Wow, that's weird

[superbaker007]

Today i made an 80% hydration dough for ciabatta, i mixed it for 22 minutes
on medium speed using my Bosch hand mixer, but nothing worked.
The dough still didn't develop enough gluten and was too sticky...
I mean, what ? How come using the mixer alone, isn't enough for kneading any dough ?
What should i do so next time it will work ?

 

[retired baker]

Mix it , then leave it covered for 30 minutes, give it a few folds and see how it feels.
the co2 will strengthen the gluten.

 

[superbaker007]

Mix it , then leave it covered for 30 minutes, give it a few folds and see how it feels.
the co2 will strengthen the gluten.

I thought the mixer alone will do all the job.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I thought the mixer alone will do all the job.

As with all bakers who are just starting out with bread, here are a few helpful things to know—especially when working with high-hydration doughs:


1. Doughs with 70% hydration or more will always feel sticky. This is completely normal and expected, even when the dough is well developed.

2. An 80% hydration dough is considered very high. Even with fully developed gluten, it will never feel dry or smooth like lower-hydration dough. It will remain very sticky and soft throughout the entire mixing, folding, and shaping process.

3. Hand mixers cannot knead bread dough properly. They’re designed for beating light mixtures like cake batter or whipped cream. They simply don’t have the power or the right motion to develop the gluten structure bread dough requires—no matter how long you run them.

4. Even stand mixers have limitations with high-hydration doughs. The wetter and heavier the dough, the more resistance it creates against the mixer. This can reduce the effectiveness of kneading, especially at higher hydration levels.

5. High-hydration doughs take experience and practice. If you’re just beginning, I recommend starting with simpler recipes that include:

• 65%–69% hydration doughs, which are easier to handle

• An autolyse (rest) period of 30–60 minutes after mixing just the flour and water—this gives the dough a head start on gluten development

• The stretch-and-fold method, a gentle, hands-on way to build gluten strength without needing a stand mixer or intensive kneading


If your goal is to work up to high-hydration breads (which can be delicious and rewarding!), remember: working with sticky, soft dough is a skill you’ll build over time. Choose mixing methods that match your comfort level and equipment. With patience and practice, you’ll get there.

 

[superbaker007]

As with all bakers who are just starting out with bread, here are a few helpful things to know—especially when working with high-hydration doughs:


1. Doughs with 70% hydration or more will always feel sticky. This is completely normal and expected, even when the dough is well developed.

2. An 80% hydration dough is considered very high. Even with fully developed gluten, it will never feel dry or smooth like lower-hydration dough. It will remain very sticky and soft throughout the entire mixing, folding, and shaping process.

3. Hand mixers cannot knead bread dough properly. They’re designed for beating light mixtures like cake batter or whipped cream. They simply don’t have the power or the right motion to develop the gluten structure bread dough requires—no matter how long you run them.

4. Even stand mixers have limitations with high-hydration doughs. The wetter and heavier the dough, the more resistance it creates against the mixer. This can reduce the effectiveness of kneading, especially at higher hydration levels.

5. High-hydration doughs take experience and practice. If you’re just beginning, I recommend starting with simpler recipes that include:

• 65%–69% hydration doughs, which are easier to handle

• An autolyse (rest) period of 30–60 minutes after mixing just the flour and water—this gives the dough a head start on gluten development

• The stretch-and-fold method, a gentle, hands-on way to build gluten strength without needing a stand mixer or intensive kneading


If your goal is to work up to high-hydration breads (which can be delicious and rewarding!), remember: working with sticky, soft dough is a skill you’ll build over time. Choose mixing methods that match your comfort level and equipment. With patience and practice, you’ll get there.

I'm not such a beginner.
I worked with doughs of 50-66 percent hydration and even made a brioche bread,
which is low hydration but i used my hand mixer for that because of the high amount of butter in the dough,
it takes too long to knead it by hand.
With that my mixer helped me.

 

[retired baker]

I thought the mixer alone will do all the job.

you could try a stronger flour, high gluten , but its not usually sold in stores.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I'm not such a beginner.
I worked with doughs of 50-66 percent hydration and even made a brioche bread,
which is low hydration but i used my hand mixer for that because of the high amount of butter in the dough,
it takes too long to knead it by hand.
With that my mixer helped me.

Doughs with 50%–66% hydration are relatively low in moisture and therefore very easy to handle.

I cannot stress enough that hand mixers are not designed to manage high-hydration dough effectively. Or the fact that a mixer isn’t required at all to make excellent bread.

King Arthur Baking Company’s Head Baker, Martin Philip, only included two mixer-based recipes in his cookbook—one of which isn’t even a bread dough. In this video, he discusses the strain bread doughs can place on stand mixers, even sharing that he had to replace a stripped gear on his own mixer due to mixing heavy doughs (around the 3:40 mark).

Using a hand mixer for 22 minutes in place of stretch and folds isn’t just inefficient—it’s unnecessary. Each set of stretch and folds takes about 30 seconds and very little effort. Altogether, three sets require only about 90 seconds of hands-on time and simply involve lifting one side of the dough, stretching it gently, and folding it over itself. There’s no kneading involved.

I bake bread and rolls multiple times a week using anywhere from 72% -80% hydration. I don’t knead any of the doughs.

It is bit of an effort to work butter into brioche. So I understand your use of a mixer for enriched doughs. But as your experience with the 80% hydration dough showed you, a hand mixer is ineffective and exhausting work.

 

[superbaker007]

Doughs with 50%–66% hydration are relatively low in moisture and therefore very easy to handle.

I cannot stress enough that hand mixers are not designed to manage high-hydration dough effectively. Or the fact that a mixer isn’t required at all to make excellent bread.

