How have you improved your breads as you’ve gained experience?
Most of us casual home bakers seem to start in the same basic place. We all saw the same YouTube or tik tok basic bread videos. We probably all started with the same basic process following the same basic recipe. If you are now at the point where you are consistently making very good breads what has changed over the course of your journey?
I’ve changed most of what I first learned from YouTube but I think the biggest improvement has come from how I manipulate my dough. Every basic instruction video I ever saw said to do 3 or 4 sets of “stretch and folds” to develop dough strength. After a year or two of that I saw other techniques that I started to adopt. I no longer do any stretch and folds at all. I am now doing three different things and I am sure they have greatly increased the quality of my bread and the consistency I get from bread to bread.
After mixing and waiting an hour, the first manipulation I do is a set of 8-10 aggressive slap and folds. The change from shaggy, wet, unconsolidated, gloppy mess to smooth, tight, non-sticky dough in just the first 5 or 6 slap and folds in unbelievable. I’ll let that rest for 30 minutes then do a lamination fold. After another 30 minute rest I’ll do a gentle coil fold followed by a last coil fold before going into the BF container.
What have you changed that has made a difference?