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Gluten Development for Artisan Bread
Strengthening the gluten in your dough has several purposes and can be done effectively in many different ways. Which of the methods shown in the videos below you choose to use (in what order and how often) is a question of timing, personal preference and dough characteristics.
Why develop the gluten?
Dough that has been strengthened can hold more and bigger air bubbles without them popping and collapsing. It can be easier to shape and have more oven spring, and gluten development can result in a more chewy and pliable interior or “crumb” in the final bread. Of course, not all bread styles prioritize an aerated chewy crumb. Moreover, not all wheat varieties have enough gluten potential (a combination of the proteins gliadin and glutenin) to make strengthening efforts worthwhile. For instance, in my experience these maneuvers can be counterproductive to an aerated crumb in einkorn and rye flours, in particular.
How can you develop gluten?
If your goal is a taller, more open-crumb, chewy style of bread, first off, you’ll need on-point fermentation as a baseline. Luckily, by “on-point” I actually mean a fairly wide window of development. Decent fermentation can mean the dough doubles during the first rise, and the final proof is short or refrigerated; or it can mean a dough expansion of only 50%, followed by tight shaping and a much longer final proof (maybe several hours at room temperature or several days in the refrigerator). The important thing to note is that under-fermenting your dough will prevent enough bubbles from forming in the first place (and stretching any gluten you’ve developed), while over-fermenting will release protein-consuming enzymes that break down the gluten you’ve developed, and also allow the premature release of the captured air in your dough’s bubbles, thus deflating your loaf.
One of the greatest ways to develop gluten is through time. This is considered passive gluten development, and it shouldn’t be discounted. It’s the basis of the popular “no knead bread” baking method, and also one of the benefits of an autolyse (pre-mixing the flour and water). I’ve made spectacular chewy pizza with a poofy crust simply via a few minutes of traditional hand kneading, followed by several days’ of refrigerated fermentation — i.e. time. With most strong flours (bread flour, all purpose flour, hard red wheats), a longer process will result in stronger gluten. Lowering the quantity of starter or yeast inoculation and cold temperature are the two main ways to extend the length of proofing without risking over-fermentation.
The most traditional form of gluten development is hand-kneading on a flat surface. I didn’t provide a video of this below because most people have a sense of how to do it. I tend to hand-knead or use the dough hook of my stand mixer for lower-hydration dough (usually under 70%) such as pizza, bagels, pasta, naan, and baguettes. For baguettes, I would then follow up with several rounds, separated by 20-30 minutes, of the method I call rolling (demonstrated in the video below), which is a sort of coil-folding in the air.
Rolling Dough
The methods of gluten development below are often used in artisan style loaves of bread. The following videos aren’t in any particular order and reading different doughs is part of the challenge of baking. As your experience grows, you’ll be able to gauge which methods to use and when to use them during the bulk fermentation. Generally speaking, slapping and folding is often done early on as it’s rough on the dough, while coil folding is very gentle and can be done right up until shaping time.
For higher hydration doughs (over 70%) I personally tend to mix / stir just until the ingredients are incorporated, then let the dough rest before stretching and folding for 1-2 rounds. Then I switch to the more gentle coil folding for a couple more rounds. Occasionally, I use the laminating method at round two of gluten development, but not if my dough is for several loaves, as that can take up too much space. Laminating can be rewarding, though, because similar to rubaud mixing, it introduces a lot of air into the dough.
Rubaud Mixing
Stretching and Folding
Coil Folding
Laminating
Lately I’ve been merging the techniques of laminating and stretching and folding by pulling each corner of the dough upward to an extreme degree and letting it “accordion” back onto itself before moving to the next corner. I then roll the dough to tighten it further and organize it in the bowl. This technique works well for a loose, early-stage dough when I don’t have the time or space to laminate it. You can see this approach in the video below.
Mixed Technique
I am also including a couple videos of slapping and folding, though I usually only use this technique to incorporate salt and starter after an autolyse or if I’m hand-mixing a heavily enriched brioche dough. It is useful for tightening up a dough with a “sloppy batter” quality.
Slap and Fold
Gluten Development for Artisan Bread