This series of posts was intended to point out the fact that simply developing the gluten is not the same as developing the complete dough (see this post for more info on “Instagram Recaps”). “Gluten” and “dough” are often discussed as though they are the same thing, but that’s a misconception that can lead to problems down the line. Read on to discover why, and be sure to read the additional commentary I added at the end — it helps make better sense of these posts . . .
Link to Instagram post (2/11/19)
Gluten Development vs. Dough Development: Are They One and the Same? These video clips are are from an old post, but they seem fitting for this discussion.
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The answer to this question is no, they are not the same thing. But the problem is that they are often mistaken as one and the same. Many bakers often discuss gluten development and dough development as though they are interchangeable (I’m probably guilty of this as well), but they are two distinct things.
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Gluten is just one component of dough structure – – it is a single tree in the forest that makes up a dough; granted it’s a mighty big tree. One other major component (another big tree) is the gas a dough contains. And yet another tree is the water it contains. There are other smaller trees that contribute to a dough, but these are the big three we typically need to concern ourselves with when it comes to the everyday practice of baking bread.
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Hydration affects gluten development (among other things), and gluten affects gas retention. Meanwhile, folds and dough handling affect gas distribution/organization. So….
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Hydration + Gluten Development + Gas Quantity + Gas Distribution/Organization = Dough Structure. More or less. —
Dough structure is one of the primary determinants of the final characteristics of our loaf (such as shape, height, volume, and especially crumb). In a very real sense, the way we develop our dough is the way we develop our bread. As I like to say, the method makes the bread. —
Getting back to the original question, it is important to place gluten development in proper relation to its role in dough development. Gluten development *contributes* to dough development, but it is *not* dough development in and of itself. A dough is much more than just gluten. Always keep this in mind. I’ll discuss gluten development in relation to dough development a bit more in my next post. Cheers! 😎 #opencrumbmastery
Link to Instagram post (2/15/19)
Gluten Development vs. Dough Development Part 2. This is the follow up to my last post. If you missed it then go back and read that first.
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Believe it or not, this slop is the exact same stuff that turned into that lovely dough seen in my last post. And this was at the *end* of mixing – – maybe two minutes by hand, at most. Obviously, the gluten was not developed at all during the mix. It was instead developed primarily during bulk.
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Does it matter whether gluten is developed during the mix or during the bulk instead? Yes, though either way can make great bread. What matters is that your approach to *dough* development accommodates your approach to *gluten* development. Let me explain….
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Gluten develops on its own over time. Folds might help gluten formation along, but they are not required. If I had just let this slop sit for a few hours untouched (no folds) the gluten would have formed just fine. But the *dough* structure would have been compromised. The loaf would’ve suffered from impaired height, shape, volume, and crumb because of its lack of dough structure. Good gluten does not necessarily mean good dough. And it’s difficult to make good bread without good dough.
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If you develop gluten fully during the mix then you get a head start on dough development. Gluten traps gas, and gas is an essential component of dough structure. The sooner the gluten begins trapping gas, the sooner the dough begins developing. So your dough may depend less upon folds for development if gluten is fully formed during the mix. If you primarily develop gluten during the bulk instead, then folds become more important to the development of adequate structure. Either way can work just fine, so long as you have the appropriate plan to address each dough’s particular needs.
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Developing gluten is only one part of developing a dough. An important part for sure, but not the only one. Gas accumulation (fermentation) and strength development & organization (folds) are others. It’s always important to keep your eyes on the big picture. Cheers! 😎 #opencrumbmastery
Link to Instagram post (2/16/19)
Gluten Development vs. Dough Development Part 3: Should You Fully Develop Gluten During the Mix or During Bulk?
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The answer depends entirely upon preference or practicality. Either way can make good bread. Developing gluten entirely during the mix requires more work up front, whereas developing it during bulk may require more work after mixing. The real question is: does it makes a difference to the final bread? —
All else being equal, the less a dough is mixed the more it inclines towards an irregular crumb and reduced loaf volume (among other things). But in bread baking, “all else being equal” is a rare thing. By changing one variable you necessarily change others. If you mix to less than full gluten development it will affect dough development requirements during bulk. Gluten will continue to develop over the course of the bulk, but if you use more folds – – or differently timed folds – – to help the gluten along (which you probably should) then you’ll also be increasing the organization/structure of the dough which will counteract that tendency towards irregularity and reduced volume. So things tend to balance out (to a degree). This, of course, assumes a sufficiently long enough bulk fermentation. For quick rising yeast breads, developing gluten during the mix becomes more important since you have less time to finish the job during bulk.
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Whether you fully develop the *gluten* during the mix or during bulk will have far less impact on your final loaf than the manner in which you develop the *dough*. You can achieve similar loaves either way, so long as you know how to adjust dough development to compensate. —
Oh, and for reference, the dough in this video (shown right after mixing) was mixed by hand to almost-full, but not quite completely full development (which would be a perfect windowpane). My personal preference is to develop gluten primarily during the mix….usually. Cheers! 😎 #opencrumbmastery
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I figured I should add a bit of commentary here because I don’t think I expressed myself particularly well with this series of posts — my thoughts were a bit choppy and not well-organized towards a clear and concise summary. But since I think it’s an important topic, I’ve decided to just let the posts speak for themselves while I attempt to clarify my thoughts a bit further.
