Bread – Rehydrating Dried Rosemary for Bread

Bread hydration varies widely. The "standard" bread using all-purpose (plain) flour has a ratio of water to flour weight (hydration) 60-65%. Flour with a higher protein level, labelled as bread, strong, or high-gluten, tend to use 65% hydration. Ciabatta and rustic breads generally use more water than normal. The extra water gives them more large, uneven holes in the interior of the bread (called the crumb), and generally leads to a higher-rising bread. These wetter doughs are often referred to as "slack" doughs in baker's parlance.

Here are a couple sample hydrations from Hammelman's bread baking:

• Baguettes with poolish, 66% hydration, all bread flour
• Ciabatta, 73% hydration, all bread flour
• Pain Rustique (rustic bread), 69% hydration, all bread flour
• Country Bread, 68% hydration, all bread flour
• Roasted Potato bread, 61% hydration, 85% bread flour / 15% whole wheat flour / 25% roasted potatoes
• Whole wheat bread, 68% hydration, 50/50 whole wheat and bread flour
• Semolina (Durum) bread, 62% hydration, 50/50 durum and bread flours

Mind you, it is quite possible to make a bread with even higher water content, if one is a skilled baker. Wetter breads (70% hydration and up) generally cannot be hand-kneaded normally, and require a mechanical mixer, stretch-and-fold kneading with a spatula, or autolysis. Autolysis is when you mix water and flour before adding yeast, and then allow it to sit. This allows enzymes in the flour to develop gluten before the rising begins, and can supplement or replace normal kneading.

Another approach, called double-hydration, is to add only part of the water before kneading. This allows you to knead the bread to develop gluten structure before it becomes too wet to knead.

For extremely wet breads, these methods may all be combined. I'm looking right now at a double-hydration, mechanically mixed, autolyzed, poolish-using ciabatta recipe that sits at 76% hydration.

To make basic bread, including Zwiebelbrot, all you need is a place to mix and knead ingredients (clean work surface or large mixing bowl), a warmish place for rising, and an oven with reasonable temperature control.

For the onions you need a small pan, and a stove top. Or you can do them in the oven too!

Therefore, your kitchen looks fine.

Making bread is not difficult, or hard work. The effort and time required for kneading bread is way overrated. Also have patience, allow the dough to rise properly.

Expect a few failures; search the net about any failures, if you have them.

Use a marker pen on the oven dial when you find the right temperature (The calibration of the dials is usually not very accurate).

For Zwiebelbrot, you can cook the onions in a shallow tray or light pan in the oven while waiting for it to come up to temperature for the bread. Make sure you cool the onions before spreading on the dough. A simple way is to spread them out on a spare metal oven tray for a few moments first.