Troubleshooting sourdough
This is my 4th loaf since I started baking sourdough. I'm new to baking so be kind.
This loaf is 67% hydration (450g bread flour, 10g salt, 300g water, 100g starter). My starter is very active and depending on whether I put warm or cold water when feeding I can have it tripled or doubled without 4-6 hours no problem.
I baked as follows:
-Made dough and allowed to sit (autolyse) for 30 minutes
-stretch and fold and rested for 30 minutes
-stretch and fold and rested for 30 minutes
-stretch and fold and rested for 30 minutes
-bulk fermented for 3 hours in an oven with the light on, as its cold where I am. It looked like maybe 150-175% risen
-Shaped dough and put seam side down in bowl
-Proofed for 1 hour at room temperature
-Put in fridge for 14 hours
-preheated oven for 30 minutes at 450, and kept it at this temp for the whole baking. I've tried 500 but my Dutch oven doesn't handle it well.
-Baked 20 minutes with lid on, 20 minutes with lid off for a total time of 40 minutes at 450.
-Rested 2 hours before slicing
My issue is I find the dough is always kind of dense and has a sticky/gummy texture and has a lot of moisture (so much moisture that it takes a long time in the toaster to start seeing browning). The taste is good and there seems to be some decent crumb, maybe a little tighter than i want. I want my loaves to be light, airy, and fluffy. My thought right now is my oven isn't as warm as it says it is and it's undercooking? Despite the exterior browning and getting crispy. My other theory is that it is underproofed as I never see a full double rise while bulk fermenting. Should my dough be doubled in size after the overnight proof in the fridge? I find at the end of the day my dough is always not much bigger than when it was formed after shaping and proofing. I have a clear container ordered which will hopefully help me see when the bulk ferment is done as I do find it difficult to see it changing in size.
My score wasn't deep enough or at the right angle, which I noted for next time. It never opened up like I wanted and it never had the oven spring I hoped for. Overall I'm hoping someone can tell me how to get a fluffier bread with a more airy texture and with more oven spring. Any advice at all is appreciated.
I think that your loaf looks pretty good. If the crumb is gummy or too moist, then it needed longer baking to drive out the extra moisture. Your thought about low oven temperature is a good one. Home ovens are notorious for having temperatures far off the setting. They often don't have an even distribution, too. The DO would have helped with evening out the temperatures.
To me the loaf seems underbaked, judging just by the color of the crust, and that would go along with a gummy crumb. This kind of loaf usually gets baked to an internal temperature of 208 deg F/97.8C or higher. Even at those temperatures there can still be a lot of moisture and more baking will help to drive it out. If the crust gets too dark, cover it or lower the temperature during the rest og the bake.
I suggest getting an oven thermometer or an infrared thermometer to check your oven.
TomP
I will try baking longer on the next loaf. So bake longer with the lid removed at first to increase browning on crust? I will look at getting a thermometer as well. I do find if I go beyond the time int he recipes the bottom of my loaf burns, looking into ways to remedy this as well. This is the second recipe I've used, the other was higher hydration which I thought was the issue. My oven must be cooler than the ovens used in the recipes. Thanks,
Matt
No, bake as usual with the lid on. Otherwise the crust would stiffen up sooner and rise less. Bake longer after the lid comes off.
That's fairly common. I put a disk of aluminum foil in the bottom of the DO, and cover that with a disk of parchment paper. Usually this has been enough to prevent the burning on the bottom. Also, when you bake longer after the loaf is out of the DO, you probably won't get burning on the bottom.
BTW, you wrote that the hydration was 67%, but not counting the starter it was 75%, if your quantities are correct (300g/450g = 75%). That's quite a bit higher.
To get an overall hydration, divide dough water + starter water by dough flour + starter flour.
As to the bread, the crumb suggests that bulk ferment could have been allowed to go longer. It might also benefit the bread if final fermentation is allowed to progress more after the cold retardation to ensure that the loaf is well inflated before baking.
Paul
Oops, mental blip! Not sure how I read 300/450 = 30/45 = 2/3 = 66.7% as 75%, but I managed it.
Tom, you just divided 300 by 400 (instead of 450). But, while on the topic of math, Matt said his dough was not doubling, yet said, "It looked like maybe 150-175% risen". That would have been well more than doubled. He means 50% to 75% risen. Not to be nitpicky, but it can be confusing.
I think the loaf looks gorgeous, too.
