Troubleshooting; New to the baking with own sourdough starter
Hello everyone! Please excuse my ignorance with this new delicious hobby that I just started about a month ago (after watching "Cooked" on Netflix). I have always loved sourdough bread without knowing why or how it was made. My taste buds were my only guides.
In trying to make my own sourdough bread, I decided to do some Google research and make my own starter from scratch. It took me about 2 1/2 weeks with some tweaking of the flour (first it was regular AP, then unbleached AP, then regular WW, then I experimented with a mixture of 25% dark rye flour an 75% unbleached AP which seemed to accelerate the process to a point where my starter was finally doubling in volume. I have kept that mother starter in the fridge in a larger batch and I'm feeding it once a week and taking out 1/3 of what my recipe needs and feeding that overnight before using it in my recipes.
I have so far baked 3 loaves.
The first one was a disaster because I was impatient and did not allow the dough to proof enough and I didn't know (still don't?) what a good dough should feel like before / during / after the bulk ferment, so it was dry and had no spring. (pic follows)
The second loaf was much better: I left it to proof much longer (it was at about 71F for 12 hours but didn't rise more than 25%, so I put it in the fridge overnight, then in the morning let it sit out for about 3 hours before slashing and baking. It was very tasty and had a bit of oven spring, but the crumb was small and I undercooked the loaf.
My third loaf is also a disaster! I tried using a banneton for the first time and my dough was quite wet and didn't proof well at all, so when I tried to transfer the dough on to my baking stone it oozed out of the banneton and much of it was left stuck to the basket.... needless to say it had no oven spring and now I have a crouton-worthy loaf!
The Internet being what it is, there are lots of conflicting ideas out there about starter:flour ratios. By weight, I have been using a 1:4 starter to flour ratio, 1:2 water to flour, 1:50 course salt to flour. This seems to give a very tight and sticky dough, so I have been adding small amounts of water until the dough wasn't so tough to knead.
For those of you who are master bakers out there, I'm looking for any and all of your expertise. I'm in no hurry to get this right, and I'm actually enjoying laughing at myself with all of the mis-fires and re-tries. I'm very eager to learn this amazing craft of making your own bread from scratch.
Looking forward to your replies!
Kevin
Well, there are about as many techniques and recipes out there as there are bakers, so you might get quite a flood of advice! I'm going to suggest you try the techniques and recipe here on Bread Magazine, which helped me get started with sourdough. You can then start to change things up and see what happens. Just one comment - sourdough should not generally be "tough to knead" so that's a good clue that your hydration level (amount of water to total flours by weight) is too low.
I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the learning experience. That bodes well for the future and I'm sure you will end up creating wonderful breads and hopefully sharing them with us!
Kevin,
If you are refrigerating your starter and feeding it only once per week, you may need an extra feed or two at room temperature to reactivate it for baking. Try 2 feeds at maybe 1:3:3 or 1:4:4 (assuming 100% hydration) at 8 to 12 hour intervals before your final build that goes into the dough.
And I agree with Lazy Loafer that your hydration sounds a bit too low if it is tough to knead. If you can post the entire recipe it may shed some additional light.
-Brad
Hi, thanks for your reply. For the feeds at 1:3:3 or 1:4:4, does that mean starter:water:flour? Perhaps I don't have a fully developed mother starter yet. I just fed my starter last night at around 9pm and this morning it was bubbly, soft, and had a really nice sour/sweet aroma, but it wasn't doubled in size. I have tried to take time lapse of my starter fermenting, but it doesn't quite want to double up. I was using a 50/50 dark rye to unbleached AP white.
As for the bread recipe that I have been using:
150g starter
600g flour (I mixed about 10% dark rye and 90% unbleached AP white)
300g water
12g salt
I have tried the delayed salt method as well as adding the salt in at the beginning, with little difference in the resulting dough.
The above recipe yields quite a 'tough' dough. I found it difficult to ooze the dough through my fingers when incorporating the salt (delayed method), so I ended up adding about 3 or 4 tablespoons of water in total to get the dough to feel less tight and more workable.
