Jane The Bakery: Baking Breads and Baguettes
For the past week I’ve been at Jane The Bakery baking bread every day starting 5AM. I’ve been mixing doughs, shaping baguettes and loafs, and baking bread all week. It’s so much fun. Jane has a great line up of breads and pastries and it’s so much fun working on amazing products. Jane is also home to such insta-leberty bakers such as Jorgen Carlsen and Alex Terrazas.
In this post I want to cover how bread is made daily at Jane The Bakery.
But first,I want to acknowledge the ah-mazing bread bakers at Jane The Bakery. Ah-mazing because they’re extremely knowledgeable, experienced and passionate. But also because they’re just really great humans who make it easy to want to be their friend.
Step #1: Starter
First thing when we walk in at 5AM we make the “AM Starter” that’s used in the majority of breads mixed that day. To make the “AM starter” we take some of the “PM starter” made about 15 hours earlier, and give it a good feeding to make sure it’s active within a few hours.
The difference between the “AM starter” and the “PM starter” is mostly how long we expect those to sit and ferment. “AM starters” need to be active within hours so they contain about ~50 BP% of yesterday’s “PM starter”. Whereas “PM starters” get to sit overnight so they only contain 2.5 BP% of “AM starter”.
There are other starters used at Jane’s, such as a croissant starter, a rye starter and a baguette Poolish, and I’ll cover those in my next more in-depth blog post.
Step #2: Mixing Dough, and adding Inclusions
For breads, the next step after feeding our AM starter is to mix the dough. Each dough has dry ingredients scaled the day before such as flours, salt, yeast and various inclusions. The day of mixing we scale out starter and tempered water.
The bakery has two large scale commercial mixers used primarily for breads and the intent is to keep those utilized as much as possible during the morning so we can move on to the next steps as quickly as possible.
For baguettes, the dough sits and cold ferments overnight. The next morning that dough gets shaped and baked. So baguette dough is made at the end of the day, whereas bread loaf dough is made early in the morning so we have time to let it ferment and shape it the same day.
Step #3: Bulk Fermenting
Once Dough is mixed it needs time to ferment in the “proofer” (a humid room kept at 80°). Once dough is fermented it’ll feel tacky to the touch, have bubbles on top and when pulled from the sides will have bubbles too. That’s all a sign that the dough is active.
For dough used in bread loafs, most of the fermentation happens over a few hours in the morning in the proofer. For baguettes, they’re cold fermented in the retarder (walk-in / fridge) overnight.
Also, we’ll “turn” the dough every 20–30 minutes. Meaning we’ll add more tension to the dough by folding it over itself. We turn doughs by folding opposite sides over each other and then flipping the dough over.
Step #4: Dividing
Once the doughs are fermented we divide them into the right weight for each loaf depending on a master production schedule.
At 5AM the entire bread team gets around the table and starts dividing, preshaping and ultimately shaping baguettes that have had their dough fermenting overnight.
Step #5: Preshaping
Once dough is divided, it’s still too “loose” to work with. We need to build up strength before it can actually be shaped into a loaf of bread. The key part of preshaping is building plenty of tension in as few motions as possible in each loaf.
Breads that get preshaped are often bouled (made into a ball) in four quick motions to build a tense ball like appearance and left to rest for approximately thirty minutes.
Baguettes get preshaped by folding them over themselves three times.
Step #6: Baskets
We make a lot of bread every day. And different breads look different and as such are shaped in different baskets. Before we can shape bread loafs and put them in baskets, we need to prepare those baskets with non-stick dusting flour to keep the loafs from sticking. Our dusting flour is a 3:1 mixture of rice flour and bread flour.
First we brush the baskets clean. Some of the baskets then get a couche. Finally we sprinkle the baskets with dusting flour to help avoid doughs stick to the baskets. Emphasis is given to get the sides of baskets where bread loafs tend to stick, and not over-use dusting flour as it’ll affect the final product.
Step #7: Shaping
Shaping baguettes has tons of small quirks. First you fold over the dough twice. Then using the heel of your hand and the opposite hand thumb you seal the cylindrical shape closed. Next working from the center to the edge you roll out the baguette to a tapered shape with pointy edges making sure the whole baguette is moving on the table. Finally you gently cradle the dough to a bread floured couche and place it seam-side up.
Different breads get shaped in different ways. Breads going into circular baskets are bouled (made into a ball). Breads going into rectangular and ellipsis shaped baskets are book folded over and then folded down three times. See the video on the side.
Step #8: Room proofing and retarding overnight
Once breads are shaped, we want to give them an opportunity to keep fermenting at room temp to near final proofing. They then go into the retarder overnight to bake the next morning. That extra half day in the retarder gives the dough more time to ferment in colder temperatures.
Some breads are shaped and baked the same day. Like our danish rye dough that’s made end-to-end the same day. And the baguettes & ciabatta which are shaped and baked the same day. Overall though, most bread loafs are retarded overnight and baked early next morning.
Step #9: Move to conveyer belt
Once breads are proofed they’re moved to the conveyer belt. Baguettes and bread loafs are placed seam side down to keep the tension from letting the seam blow up.
There’s an art to pulling baguettes from the couche. Baugettes are first moved to detach them from the couche, flipped to a board and then flipped seam-side down on the conveyer belt. The zen of moving baguettes is to make work fast and get the shaped product seam-side down.
Step #10: Scoring
Different breads are scored (slashed on top) differently. The method of scoring is mostly the same across breads: cut deep, decisively and if there are multiple consecutive scores have them overlap tightly by a third.
For example baguettes are scored five times consecutively. So we keep all scores in the center 1cm of the baguette, overlap scores by a third and try to keep everything even.
Step #11: Baking
Finally, breads are loaded into a 520°f deck oven, baked until done and pulled. At Jane we like breads not just to be done as in “cooked”/baked” to an internal temperture but also have a beautiful dark colour on top.
Step #12: Putting bread out for sale
My favourite part of the process is then stacking breads we’ve maliciously made and bringing them over to the counter to be sold to hungry customers.
Next week I’ll talk about every bread Jane The Bakery makes, it’s master dough and various inclusions. It’ll be great.
Read more about my baking adventures by reading about the bakery I opened at burning man:
