March 12, 2021 - 5:11pm
Diagnosis, Overfermented?
This was a loaf i made when my starter was about 2 months old. I suspected my starter wasn't mature enough. But now I believe it was overfermented. See how the dough is at the 8 cup mark .Well i now I stop at the 6 cup mark or even less. At the time i was trouble shooting gummy spots and didn't know why i had them.
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Glad i took pictures back then
Looks good to me.
The few larger holes may be a final folding/shaping issue, and were just bubbles that needed patted out, or popped with a toothpick.
Mini Oven is good at spotting that, so ask her opinion.
I don’t think that is overproofed/overfermented either. If anything, it could be proofed a bit longer. I do see some uneven baking though that could have contributed to the gummy areas. Typically overproofed doesn’t lead to gummy areas so long as it will well baked. Under proofing definitely is more likely to lead to gumminess even if well baked.
The crust on the right side is quite pale compared to the other areas, did you rotate your bread in the oven at all during baking? If you’re finding that the crust is getting too dark and the bread hasn’t fully baked, drop the temperature and bake longer shielding the crust with a cookie sheet above the bread or even an aluminum foil tent.
Looks proofed ok. I would say it might be a tad underbaked.
hmmm interesting. But my loaves have been turning out so good lately and i've only been letting it bulk ferment to the 6 cup mark. Do you think i should try to push it longer? the dough volume usually is at about the 3.5-4 cup mark by the time i finish my 4th and final set of S and Fs. the 8 cup mark would mean the dough just about doubled. and we don't want it doubled do we?
i do usually turn my DO when i take the lid off then again when i drop the temp down halfway thru the rest of the bake ( because it darkens too much). but i find that isn't necessary as it bakes pretty evenly with the high sides of the dutch oven giving off indirect heat. that's why i don't think the combo cooker or challenger would work for me bc of the uneven heat in my oven, unless i used it the other way around. this was the outside of the loaf. it doesnt look unevenly baked to me at this angle anyway
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It seems your dough is quite strong and able to take a doubling of volume during bulk. I’ve never gone that far with my dough but that’s because I don’t do a good job shaping a highly fermented dough. This is why I shape at 60% aliquot jar rise.
The photo of your loaf there does show unevenness of crust colouration. That end is quite a bit paler than the sides and upper parts of the crust. If you find that top crust is becoming too dark you can shield the top allowing the sides and bottom a bit more time to colour. How high is your dutch oven placed in your oven? I wonder if it needs to be a bit lower, that would reduce the speed that the top crust colours allowing the sides to catch up a bit.
this is a more recent bake. it does seem more even. anyway , it seems the days of gummy spotted loaves are behind me hopefully. I was just trying to figure out why to prevent it from happening again. this loaf went to about the 6 cup mark and i was really happy with the oven spring and the overall volume and crumb. and it was a flukey decent scoring job too lol
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DO is right in the middle of the oven with a cookie sheet on the bottom rack as the bottoms were getting burned.
You know what i just realized. I used to bake round loaves but since i started making bread again after a long break i started to make batards. so this gummy loaf was round. the evenly baked nice loaf is a batard. do you think that's the reason?? the shape?