September 14, 2015 - 12:23pm
No Gluten Development
I'm hoping one of you can help me with a bread mystery. I've been trying to get good at baking consistently nice loaves of whole wheat sourdough bread. I've been using a sourdough (or natural yeast) start for some time now, and have had success. Then I had this disaster.
The only thing I did differently was I made four loaves at once instead of two. I couldn't get the dough to smooth out and the gluten to develop, and after letting my Bosch knead for a long time, I started worrying about over-kneading. Can anything else cause this?
I used freshly ground hard-red wheat flour from the same bucket I've used previously. I used a sour-dough start. I Kneaded in a Bosch mixer. Please help if you can!
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EDIT: Oops, re-read your post and realised you couldn't get gluten at all even in the mixer. Could just be the increased amount of dough for the same equipment would take longer.
I'm wondering about that. The dough didn't clean the sides of the bowl even from the beginning. I ended up adding more flour, and then it was really stiff. The dough was HOT by the time I gave up on additional kneading. I did let it proof for about 10 hours (sour dough) and hoped that additional gluten development would happen, but no luck.
Recipe and method?
Sure!
The recipe is "Natural Yeast Bread Recipe for Beginners" from thebreadgeek.com.
For two loaves, the recipe is:
1/2 start
2 1/2 c lukewarm water
2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1/4 c honey (I tried plain white sugar this time as I was out of honey)
5-6 cups whole wheat flour
I doubled this recipe. I mixed all but the flour in the Bosch mixer, then added in flour by cupfuls. I didn't measure precisely because I can usually judge ok by the "clean the bowl" method if I have the right amount of flour. The dough remained really sticky, and I know I added too much flour trying to get it to clean the bowl. I let it knead a total of about 25 minutes after repeated stops to test. After that the dough was hot, and I'd read so much about over kneading a machine that I decided to see if more gluten would develop while it proofed. I let it rise for about 10 hours at room temperature. When I deflated the dough and divided it, it was clear that it was going to be a mess. I couldn't stretch the dough to round it or make a nice loaf at all. I did my best and formed loaves, then let them rise for another 2 hours or so. The loaves already looked pretty bad even before I put them in the oven.
The bread is very dense, of course, but otherwise tastes good.
First of all I work in grams so I'll convert...
130g starter
588g water
11g salt
1 tablespoon coconut oil
85g honey
650g - 780g whole wheat flour
I think 6 cups of flour is better than 5. Will bring your dough to around 77% hydration, including your starter, good for wholewheat. Adding that much honey on top of that will make it sticky and difficult to handle. Your starter is 16%.
It seems to me that the 10 hour Bulk Ferment might be too long. Could also be a good idea to go more simple and perhaps miss out the honey and oil for now. If you wish to keep them in then go easy on the honey. Say... 1 tablespoon? You can always add it in once problems are ironed out.
So try this and see what happens...
Night before prepare your starter. In the morning it'll be nice and bubbly. Measure off half a cup and proceed.
Next morning measure out 6 cups of flour and add the salt. Combine and leave to one side.
In the dough bowl add the starter, water, oil and honey (if you're choosing to add both but reduce the honey to 1 tablespoon). Stir till fully distributed.
Then using your dough machine add the flour/salt mixture you prepared and form the dough. Knead till full gluten formation.
Then cover the bowl and let rise till doubled! Might take just a few hours depending on your starter. I don't want you to wait 10 hours, rather go by feel. You've started in the morning so by mid afternoon I think it should be ready but you'll have to be the judge.
Then continue... Shape the dough as you normally would and final proof till ALMOST doubled. Should take around a couple of hours but again you'll have to go by feel.
Then bake as you normally would.
P.s. the salt should be 2% of flour. So depending on 5 or 6 cups the salt content should also change. If 6 cups = 780g then your salt should be closer to 15g. One teaspoon of salt is 5.69g so for 6 cups you should have 2.5 teaspoons of salt.
It's easier to weigh ingredients when it comes to these things.
Another thing is if you're doing it in loaf pans then there should be enough dough in each pan so its 60% full. Then if you wait for it to crest the top then its a good time to bake.
Thanks so much for your input. I have used the 6 cups of flour in the past, and I proofed it until I thought it was ready (depressed finger held). It was actually slower to rise than other times, so I don't know if that's one of the affects.
I'm going to try again today, I'll see how it goes. Thanks!
See how you go on and we'll take it from there. A good way to tell the gluten is fully developed is when you poke the dough it pops straight back up. Another thing is its good practice to weigh your ingredients. Do you have electronic scales that weighs in Grams? Something to think about. I'm also interested in the health of your starter. Things like maintenance and how quickly it responds to feeds. Something else to think about after this trial. Looking forward to results.
Well, it went MUCH better. I did weight my ingredients for the first time. I ended up putting in almost the upper end of the flour but not quite. It worked out very nicely this time. I don't know what was very different. I do sincerely think this time that I over kneaded it. After 10 minutes, it wouldn't pass the "window pane test" at all. I kneaded for 5 minutes longer, and it was better. I should have stopped there. But I kept kneading and it started to turn sticky after another 2 minutes or so. So I stopped.
I don't know about the health of my starter; it bubbles and increases in volume. And it rose quite well this time. And it's yummy! Thank you so much for all your help and input.
Wow what an improvement! Glad it went well. Huge satisfaction when bread works. I have been looking at your first photos and I think they were over proofed after shaping. So that could have been a big factor. You did mention no gluten development I think by assuming you left it too long for the gluten to start deteriorating you solved both issues at the same time.
I like to weigh my ingredients in grams as then I know where I am when trying to get a hydration I'm after. Much easier as equal weight flour + water = 100% hydration. Now for European flours I use a nice hydration for wholewheat is in the range of 75%. For North American flours perhaps you can go a bit higher. So say 75-78% hydration and then adjust accordingly?
For example a 75% hydration whole wheat bread when the total flour is 500g then the total water should be 375g (taking the starter into account).
Also don't forget when adding things like honey you're increasing the hydration which is why it might have been difficult to handle. So that has to be taken into account. I'm not sure how to work out these added ingredients and their affect on the final dough but by decreasing it to one tablespoon we got around that problem.
Your starter sounds fine and obviously performs well as we can see.
Glad you're happy and if there is anything else I can help you with then don't hesitate to ask. Any ideas what you want next?
Bon Appetite.