King Arthur Baking Company’s Head Baker, Martin Philip, only included two mixer-based recipes in his cookbook—one of which isn’t even a bread dough. In this video, he discusses the strain bread doughs can place on stand mixers, even sharing that he had to replace a stripped gear on his own mixer due to mixing heavy doughs (around the 3:40 mark).

Using a hand mixer for 22 minutes in place of stretch and folds isn’t just inefficient—it’s unnecessary. Each set of stretch and folds takes about 30 seconds and very little effort. Altogether, three sets require only about 90 seconds of hands-on time and simply involve lifting one side of the dough, stretching it gently, and folding it over itself. There’s no kneading involved.

I bake bread and rolls multiple times a week using anywhere from 72% -80% hydration. I don’t knead any of the doughs.

It is bit of an effort to work butter into brioche. So I understand your use of a mixer for enriched doughs. But as your experience with the 80% hydration dough showed you, a hand mixer is ineffective and exhausting work.

But how do they do it in bakeries when they make ciabattas ?
Do they do stretches and folds to massive amounts of dough or do they
have special mixers that do all the job ?

 

[retired baker]

But how do they do it in bakeries when they make ciabattas ?
Do they do stretches and folds to massive amounts of dough or do they
have special mixers that do all the job ?

I worked in 2 bake shops where ciabatta was a shape, not a dough recipe.
If we were making scali then we used that dough, if baguettes were in production we grabbed some of that after the first rise.

If you have a soupy dough, just stir it together , cover and leave it 30 minutes, then fold and leave it another 30 minutes. Do it 4 times and you'll have a dough.

 

[superbaker007]

I worked in 2 bake shops where ciabatta was a shape, not a dough recipe.
If we were making scali then we used that dough, if baguettes were in production we grabbed some of that after the first rise.

If you have a soupy dough, just stir it together , cover and leave it 30 minutes, then fold and leave it another 30 minutes. Do it 4 times and you'll have a dough.

Still didn't get you.
Maybe for such doughs, they mix them in a huge mixer and then do folds ?

 

[retired baker]

you can hold back some of the water, get the dough going and slowly add the rest of the water.
Thats the idea with brioche. Its a cogent dough until you add the butter, then it becomes soup.
Same with baba, dough is like baguette until you add the melted butter and it turns into complete slop.

 

[retired baker]

Still didn't get you.
Maybe for such doughs, they mix them in a huge mixer and then do folds ?

yes, , my brother is more of a technical baker, he says you can blend a sloppy dough with a paddle to start, Try 15 minutes on second speed to get it started....then rest and fold at 30 minute intervals to build gluten. The rest periods accumulate alcohol in the batter and that helps gluten.

I bought 10 cases of frozen ciabatta every week when I was a pastry chef at a big restaurant (sky in Norwood ma), I wasn't interested in baking it.
It was just regular french bread dough cut into flat slabs instead of rolled.
I could have made it easily but why compete with a machine.
Its not a traditional old world artisan bread, some guy invented ciabatta in 1982.
Personally I'd just make a dough I can handle easily.

 

[superbaker007]

you can hold back some of the water, get the dough going and slowly add the rest of the water.
Thats the idea with brioche. Its a cogent dough until you add the butter, then it becomes soup.
Same with baba, dough is like baguette until you add the melted butter and it turns into complete slop.

What is baba ?

 

[Norcalbaker59]

But how do they do it in bakeries when they make ciabattas ?
Do they do stretches and folds to massive amounts of dough or do they
have special mixers that do all the job ?

They begin by using a spiral mixer for just a few minutes—enough to incorporate the water into the flour and yeast. Once that’s mixed, the oil is added. After the dough has absorbed the water, it’s transferred to a large dough box.

From there, they use a series of stretch-and-folds.

This technique develops the gluten structure while allowing the dough to ferment. Because it’s gentle, stretch-and-fold doesn’t deflate the air bubbles, does not generate excess heat that could harm the yeast, or overwork the dough to the point of damaging its structure.

Mixers generate so much friction heat that a stand mixer friction factor of 22°F - 24°F is added to the calculation of DDT. By contrast when using stretch and fold, the friction factor is 0°.

It’s important to understand that baking is a series of chemical reactions driven by the interaction of ingredients to temperature and time. Temperature should be treated as an ingredient in its own right, given how significantly it influences the final outcome. That’s why we carefully regulate the temperature of our ingredients and use specific mixing methods—to control both the order and the way each component is incorporated.

 

[retired baker]

What is baba ?

BABA is the wettest dough imaginable.

 

[superbaker007]

BABA is the wettest dough imaginable.

Is it a bread ?
Which cuisine it belongs to ?

 

[retired baker]

Is it a bread ?
Which cuisine it belongs to ?

French and Italian, I've seen them in England too.

The dough is mixed similar to brioche but the butter is melted and poured in, that makes it very sloppy. After the butter is mixed in the dough cannot be handled or developed.
It cannot be folded, after a short rise I beat the dough hand then deposit into molds by hand. They bake dry and hard, a soak in warm rum syrup makes them spongey .

no matter how wet a dough is theres always a way to handle it.

 

[superbaker007]

French and Italian, I've seen them in England too.

The dough is mixed similar to brioche but the butter is melted and poured in, that makes it very sloppy. After the butter is mixed in the dough cannot be handled or developed.
It cannot be folded, after a short rise I beat the dough hand then deposit into molds by hand. They bake dry and hard, a soak in warm rum syrup makes them spongey .

no matter how wet a dough is theres always a way to handle it.

So it's a dessert.