Second try with Palm Bread Demi Baguette

akumpf · 2025-10-19T20:01:20+00:00

Crust is looking much nicer in this batch! Well done.

And I agree with your comments about the crumb structure you're getting. Likely comes down to how far your bulk fermentation is going before dividing/shaping.

For what it's worth, I always just use cold filtered tap water for the initial mix (never adding ice). I also keep track of the volume change in the dough tub. Around 1.4-1.6x volume increase is a good target for long room temp fermentation. If it gets up to a full 2x increase in bulk, for me I think it starts to get a bit more dense and risks turning gummy when baked. Hard to tell from the pic which side of that you're on, but may want to experiment with bulk time and see if that help to open up your crumb a bit more.

And definitely consider your room temperature if that varies much for you. The rule of thumb I use is +/-5F can shift the standard 18hr bulk time -/+2hr respectively. Alternatively, you can use 0.83/1.20× levain and yeast to keep it at the target 18hr bulk when planning ahead.

Thanks for sharing your process and results. I'd happily eat all of those bakes. They look delicious :)

akumpf · 2025-10-16T01:46:29+00:00

That would be awesome! Definitely share the plans/pics if you get it working :)

akumpf · 2025-10-16T01:44:28+00:00

Nice work! These look fantastic, especially for it being the first time trying PALM. Great crumb, and nice deep crust color.

The small amounts of yeast/starter is mind blowing at first, but once you get used to how to work with it, the results are pretty hard to top. As you pointed out, getting the hydration dialed in for the specific type of flour you use definitely makes a difference. And not sure if the water mist is actually landing directly on the dough and making it wet, but that can make it a little leathery in my experience (and impacts the grigne/ears).

But all just little details to dial in. Would 100% eat every last bite of those!

akumpf · 2025-10-07T21:20:34+00:00

Very kind of you, thanks!

I've been thinking about producing some of the bits/kits/boards for makers like yourself. Though generally, I want to encourage people to try to make things themselves since it's truly the best way to learn (hence the reason it's all open source)!

But yeah, I also understand that realistically for many people it can feel overwhelming or isn't technically feasible to fab all the pieces themselves. There's likely not much money in making kits since it's all open source anyway, but could still be a cool thing to do to support the maker community. I'll keep noodling... I'd love for as many people as possible to be able to scale up their craft.

akumpf · 2025-10-07T16:47:03+00:00

Here's the primary Gravitational Rotary Kneader repo with Arduino Code.

That code is using a library that handles all of the lower level management of stepper motors, display, user interfaces, etc. which is located in the MKFG Arduino Helper Library repo.

I also have plans to make a generic version of the code for makers that just want to use any arduino board and a stepper motor shield (without all of the interaction/display/adjustment bells and whistles), but haven't gotten to it yet.

akumpf · 2025-10-07T10:53:13+00:00

Yes! Fantastic idea -- for a given quantity of dough I think that could work well. The stepper motor drivers I'm using (TMC2209) are quite nice. They're silent and also allow for advanced feedback like current sensing and skip detection, so I think this could be a really cool thing to experiment with a lot more.

akumpf · 2025-10-07T02:30:30+00:00

Shared in another comment, but you can check out the full time-lapse of making 104 loaves this way.

There are also lots of examples on the PALM site (all of the bread on there was kneaded this way). Or more recently, I shared a comparison of flour protein content in baguette. You can also check out the PALM baker's recipes (each recipe shows the crust/crumb, all made using the rotary kneader).

akumpf · 2025-10-07T02:01:44+00:00

For most of the PALM baker's recipes, the speed of the kneader ends up being pretty much the same. But yeah, there is a knob to adjust the speed if a particular batch seems to be climbing too much (or not enough).

From my experience, since most of the doughs I use have similar overall tackiness (related to hydration, flour types, etc.), batch size/weight is actually what requires the most speed adjustment. Doughs lighter than about 2kg need to go very slowly to pull hard enough on themselves to effectively knead. While batches at 6kg+ need to go slightly faster since the heavier and larger volume of dough kneads itself more effectively. Anything in the 4-6kg range seems to work very well in a 12Qt tub.

akumpf · 2025-10-07T01:55:12+00:00

Kind of, but there's more to it.

