hello Anna,
Although you covered your bread it was still drying out. The best way to avoid that is to use clingfilm (huishoudfolie) that you first give a liberal dusting with flour so it will not stick to the dough. Then, make sure the bread is completely covered with the floured clingfilm while proofing. This is our favorite method that we use all the time.

Happy Baking!

Marieke

Thanks!
Anna

Hello John,
Just add up the weight of all the flour in the recipe, add up the weight of all the liquid and divide the liquid by the amount of flour. Example: 500 g flour, 350 water (350 : 500 = 0.70 x 100 = 70% hydration).
Other example: If you have 500 g flour and want to aim for 62% hydration you need (500 : 100 x 62 =) 310 water.

Hope this helps and keep up the fun baking!

Ed & Marieke

Thanks, I’m a very new guy and having lots of fun with this.

Hi Bill,
Thanks for sharing! So funny you mention the 95% ciabatta dough because we are busy with a new posting for a recipe where we use almost this exact same dough to make focaccia (and a funny type of dough it is, we made nice pics of the impressive window panes you can make with it) : our ‘ciabatta focaccia’ we call it . It works great.
Your addition of rye or spelt for the ciabatta sounds delicious.

Thanks again and happy baking!

The techniques used by Mr. Bertinet are different from the ones we use. You have to find out which technique of making dough works best for you and which type of dough and bread you prefer to work with and to eat in the end.
So I think it is best to give it all a try. Of course it is correct what Bertinet describes in his book, working the dough this way you can get a perfect result. The techniques we use allow for the dough to develop by resting it a lot and not ‘fumbling about’ with it too much. So there is relatively little kneading time and the dough develops through techniques like autolysing and stretching and folding the dough. We prefer the structure and crumb you get using these methods.
There are also things like carotenoids in (good quality) flour that give your bread a nice taste. By kneading too much these carotenoids will oxidize and you will lose taste and that is always a shame.

Check out our baking glossary for things like autolysing www.weekendbakery.com/bread…-glossary/
And for the stretching and folding see our short clip: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ld-method/

Happy baking!