June 18, 2009 - 9:36am
sourdough collapse
help please, I've been making sourdough up till this warm weather decended upon us with good results. However last week I made some in the same old way and left it to prove for the usual 16-18 hours, when i went to bake it the following day I saw it had really ballooned up to about 4 times it's usual size at that stage. So I turned it out to bake it, I slashed it and it collapsed, needless to say it didn't rise in the oven and came out like a brick. Any ideas as to why?
Share
It sounds like your loaf was way overproofed when you turned it out to bake. You say that it rose to 4 times it's usual size, as in, 4 times what it normally looks like at that point, or 4 times the original shaped size? Both sound still overproofed to me. If a loaf is overproofed, it will collapse when turned out, or if you're not turning it, it will probably collapse when you try to slash it. The internal structure won't have enough strength left to support a rise in the oven.
I think generally (someone correct me if I'm wrong) we shoot for just under doubled in size (about 75% doubled, so not quite doubled) so that there will be good oven spring during the bake. Try to underproof your loaves a bit, and you should have good oven spring, resulting in a less dense loaf. My sourdough takes about 4 hours to get to that point, but I'm guessing that you're using a very small amount of starter if you're having a 16-18 hr final proof?
Many thanks for your reply..........Sorry, yes, 4 times the original shaped size. I'm wondering - as it's almost summer here in the UK, that the general ambient temp' meant that the proove was accelerated, resulting in the massive rise like it was?
I use about 400g of starter for 700 g flour.. RE: the 16-18 hr proof time, I've always followed a recipe that has given me great results, which dictates this amount of time. Maybe I'll try a bit shorter next time!
I find that my rise times vary wildly with the ambient temperature. You might want to think about refrigerating your fermenting dough for some amount of time to allow the long fermentation that gives great flavour without the overproofing resulting from a warmer environment. Otherwise I think you're on-target by decreasing your proofing time.
:-Paul