How levain maturity affects PH of final dough
Hi all--
A question on dough PH and levain maturity...
I just finished baking a batch of bread that came out slightly under proofed and I have to believe that it was because I used my levain a little earlier than normal and I relied too heavily on the PH of the final dough to end bulk and proofing.
And to be more specific.. I generally use my levain when it has reached a PH of 3.90 - 3.80. It usually has tripled and flattened at this point, or almost tripled and flattened. Yesterday I used my levain at 3.97--it had tripled but was still domed. I then went through my normal dough process and ended the proofing at 4.50 like I normally do. And for this particular dough that PH value is normally going to end up with a baked loaf that looks as though it's just slightly over fermented.
If I wasn't relying so much on the PH value, I would have thought at the beginning of the dough making process that I should push bulk a little longer because the levain was younger. But I let the PH value alone dictate when to cold proof and I'm wondering, should I have let the PH fall lower because the levains PH was higher? Maybe let the final dough drop to around 4.43 for example? Or what other conclusion can I make from this data? The levain percentage, hydration, and everything else was kept exactly the same as normal for this particular recipe.
One more interesting thing to note is that the bread taste more sour to me as well, which seems very odd and conflicts with what I would assume it would taste like. This might not even be completely true as I was so distraught from how the loaves turned out (this was a couple of dozen loaves baked for a large and meaningful event, of course) maybe my taste was just off, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
Anyway, I'm interested to hear what people think--thanks!
I've not had too much sucess using pH as an endpoint. Maybe my started is too yeasty, but I think if I went by pH alone I would get very overproofed loaves. I prefer to work on % rise (normaly about 40-45%) as this gives me better ears and ovenspring, even though loaf pH might be higher than I would like.
To get the full picture I recommend measuring and keeping a record of the crumb pH of the final loaf, then you also know how much the pH is dropping from end of bulk through to final loaf.
In theory you can just measure the pH of a shaped loaf right before putting it in the oven, but it's easy to forget and you don't really want to poke holes in the dough at this stage.
Simply take 3g bread crumb without crust and mush up in 20g deionised h20 in pestle and mortar or similar and take pH.
Lance