After that I waited to see if it would double during the first rise, but it didn't seem to do that. It just flattened out sideways (in a glass bowl) and rose about 20% after a cool slow ferment in the refrigerator for about 18 hours (I had to leave for work in the afternoon and got back to it in the morning). It was very difficult to shape and didn't rise much again during final proofing.
Kevin
Kevin,
Yes, my convention for 1:3:3 is starter:water:flour. This is the order in which I add them, so it's easy for me to remember. Others may use a different convention. Of course, when flour and water are the same it really doesn't matter.
I didn't realize you were using a starter with a high percentage of rye. Since rye has no glutens to speak of, it probably doesn't have the structure to maintain doubled volume before it collapses on itself. Chad Robertson (Tartine) uses a different method to see if a leaven (levain) is ready: float test. Place a spoonful of the levain in water and if it floats, it is ready. I think it should work with rye based starters but I have no first hand experience. Another thing to bear in mind is that whole grain flours, and especially rye flours, ferment more quickly than white flours. You may be waiting too long to use the starter.
As for your breads, and again assuming a 100% hydration starter, the overall hydration of the dough as listed is:
300 + 75 (water) / 600 + 75 (flour) = 55.5%
which is quite low. Adding a few more tablespoons of water, say 50 gm, would bring it up to around 63%. It should be kneadable, if a bit stiff. It won't have the large holes and open crumb, if that is what you are looking for. I'm not sure what you mean exactly that the dough flattened out in a bowl while proofing. How long was it proofing? At what temperature? Did you use warm water or cool water to mix the dough? A sourdough tends to prefer room temperature, in my experience. I try to keep things between 70-72˚F.
If it was difficult to shape because it seemed too wet and was sticky, it may imply that it was overproofed. If it didn't proof that long, then the lack of structure may mean that the gluten was insufficiently developed and more kneading would be called for.
If you are new to sourdough baking, a very simple recipe to start with is 1-2-3 bread. 1 part starter, 2 parts water, 3 parts flour, plus 2% salt will give quite a nice bread with good crumb structure and the dough is very easy to handle.
Good luck,
-Brad
Thanks Brad!
In my haste to get my starter going, I used rye once and noticed, as you said, that it fermented very quickly, so I was convinced that I needed to use a rye/white flour mix to keep my starter happy and active.
This morning, I took my starter and fed it 1:1:1, and my flour mix was 50% whole wheat, 40% unbleached AP white, and 10% dark rye. It has now been fermenting for 6 hours and has definitely doubled in volume!
One question I haven't been able to find an answer for is when to use a freshly fed starter. Do I wait until it doubles, so let's say 5 to 6 hours, then measure it by weight, or can I use it right after feeding?
Thanks for the tip on the float test. I did this with my second loaf, and with part of the spoonful I put into a glass of water floated (some of it sank, but I thought it was because I stirred my starter hence collapsing the structure before testing it).
I'm definitely going to try the 1-2-3 bread. Back to the drawing board!
Lastly, does it matter if I wait to add the salt?
Thanks again,
Kevin
Kevin,
Your starter blend is still pretty heavy on the whole grains, so it will ferment pretty quickly. This is not a bad thing, but because it will use up food faster, it will lose activity more quickly, too. Just for comparison (and not to say this is right and another is wrong) I have settled on a blend of 70% AP, 27% WW and 3% whole rye. It is a nice balance between activity and flavor for me.
When to use a starter? There are several considerations. It will work well to rise a dough when it peaks, since this is when the LAB and yeast populations are high. [Aside: yeast and LAB don't peak at the same rate, but that's a totally different discussion.] It will still work a little before or after the peak, but the flavors may be different. Taste it at various times and see what you like. I would definitely not use it in a dough just after feeding. Typically a published formula will list what is called a final build, in which you use a small amount of your starter with a specific blend of flours and water at a predetermined hydration, which is matured and used in the final dough.