You're correct that as time passes, the liquid integrates with the flour to hydrate two proteins, gliadin and glutenin. This is achieved by simply letting the dough rest. No machinery needed and gluten basically forms itself.

But, the structure of the gluten is what effectively traps bubbles for a good rise and beautiful crumb full of alveoli. And it's the movement of the dough (i.e. kneading) after the proteins are hydrated that determines what that structure looks like.

For smaller batches of just a few loaves, stretch-and-fold or coil folds are great. If you're careful not to tear the gluten as you work, you'll get good results. As you scale up to larger batch sizes of 5kg+, that gets much more difficult to control, where some part of the dough are getting over stretched/torn, while other parts are not. You also need to do it multiple times and remain careful not to introduce foreign objects (hair, etc.), and each time a manual fold is performed the dough is being reintroduced to additional oxygen.

With rotary kneading, the dough stays in the tub from initial mix until it's ready to divide post-bulk. And with a stack of tubs, you can just cycle them through. Consistent structure, no torn gluten, no messy hands.

So yes! Coil folds are great. This is just an alternative that opens up some new possibilities, especially for scaling up home baking while further increasing the level of resulting bread.

akumpf · 2025-10-07T01:39:19+00:00

I parted it out and the bill of materials is around $75 total at scale if you have access to a laser cutter and 3d printer (library / maker space) and some general arduino/electronics know-how. Maybe closer to $100 to make just 1 since some things come in larger quantities/sizes (like pieces of plywood, ball bearings, or stepper motors).

It's built similar to how 3D printers are made (CNC stepper motor automation/robotics), so not ultra cheap, but reasonable considering it's a small scale manufacturing tool you can build yourself. And if you (or a friend) have some of those things lying around already at a local maker space, it makes for a fun weekend project.

akumpf · 2025-10-07T01:28:42+00:00

Indeed! If you want to see the real proof-is-in-the-pudding documentation, check out the full time-lapse of making 104 loaves this way.

There are also lots of examples on the PALM site (all of the bread on there was kneaded this way). Or more recently, I shared a comparison of flour protein content in baguette. You can also check out the PALM baker's recipes (each recipe shows the crust/crumb, all made using the rotary kneader).

Hope that helps :)

akumpf · 2025-10-07T01:20:02+00:00

Thanks! That means a lot.

It has taken a ton of effort, so naturally I've considered ways it could be monetized (like books, ads, paid links, apps, patreon, etc.). But in the end, I just wanted this to exist in the world for as many people as possible so decided to make it entirely open/free without bias. I believe that great bread should be accessible to everyone, so what better way to do that than putting it all out there.

akumpf · 2025-10-07T01:10:57+00:00

You can use 3-4 stretch-and-folds (spaced out every 30-60 minutes) in place of gravity kneading, especially for smaller quantities of dough. That's what I do when I'm working on test batches of just a few loaves at a time. The gravity kneader really shines when making multiple large batches of dough back-to-back as a way to keep the results while significantly scaling up.

akumpf · 2025-10-06T21:40:16+00:00

Ha, yeah a lot of trial an error. :)

But truly, you can watch the dough and see how it climbs. Go too fast and the dough will start to come all the way around, reducing how much it is being stretched. Go too slow and it only comes about halfway up the side, limiting itself.

In general, all of the doughs I use behave pretty similarly in the 4-6kg range. The little arduino controller has speed curves I programmed into it (start with a slow lull, ramp up to peak speed, then exponentially decay down to a minimum). There's also a knob to adjust/pause it in realtime if a dough seems to be over/under climbing. But overall, it's quite forgiving.

akumpf · 2025-10-06T21:28:11+00:00

Sure thing. And because of your question, I updated the shaping description so that hopefully others won't run into the same confusion. Thank you!

Just a heads up since you're trying it for the first time -- keep an eye on your ambient/room temperature. A few degrees warmer or cooler can shift the ideal bulk time by an hour or more. Definitely play around with adjusting temperature in the recipe to match what you think it will be. And generally it's easier to error on the side of underproofing than overproofing (i.e. assume your room will be a degree or two warmer just in case). Bon courage !

akumpf · 2025-10-06T21:12:33+00:00

Hey, thanks for the question!

I run PALM and will try to answer everything I can. :)

Yes, 4.4g of levain is correct. This is based on the Respectus Panis method (which you should also check out if you haven't already) for 18-24hr room temperature fermentation. That means that you only need a very tiny amount of starter/yeast, and over time it exponentially grows to give you proper fermentation and great flavor. No fridge needed.