First off, let me make it perfectly clear — gluten, by itself, is not dough. It is a component of dough only. So to speak of developing gluten as though it were the same thing as developing a dough is a mistake. Dough consists of additional components, most notably water and gas. The combination of gluten, water, and gas are the main “functional” components of a dough that a baker needs to be most aware of. There are other components, of course — many of which can vary depending upon the particular dough itself — but for your typical lean sourdough bread, these are the big three.
What’s most important to understand is that gluten is a part, while dough is the whole. And it’s the whole that bakers need to concern themselves with. To place excessive focus on a part, while neglecting the whole, is the surest path to confusion and frustration. I see this all the time. Folks who’ve done their best to develop window-pane caliber gluten, but can’t understand why their loaves aren’t turning out with that “Insta-worthy” level of quality they’re looking for.
The problem isn’t in the gluten, it’s in the dough.
If you don’t also have your hydration and fermentation nailed down, then your dough (and bread, consequently) is going to suffer. But what exactly does it mean to have your hydration and fermentation “nailed down?” These are important concepts, so let’s take them one at a time . . .
Hydration
I don’t want to get into a big discussion here of how much water you should be using in your dough. We’re all familiar with the “more water = more open crumb” argument. And I’ve discussed my thoughts on this subject numerous times in the past. I’m not here to sway you one way or the other. But to sum up my thinking on the matter, I’d say higher hydration increases the potential for openness, while at the same time increasing the difficulty of actually achieving openness. And this is due mainly to the increased difficulty in handling a dough as its hydration rises.
In other words, one’s ability to achieve openness from a highly hydrated dough is dependent upon one’s ability to effectively handle that dough.
But there’s more to it than just that. “Hydration” is always relative to the flour. Some flours can absorb more water than others. In general, flours with higher protein content and higher ash content can absorb more water than those without. So bread flour typically handles more water than all-purpose flour, and whole wheat flour soaks up more water than white flour. This is why I often prefer to describe a dough as “wet” or “stiff” rather than “high hydration” or “low hydration.” A 70% hydration dough made of all-purpose flour might actually feel wetter than a whole wheat dough of the same hydration. “Wet” or “stiff” describes the actual consistency of a dough, whereas hydration percentage describes only the amount of water relative to the amount of flour. The two are not the same.
So when it comes to hydration, we’ve got two main concerns — how much water the flour can handle, and how much water the baker can handle. There’s no point adding more water than a flour can handle, and likewise, there’s no point in adding more water than the baker can handle. It’s not uncommon that a flour’s ability to absorb water is better than the baker’s ability to handle the resulting dough — particularly with newer bakers.
The main takeaway when it comes to hydration — as it concerns dough development — is to know that the wetter the dough, the slacker it will be (and, of course, the stickier it will be). And in order to counter that slackness (if you want a certain degree of shape, height and volume to your loaf) it will require more dough development overall. That typically requires more dough handling than might be required of a stiffer dough. So you need to be honest with yourself regarding your dough handling ability. If you do not have much experience handling wetter dough then you are likely doing more harm than good by using a dough that’s too wet for your current level of skill.
And keep in mind that the wetter the dough, the more difficult it is to properly develop its gluten. Since gluten is one of the main components of dough, that means you are further increasing the difficulty of properly developing that dough (beyond just the extra handling required). So working with wet dough provides a double-whammy: 1) it requires more work to develop the gluten, and 2) it requires more handling to develop the dough. Therefore, make sure you are capable of doing both if you intend to work with a wetter dough.
Gluten
Obviously, the component of gluten is vitally important to the dough itself. Dough structure is fundamentally formed by the interplay of gluten and gas (with water strongly contributing to the overall dough consistency, i.e. stiff, soft, wet, etc.). Gluten holds the gas, and gas holds the dough. In other words, without gas gluten is just a limp, lifeless, formless blob. It can’t hold a shape. It can’t stand tall. It can’t generate volume. Without gas, gluten is useless. Likewise, gas without gluten is equally useless. Without gluten to trap the gas, it just evaporates into the ether. You need both to form a dough.
Gluten can be developed during the mix or during bulk fermentation. Or both. In fact, if you mix by hand then it’s likely that you’ll be developing the gluten in both the mix and the bulk since it can be difficult to fully develop gluten through hand-mixing alone. Whether you primarily develop the gluten up front during the mix or later during bulk fermentation has a noticeable impact on the development of the dough structure.
For dough structure to truly begin forming, you need a certain degree of gluten development in order to adequately retain the gas. If the gluten is not sufficiently formed, then it won’t retain enough gas for the dough structure to start developing. So if you choose to develop the gluten primarily during bulk fermentation rather than during the mix, it will take a while longer for the structure to begin amassing since you’ll need to wait for the gluten to more fully develop in order to retain the fermentation gas. Folds will be less effective at structure building (though still helpful for gluten development) until the gluten is more fully formed.