-Brad
[Edit] I neglected to answer your question about the salt. The reason that it is added later has to do with the autolyse. This is when you mix just the flour and water to allow time for the flour to completely hydrate. It starts the formation of the gluten network, so it needs less kneading and handling of the dough. The salt and levain are added after a period of time, anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours. Some recipes (Tartine, Forkish) include the levain with the initial mix (technically this is not an autolyse but it works the same way) and the salt is added afterwards.
Hi Brad,
I took your advice and tried the 1-2-3 bread recipe with my active starter at 6h after it doubled. The starter was fed at 1:1:1 with the flour mix being 50% AP, 40% WW, 10% rye. My bread flour was the same mix, with 2% salt added about 15 minutes after I mixed everything else together.
I didn't knead the dough, as the recipe for Beginner's Sourdough Bread only called for 3 stretch and folds during bulk fermentation.
Here are the results! I'm pretty happy with it, although I'm not sure how to make the crumb more consistent rather than having those large cavities in some places and denser in others. The overall flavor is really nice, but I find it a touch on the sour side.
(The reason why the slits didn't burst is that during the first 20 minutes I put a ceramic bowl on top of my bread which was on a pizza stone. I underestimated the bread's spring and it ended up rising up to touch the bottom of the inverted ceramic bowl, so I think the slits sealed up at that point!
Thanks for all your help!
Kevin
Kevin,
You can probably reduce the sour flavor by using the starter when it is a little less mature, i.e. before it peaks.
The large cavities look to me like they might be from shaping the loaf prior to the final proof. There are lots of videos about shaping on YouTube that may help. One of the things you may want to pay attention to is not putting too much flour on the bench during the shaping, which may cause these cavities. Otherwise it looks really good. Congrats.
-Brad
Brad,
Thanks for the tip on the timing of using the starter in my dough. Interestingly enough my next loaf was right on in terms of flavor and crumb density, with a beautifully crunchy crust. I actually baked it about 10 or 15 minutes past what my timer was set to (bathing my son and lost track of time!), and I was expecting it to be a brick, and the digital thermostat jumped to well over 210F right when I stuck it into the loaves. However the only part I noticed overcooked was perhaps the crust, which isn't a terrible thing for me.
I can't remember if I shaped my loaf (#4) prior to final proof. If anything when I transferred it from the glass bowl that I used to do the bulk fermentation to the banneton I probably pulled the sides up and stuck them together at the top middle.
One last question (and thanks for your patience!), I did the 'slap and stretch' technique on loaf #5 for about 15 minutes prior to putting it into the fridge for a slow bulk ferment, until the point where the window pane test was good. The end result was a very consistent crumb density, but the rise was still not 2x like I see in a lot of other recipes. Is that because of the whole grain and rye content of my dough? I used 70%AP, 27%WW, 3% dark rye. And for the 2% salt I added the weights of my dry flour as well as half the weight of my 100% hydration starter -- is that the right way to calculate salt?
Kevin
Kevin,
It sounds like you have had some more successes. Keep at it and you will get to feel what doughs should feel like at various stages of development. Keep notes, too.
Doughs with relatively large percent of whole grains will not necessarily rise as much as all white flour doughs. Doubling is a rule of thumb, so don't get hung up on it. The mantra on TFL is watch the dough and not the clock. But to answer your question, 15 minutes of slap and folds prior to cold bulk ferment seems a little excessive to me. Long ferments take the place of long kneading, and, yes, you can overknead a dough, though it is difficult to do. The bran content of whole grain flour could damage the gluten network during kneading due to its sharp edges, depending on the grind you are using, limiting the increase in volume. Coarser grinds where you can see large chunks of bran are obviously more damaging.
Calculating the salt percentage is generally calculated on the total flour content, including the levain, so you did it correctly. It may or may not be listed that way in books, but look for a section called "overall formula." If you are interested in starting a library of bread books, take a look at Hamelman's "Bread," which is very comprehensive with background, techniques and recipes that, for me at least, work the first time.
-Brad