Hello Everyone,
Love the site. It is one of the best resources for sourdough I have seen so far on the net. Keep up the good work.
Wondering if you can help me out. I am pretty new to this and am looking at purchasing some proofing baskets. The recipe I am using (one of Dan Lepard's I found on the net) produces two 800g loafs. Do you think the 750g basket will be a little small or should I go up to the 1000g basket?
Thanks for your time,
Rich.
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Replies
Thanks muchly Rich! I'll get Graham to answer your question shortly (if no one else chimes in), he's out at the moment.
Hi Rich,
After speaking with Graham... he was leaning towards the larger banneton if the recipe was for a dough that will rise considerably. He hinted that you could get away with the 750g if it was a dough with less rise.
All the best,
Maedi
Thanks for your reply Maedi. Do you know if there would be any issues with doing smaller loaves in the larger basket... say a 600g loaf in the 1kg basket?
Hi Rich. Sorry for the delay getting back to you. Bakers are oftened trained to completely fill a form from end to end. This helps to ensure that the ends of the dough obtain consistency during proving, particularly in tinned bread.
I only discovered recently that it is not necessary to completely fill a banneton from end to end. Sure, the spiral effect may loose a few rings on the end, but does this really matter? This opens up the opportunity of using larger bannetons for smaller dough weights, providing they are not too wide for the dough piece.
In our own bakery we are currently using both 750g and 1kg cane bannetons for 850g dough weights (sourdough). We interchange bannetons without issue, but I would not like to go much heavier than 850g dough in the 750g banneton. 1kg bannetons can take a larger weight, while still being able to use fairly small dough pieces.
Graham