First true sourdough loaf questions
Hello everyone,
Yesterday I baked my first true sourdough loaf. I followed instructions from a great breadmaker on Youtube, but somehow my bread did not turn out that well.
As you can see in the pictures the bread turned out as a pancake. The crumb is also very dense. It's quite tasty though.
This is the recipe I followed:
Day 1, morning: feed starter 1:5:5 - evening feed starter 1:5:5
Day 2, morning: feed starter 1:5:5 - evening feed starter 1:5:5. Mix 500 gr white flour with 350 gr water
Day 3, morning: add 100 gr starter (which doubled in size and looked airy and good) + 10 gr salt to the preferment. Mix it well. Extract a small sample and put it in a jar, add a marker to see how much it will grow. Protein in my flour is 14,9%, so I concluded it needs to increase about 70% in size. (it's around 11 in the morning)
I shape the dough into a ball and put it in a container. About an hour later I gently fold the dough. I let it rest and fold it again after an hour.
At 5 o clock in the afternoon the dough in the jar has reached about 70%. I fold once more and take the dough out of its container and try to shape it into a tightish ball and put it in the proofing basket. I proof it on the counter uncovered for 30 minutes and put it in the fridge overnight, covered.
The next morning I preheat the oven to 230 C with my Dutch oven in it. 45 minutes later I place the dough in the Dutch oven (it's 11:30 in the morning), bake it with the lid on for 25 minutes. I take the lid off, be disappointed at the pancake, let it bake lid off for like 35 minutes until it's nice and brown.
Does anyone have advise for me what I could've done better? I'm thinking of buying a different type of flour, maybe that will make a difference? Maybe the oven was too cold? I usually bake my bread at 245 C. Or maybe the starter was too sour?
Thank you so much in advance!
Greetings.
Hi,
it seems that your starter doesn't have enough yeast in it, or the yeast is very weak. Your bread dough should have quadrupled (at least) between 11AM and 5PM, but it rose only 70%, not even doubled in that time.
Then you shaped your loaf and gave it only about half an hour at room temperature (30 min before refrigerating it) before baking it. So it didn't rise either.
With 14.5%protein flour your dough and the resulting loaf should have risen majestically, increasing about 10 fold in volume. Of course, in order to do that it needs yeast. Judging from the picture of your crumb it has no yeast in it at all.
Are you sure your starter is ready for baking? Did you buy it or created it from scratch yourself? How do you know that your starter was ready to use in baking?
Some homemade starters are fast and have a lot of yeast in them, others aren't and don't which is ok. Then you have to watch your dough, give it plenty of time to rise at room temperature on in a warm place (at 28-32C) and only then shape it, proof it until it is very fluffy and tall again and bake it.
Dear Mariana,
Thank you for replying. I'm not sure when the starter is ready honestly. I made it myself around 10 days ago. I saw that after every feed (I fed it once a day at first, then for 3 days twice and saw it rose double, sometimes triple and stayed like that for a long time) and put it in the fridge until ready for use. After maybe 5 days in the fridge I decided to make a bread. So I took out some of it and started feeding it 1:5:5, for 2 days. I saw it doubled in size after the second feeding, so I thought it would be ready.
When I shaped my loaf I proofed it room temp for 30 minutes, then I put it in the fridge for 16 hours. I think you misunderstood and apologize for not describing that clearly.
Should I have fed my starter even more days before baking?
I understand. You gave it 30 min at room temp, then refrigerated it and cold, straight from the fridge, placed it in the oven to bake. Since it rose so little at room temp, only 70% in 6 hrs, there is no hope it would rise tall in the fridge at low temp where the yeast is dormant.
To test your starter, make a ball of bread dough with it, a sample size, from 100g of flour, and leave it at room temperature and watch it rise unrestrained, to see how much time it would take for it to rise to the maximum volume and what that volume would be.
The formula would be 100g bread flour, 60g starter, 2g salt, 60g water, knead until the ball of dough is smooth and bubbly on the surface and stretchy. Like so
If your starter is an average starter, ready to bake with it, it would rise 4-4.5 times in volume in 6-8 hrs at room temperature (around 25C).
I don't know which recipe you used for your starter, so I cannot tell you how many days it takes for it to be ready. Just test it from time to time to see if a small sample size of bread dough made with it quadruples in 6-8 hrs. When it does, the starter is ready.
Thank you for your reply. I will try that method. Should I bake that tiny bread? Seems like a waste to throw it out haha.
Yes, of course, bake it or fry it to test its performance in the oven and the taste and aroma of the bread itself. But it would take additional time then to shape it and to proof it before baking.
It would give you a small 200g loaf. From half a cup to one cup of freshly mixed dough, enough to knead comfortably by hand, in a food processor, or in a bread machine. A bun or a mini baguette, or pizza or focaccia or plain fried flatbread(s).
Should it rise well, about 1.5 - 2liters in volume, not so small in size!
It 100g of flour to test your starter feels like waste, then cut it down to 50g of flour, 1g of salt, etc...
Sorry for asking. If the initial rise went well, I would shape the loaf and proof in the basket for how long then? Bake at what temperature in the oven?