The resulting delay in structure building generally means less dough structure will be formed overall. That’s neither a good thing nor a bad thing. Sometimes you want more dough structure, sometimes you want less. It just depends on the bread you want to make, and the conditions of the day. Some breads benefit from greater structure, others benefit from less. Some days the dough feels particularly slack, so you might want to create more structure; other days the dough feels stronger and you’ll want to create less.
But it’s important to at least have a general idea of whether you’ll be wanting to create more structure or less for the bread you wish to make, that way you’ll know whether you should consider developing the gluten more during the mix or leaving it to develop more gradually during the bulk. Either way, you’ll want to make sure the gluten is fully formed (i.e. windowpane) by the time you shape your loaf, otherwise you’re gonna have a bad day. This is why it’s generally more important to fully develop the gluten during mixing when making quick rising yeast breads — there’s just not enough time for the gluten to fully develop on its own during their short bulk fermentation.
Gas
This is the variable that seems to be most overlooked when it comes to making a loaf of bread. Both newer bakers and more experienced bakers tend to neglect it in their own ways. New bakers simply don’t have the experience to judge when gas accumulation is sufficient for proper dough development, whereas more experienced bakers are perfectly capable of judging when there is enough gas in the dough for it to hold a shape, but may not fully realize the extent to which gas generation and organization can be utilized in crafting different characteristics in their bread (relating to shape, height, volume, and crumb).
What is “gas generation and organization”?
Gas is generated by fermentation, obviously, and the more gas a dough accumulates the more structure it accumulates as well. Organization refers to how that structure is arranged. The alveoli (gas cells) in the dough can be rearranged and stacked by folding the dough. Folding creates layers in the dough, and more folds means more layers. These layers are a form of organization within the dough, and the more layers the dough has, the more organized it will be as well. So folding is the primary way to organize dough structure. That’s a bit of a simplified description, but I hope it gets the point across.
And the point is this — that the amount of gas a dough accumulates, and how the gas cells are arranged via folding play a pivotal role in the overall structure you form in your dough.
Developing Dough Structure
So the major considerations when building dough structure are:
- Dough Consistency — Is your dough high hydration or low hydration. Or better yet, is it wet or stiff, or somewhere in between. The wetter (or more slack) your dough is, the more likely you’ll want to build and organize dough structure (if you are looking for decent shape, height and volume in your loaf, that is). You can generate extra structure by letting the dough rise higher during bulk, and you can organize that structure by giving it more folds. Conversely, if your dough leans toward the stiffer end of the consistency spectrum, you may need less structure and less organization.
- Gluten Development — Well-developed gluten creates a more well-developed dough. Stronger gluten allows for less structural development overall, if you wish to leave it less developed; while weaker (though still fully developed) gluten might require more structure building in order for the dough to hold a nice shape. Poorly developed gluten forms a poorly developed dough; and while extra structural development would be helpful in such a situation, it is less effective trying to build and organize dough structure when working with poorly developed gluten (because it simply doesn’t trap gas very well). But folds might still be useful since they can help to better develop the gluten if it wasn’t yet fully formed; and once the gluten is more fully formed then structure building can begin in earnest.
- Gas Accumulation & Organization — The more gas a dough accumulates, the more structure it has. So for more structure, let the dough rise higher during bulk; for less structure then let it rise less. Folds organize the dough, so for more organization perform more folds and for less organization fold less.
Final Thoughts
The point of this post isn’t to tell you what kind of dough structure you should or shouldn’t be developing. It’s simply to illustrate the fact that gluten development is not the same thing as dough development, even though developing the gluten is part of developing the dough. There are many reasons a baker may want more or less dough structure, or more or less organization. And certain styles of bread lend themselves better to certain types of dough structure than others. Part of what makes a good baker is knowing what kind of dough structure you want, and knowing how to properly build it. But that’s a long and complicated topic, much too long for a blog post (which is why I wrote a book about it!).
Cheers!
Trevor J. Wilson
Hello Trevor, It’s wonderful following your posting and it comes at the precise moment I am looking for the advice I need to improve my sourdough baking. Quick summary of where I’m at. I started with Tartin, Chad Robertson’s book last year and have gotten better and I’m baking more and learning more every day. I have ordered your book and look forward to reading it. I have one question. I’m hoping you can help me with. I’ve been following different open crumb bakers and would like to increase the hydration of my dough. I read where it is recommended to laminate the dough with higher hydration early. I assume this is similar to your advice to work the dough heavily in the earlier part of development. I would like to try the Rimbaud method followed by those beautiful coils. I don’t desire laminating. Also one more questions sorry. You don’t mention autolyse. I presume this is because it’s too passive in the early stage of gluten development. I realize you may not have time to answer every text question. I can’t seem to find these answers. Thank you so much for all you do. I am really looking forward to your book arriving.
Wishing you a great holiday and new year ahead.
Robin Birkbeck