Thanks for catching my mistake. You are correct it was 50-75% risen! Thank you for the compliment, it's been a lot of struggle to get to this point haha
Thanks Paul. I will try allowing for a longer fermentation. When you say progress after cold retardation do you mean allow it to rise at room temperature after the fridge overnight and before baking? Will this make it more difficult to score as it will be at room temp again, or would you recommend putting it in the freezer for a few minutes just before baking.so it holds its shape better?
You had mentioned that the bread is very moist and dense, which interferes with toasting. That, plus the picture of the crumb, suggests that fermentation hadn't reached its optimal extent.
First, the crumb shows large bubbles separated by areas of comparatively dense crumb. That is often an indicator that bulk fermentation needs to run longer, which would allow all of the dough to be well-aerated.
Second, you gave the dough an hour between shaping and refrigeration. Wild yeasts work more slowly than baker's yeast and seem to be more sensitive to cold temperatures, so sourdough breads tend to proof more slowly at room temperature and while retarding. Your choices are a) more bench time before refrigeration, b) longer refrigeration time, or c) allowing the dough time to warm up and continue fermentation after refrigeration. Whichever you choose, the objective is to have a dough that is thoroughly reinflated after having been degassed and shaped.
I can't advise you as to which approach is "best" since I don't know your dough or your refrigerator or your schedule. My personal preference is to not retard the dough but that's only because I can usually work around the bread's needs without having to put the dough down for a nap while I do other things. Since retarding fits your needs, it's now a matter of making some tweaks in the process so that the dough ferments to produce what you want in your bread.
Paul
After you think it’s done turn the oven off and let it sit in your oven with the door cracked for 10-15 minutes. This will help dry the crumb a bit.
That's something I do also when a loaf is especially moist. It will also keep the crust crisper, since otherwise moisture coming out of the loaf softens the crust.
If I got a white loaf like that I'd be ecstatic!
I have never had any success with a bread flour boule.
What a crumb too!
Thank you! I am overall happy with my loaf and it's nice to hear some support! I'll always find things to improve on until I get that perfect airy, fluffy texture haha
Just for the record, I find that it's much harder to toast lean sourdough than enriched and/or yeasted breads, even when it's baked properly. If your crumb feels gummy, then I don't doubt that it needs longer to bake, but I don't think the toasting is an indication of the same problem. Lean sourdough breads (without additional sweeteners) don't have much in the way of sugars for Maillard browning, and low pH (which causes the sourness) inhibits the Maillard reaction as well. I often have to do two cycles in the toaster to get any color.
Yes, SD bread can be reluctant to brown in the toaster. A bit of diastatic malt flour mixed in with the main dough flour can help - and also with loaf browning. Maybe about 0.5 - 0.7%.
Lance
Your post inspired me to join this forum. There are so many bread baking variables, I'm still learning though I've been making bread since I was a kid and regularly making sourdough for about four years and I am geeky about science stuff. This was a great opportunity to problem solve and learn even more. Because you included so much detail, I'm guessing some links and a few techniques might be the most valuable.
I create my own recipes using Sune's bread calculator bread-calculator Oh how I love it! I plugged in your recipe, and assuming 100% hydration starter, you're at 70% hydration for your loaf (your salt is part of the calculation).
I sometimes use King Arthur bread flour as part of my recipe. It has malted barley flour (diastatic malt) which can make your crumb chewier and your dough rise faster & higher. Explanation here: difference-between-diastatic-malt-non-diastatic-malt-barley-malt-syrup
Here's a longish video (from Sune) to show how diastatic malt works. The comments suggest that diastatic malt is not great for long ferments because it turns starches into sugars, which the lacto-bacteria in your sourdough starter is already doing. Supposedly good for bagels which should be chewy. watch
Using a very pre-heated dutch oven to 450 degrees (my oven is slow), I pull my loaf from the fridge, score it and put it in for 17-22 minutes depending on type of flours and size of loaf. I then take it fully out of the dutch oven and turn the oven down to 400 for another 20 minutes. This prevents a thick bottom that's hard to cut through, but is golden brown all over, not charcoal. Don't like the taste of burnt. Internal loaf temp is somewhere around 208. Might be worth a try to add an extra 20 minutes in a turned off oven with the door slightly propped open.
This checklist with a few variations works well for me. Printable-Sourdough-Bread-Checklist-from-A-Couple-Cooks.pdf I wonder if you're getting a lot of raise during your bulk ferment of 3 hours and then loosing much of that good air when you shape your loaf. At this point your loaf's ability to rise is diminished.
After looking back at my favorite links and rereading your post a number of times I'm leaning toward the difficulty being either from your ingredients or your proofing, either under or over.
Looks like you have some fun experimenting ahead of you. I hope you'll share what you discover.