Well, you will know for how long to proof based on how long it took to rise to the max volume. Proofing would take less time than that, but how much exactly depends on the degree of proof you are seeking.
Some breads reqire minimal proof, needing only to let the dough relax after shaping, and may be to double or less. They are scored and open up enormously during baking and have elongated vertically oriented pores.
Others are proven until nearly max volume, quadrupling and more in volume during proof, and they won't rise much during baking after that and will have smooth crust surface and even crumb with roundish pores.
It depends on the kind of bread that you want.
Breads could be baked at wide range of temperatures, of course.
Inside some bread machine, for example, it would bake at around 170C and be perfectly baked with crispy brown crust. Pan breads are baked at 175-220C.
Hearth breads are usually baked at higher temperatures, because the hearth needs to be at 200C or higher for the explosive oven spring to occur. For breads like the one on your photo, about 220-230C would be Ok. Preheating the Dutch oven for 45 min is not necessary. Cold is perfectly OK. It will eventually get hot in the oven and the bread inside it will rise just as well.
I've never heard of baking a loaf in a cold dutch oven. Does that really work to get a good oven spring?
Yes. It really works and it gets a good oven spring. This method was published in Cook's Illustrated magazine, #116 (May&June 2012). They researched it, and concluded that it gives the same results as preheating oven and Dutch oven, but it is much safer.
So, you can proof your bread directly inside that cold Dutch oven, place it in a cold oven, turn your oven on and after 30 min open the lid and finish baking w/o lid until the loaf is fully browned. This is the screenshot of the part of the recipe that describes it on their website, temperatures in degrees F:
I tested it and it gives me good if not better results as preheating, so I switched to that method ever since. I don't spray with oil anything, not necessary. This is the oven spring it gets me in a sourdough loaf similar to yours, with good opening along slashes:
oblong loaves
The same as with preheated oven. This is a preheated Dutch oven oven spring:
1) before browning, immediately after removing the lid
2) finished bread
Anyways, this is not so important. Just a choice which saves you time and money, if you pay for gas or electricity needed to preheat your oven or Dutch oven for 45-60 min. Makes bread more affordable and just as beautiful.
That's really interesting! Thank you for the advice, I might try it out some time soon then!
Will the times and temperatures remain true if the dough is kept in fridge overnight?
You know, Tom, it's a good question. Cold oven technique has several variations to it, and I am sure that CoolRise as well (when you keep your dough or your loaf rising in fridge overnight):
- straight from fridge to oven,
- 10 min warm up then oven,
- full warm up for 30-120 min then oven, etc.
A lot depends on the specific bread recipe and baker's time management.
Since hearth breads vary enormously in weight/size and in times and degrees of baking them, from parbaked to severely "dried out" in the oven until they lose 25-50% of their initial raw weight, for sturdy crispy crust and special aroma, you would have to determine what works for your loaves personally, from experience.
CoolRise baking as it was researched in 1960x works the same as warm rise with a tiny difference of baking at somewhat elevated temperatures. The length of baking is the same. For example, if you proof your bread at room temp, then you would bake it for 10 min at 400F and finish baking for 35 min at 350-375F. Whereas if you proof your bread in fridge overnight, then you would bake it for 45min at 400F all the way.
So, for baking in cold Dutch oven I think it would make no difference whether your raw loaf is cold or warm and whether you oven is preheated or cold. What matters most is that your Dutch oven is cold. You will adjust the duration of baking in open pot, the second half of baking, according to your criteria of bread doneness (barely baked or parbaked for light crust and creamy crumb, normally baked to 10% weight loss, thoroughly baked to >25% weight loss).
They (researchers from RobinHood mills who developed the method of cold proof, named CoolRise) also recommend to let the cold dough/coldrisen loaf sit at room temp for 10 min before baking it. Not straight from the fridge to the oven, but give it a 10 min adjustment to room temp. I think with the cold oven technique you can skip that part. These 10 min will take place inside cold Dutch oven in cold oven as it very gradually warms up.
Thanks much Mariana. Planning a mix today with baking tomorrow. This helps me a lot.
2 questions
Enjoy!
Hello phaz,
I altered the recipe slightly. The directions didn't say to fold, although I did. He did specify at the end the creator of the video that he could've folded a few times for more oven spring.
After the 30 min proof I didn't do the fingerdent, although I feel like I should've. Before baking the next day I did do it, and it sprung back very quickly. I knew that wasn't good haha.
Well, usually, following the directions given would work with the materials used - by the video guy not you. A main difference, only 1 of many, would be the starter.
Finger poke is kind useless unless you've had a lot of practice with it. How the dough feels ie was it jiggly like jello is a better gauge.
Anyway, it sounds more and more like just a proofing problem. As in not enough. Enjoy!
Thank you phaz.
I will make sure my starter is truly ready and will apply your and mariana's advice! I appreciate your help a lot.
If the starter has been reacting consistently with it's fed for a week, it should be ok (and if sounds like it was ok. That does not mean it'll be the same as the video. And when things are different you rely on the fundamentals to adjust. I'll add, there will be many differences, as mentioned starter is only 1 - of many. Enjoy!