July 20, 2015 - 6:59am
Struggling with crumb
I've been making a lot of sourdough lately, and much of it, so far, is out of Leader's Local Breads. Pierre Nury's rustic light rye has become a favourite, but lately, no matter how hard I try, I just can't get the crumb as open as I want it, and as it could be, given that the hydration is so high.
is my folding not effective enough? I just changed to a stronger flour. should I increase hydration accordingly? thing is, the dough still feels really soft and wet, so I'm not sure.
What can I do better?
Share
....so that some of the better bakers here would have an insight of which area to work on. Without those information, it's hard to pinpoint.
Regards,
Sandy
Here is the formula:
starter: 50%water 95% bread flour 5%ww flour
dough: 80% water 90% bread flour 10% fine or med rye flour 25% starter 2% sea salt
your 50%(stiff or dry) starter your final hydration level is somewhere around 71.5%.....try adding more liquid....based on a 1000g total weight adding 32g of water will bring the hydration to around 77%. I would not make any other changes and see how that effects your crumb.
How are you baking this bread? I think 75% hydration would be fine for this bread that only has 5% WW in it. For holes I follow David Snyder's San Joaquin method to open the crumb up - the 21 hour bulk retard really helps as does the short 50% final proof after shaping,
San Joaquin Sourdough
Happy baking
bulk ferment was about 18hrs, so i'll increase hydration and see how that goes. thanks!
in my experience getting the optimal proofing can be tricky, and subject to variations according to the mood of my starter and, most critically, the temperature. An optimally proofed loaf will give the most oven spring and open crumb (given a good hydration level).
Generally better to be a little under-proofed going into the oven. But the ratio of fermentation time in bulk vs after shaping is a factor too. Too long in bulk fermentation and the dough doesn't recover from the shaping before it's fully proofed.
Gentle handling during shaping can help retain open crumb too.
Also, please know that the challenge of achieving open crumb seems to be the one of the most often mentioned questions on this forum. Most of us struggle with it, a few (not me) can achieve it regularly, and some people seem to nail it on their first attempt (definitely not me)!
I would say that it has nothing to do with hydration and is a handling/timing error. Have you ever been able to get a crumb better than this?
for help...and that is your input...answering a question with a question?
If you replying to my comment, than yes, it's me being helpful. It's actually more helpful than a suggestion to pour more water into a bread that is not being helped by 70+% hydration. I am not being rude, that's just how it is.
there are some references by other bakers on TFL about ending the proofing in the fridge or freezer. maybe 15 mins in the freezer if I remember correctly or a bit more time in the fridge. you can get away with a longer proof this way to maybe get some bigger holes. The cold firms up the dough a bit so that even a slightly overproofed dough can survive transfer and scoring without too much degassing. I've been having some success finishing my proofing in the fridge or freezer lately, and it's an easy tactic to try.
when i wrote this post i already had another batch in the mixer using the original formula, just to see if i wasnt paying close enough attention to the folding, handling, fermentation and proofing, and here is my result.
The biggest change I made was putting in the oven much sooner, although next time i'll try straight out of the fridge.
not perfect, but an improvement i think? I will try again this afternoon, if the baby naps, to get another batch in the mixer with increased hydration and see if I can get an even better result.
Les Nightingill, when you say "temperature", what are you referring to, exactly? the temperature of the dough? the starter when i make the dough? ambient temperature? all of the above?
Also, with regards to shaping, I have had good results with very very light shaping, but then I find the shape to be quite loose and sort of sloppy. And all the shaping videos i've watched the bakers seem to be applying, what looks like moderate pressure. Is this just a practice thing?
thanks everyone, you're all so knowledgeable! i will keep plugging away!
but try pinching your seam when shaping, it may help tighten the shape ever so slightly and close up the shaping seam you seem to have on the bottoms.
"The biggest change I made was putting in the oven much sooner, although next time i'll try straight out of the fridge."
That sounds about right because my suspicion was that you are overfermenting the dough. Do you follow Leader's procedure to let the dough rise until it doubles? If you do, I suggest you take a note of the time it takes and cut it in half. The thing is, dough cools down slowly, and it warms up slowly, so the more you cut down the time after the fridge, the less effect it produces, so you also need to work from the other end of the fridge fermentation. Letting the dough warm up a bit will also help with shaping.
@flouronmyface: the critical temperature is the temperature of the dough during fermentation ( bulk and also proofing). Typically this will be the same as ambient, but you can stimulate the fermentation at the beginning by using warm water (I seem to recall Forkish pays close attention to this). But in my view this doesn't achieve much except a slightly shorter time-to-optimal-proofing as the dough temp will reach ambient room temp pretty quickly. Unless you're using a proofing box, your only choices are ambient temperature (with all its seasonal and daily variations) and fridge temperature. So most of us use some sequential combination of fridge and ambient, which will change with the season.
Temperature is also a factor in your starter, you may notice that the starter "peaks" sooner on warm days. So the amount of culture that you are inoculating into your dough will be different after 12 hours of starter fermentation on a warm day vs. a cool day.
The difficulty, in my opinion, is that "optimal proofing" is difficult to quantify. We can measure hydration and temperature with great precision, and we can describe reasonably foolproof handling procedures such as stretch-and-fold, but quantifying the degree of proofing seems a little loose. Even the "double the volume" rule is hard to gauge if you're proofing in a bowl. Doubling of the height in a bowl can be much more than doubling in volume, so over fermentation can result.
Over time, you will develop a feel. I think it's coming already, judging from your comment about the "loose and sloppy" feel of your shaped dough. This is an indicator that all is not ideal.
My suggestion to you would be to work on the over-proofing hypothesis. So back off on the fermentation time and see what happens, taking careful notice of how the dough feels to see if it is less sloppy.
sauve, it's totally ok to ask me about previous results. i understand completely!
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5500/pierre-nury%E2%80%99s-rustic-light-rye-leader
i made it again, at original formula, and this time I didnt let it double before I retarded it. I let it go to 1.5 volume, and then i popped it in the fridge. I took it out this morning, and let it finish doubling, about 3 hours.
i'm going to keep playing with it, but i think i'm getting somewhere! thank you all for your help!
The Idea of tugging on the dough 2" and plopping it back down on the parchment and baking immediately still seemds weird but it sure seems to work!
Don't really see too much of a change between the 2nd and 3rd attempts....would love an update..thanks