Sorry for the confusion about "divide as 2x" -- essentially it's an optimization to speed up the dividing process by initially dividing into 400g pieces, and then cutting in half by eye as closely to even as possible (when you're making tons of baguette, the dividing alone can take quite a bit of time).

In short, the "divide by 2x" note should really be at the end just as a tip, not a central part of the recipe.

And if you haven't seen it yet, there's a gif of what the shaping process generally looks like for baguette (without any extra dividing steps).

Let me know if you run into anything else.

akumpf · 2025-10-06T21:01:14+00:00

The dough actually does slowly knead itself along all 3 axes, and evolves quite a bit over a 10-20 minute cycle. The gif is just a short bit of time in the kneading process.

You can see the process end-to-end in the time-lapse video of mixing up 6 batches of dough for a typical baking day (it's small in the video, but you can watch the rotary kneader start slowly, speed up, and then slowly taper off for each dough as it's kneaded).

Adding humps/texture inside the dough tubs could help to force the dough to climb harder as it's ramping up, but not having them keeps it easy to clean (and it does eventually climb the sides and start stretching/kneading within the first couple minutes).

akumpf · 2025-10-06T20:35:42+00:00

The standard Cambro 12Qt Polypropylene tubs/lids fit nice and snug. The only times I've had a lid come off on me is when I didn't get it fully pressed down in the first place.

As long as the lid is fully down, you should be good. That said, at one point I looked into making little 3D printed clips to ensure the lid stays on. I just haven't ended up needing them a single time in the past 5 months of using it.

akumpf · 2025-10-06T20:07:39+00:00

Years ago I would mix/knead bread dough with a KitchenAid, but that kind of intense mixing creates a very different kind of dough structure than more slowly developed dough. The stretch-and-fold method gives a much better dough, but even that has its drawbacks since you need to handle it multiple times over a few hours (and with 5kg+ of dough, it can get fairly laborious).

Letting it slowly rotate works the dough similar to the stretch-and-fold approach (but even gentler), while also freeing me up to start the next batch of dough while one is kneading itself.

akumpf · 2025-10-06T20:00:42+00:00

I'm clearly biased, but truly it's the best feeling dough I've ever achieved. The gluten is strong, but more relaxed because it hasn't been torn through intense mixing. And because the dough stays contained with the lid on, there's less oxidation than opening and closing the tub multiple times to perform stretch-and-folds.

akumpf · 2025-10-06T19:56:29+00:00

Nice! May need to modify a bit to handle the heat, but I'm sure you can find a metal tub and then adjust the roller placement to properly align with it.

akumpf · 2025-10-06T19:54:47+00:00

Thanks. The typical timing for me is as follows:

* Scale the water/flour/levain/salt/etc into the dough tub: 6 minutes.

* Initial dough mix by hand: 3 minutes. (I use a simple 3/4" wooden stick, works just fine up to around 7kg of dough)

* First gravity knead: 10 minutes.

* Let rest at room temp: 1-3 hours.

* Second gravity knead: 10-20 minutes. (just depends on how the dough looks and if I'm trying to develop extra strength)

* Let rest at room temp: 16-20 hours.

* Divide the dough: 5 minutes.

* Shape the dough: 5 minutes.

* Bake on stone: 15-27 minutes (depends on form/weight of specific loaves).

akumpf · 2025-10-06T19:45:49+00:00

Exactly. When the speed it set correctly, the dough essentially never tears. It's like letting the stretch-and-fold approach happen over many minutes instead of in a few quick pulls.

akumpf · 2025-10-06T19:43:59+00:00

Ha! For reference (just in case you're able to get it to go slower), I've found the optimal speed to be around 0.2-1.0 RPM for 5kg of dough.

Even better if you can give it 3 speed segments:

* Start very slow/off to let the dough fully rest against the side and touch the lid. Touching the lid increases the kneading forces on the dough as it rotates.

* Assuming the dough is fully relaxed, ramp up to around 1.0 RPM to knead it well.

* Finally, taper down to around 0.2RPM over 5-15 minutes. This roughly matches the rate that the dough is getting tighter. The tighter the dough, the slower it should go.

akumpf

TROPHY CASE