Chef/Levain - turns to sticky goo
NOTE: Moved this from 'Artisan Baking' since this is, I think, where it should have gone all along.
I feel like I have something of a grasp of yeasted breads, so, no worries there.
I've been working away at Joe Ortiz's Pain de Campagne recipe, the one that uses the chef and two refreshments. I've been around a couple times on this.
Two problems, which might or might not be related:
- a pretty strong paint smell
- the two refreshments, and the dough, turn in to sticky goo before (?) they're ready
My kitchen is probably a bit warm, using a cooler with an ice pack in it to create a cool area has helped. I theorize that I may have been letting things go too long at each stage, so this last time around I've kept things cooler (in the 70s farenheit, mostly) and there's no paint smell. Still, my final refreshment is looking like it's turning in to goo.
With respect to the goo: everything looks fine at each refreshment, and at the dough stage, when first mixed. As the dough ferments, though, it seems to get moister and moister, and looser and looser, until it flops down into a sticky mess. The first iterations turned into a substance a lot like a melted caramel! The most recent one, still in progress, is SMELLING fine (a few acid notes, but not bad) but the 2nd refreshment, as I said, is turning in to a sort of puddle. Not quite caramel, but definitely not dough.
This last iteration was down to: 32 hours for the chef, 10 for the 1st refreshment (I might have taken it a little underripe, I am thinking) and around 12 so far for the 2nd refreshment (it just sat for 6 hours, turning liquid, without rising, which is why I think I might have taken the first levain too early). I'm going to let the 2nd levain ripen a bit more before I try for dough, it's been actually rising for a few hours now.
The first couple times around were perfectly edible -- not particularly well leavened, VERY sour, and quite tough. Also, sort of liked baked mud pies, very very flat. I'd like to have some dang shape some day, though ;)
My ambient kitchen temp is probably 80-85F most of the time, and my proofing box is probably in the 70s, Farenheit. The atmosphere is very humid. This is southern Virginia.
Thoughts and ideas?
Thanks, Daisy!
I tried adding a little orange juice to the dough when I made it up last night, and proofed it in my cooler. Things seem to have gone ok, some slump, but not too bad. I chickened out and baked it a little under-raised, I think. I don't know if the OJ helped, but I dare say some vitamin C and some acid didn't hurt, at any rate.
My thinking now is that either a) I'm have some sort of organisms in there there that produce something unpleasant or b) the heat is making desireable organisms behave badly.
I found myself laughing bitterly last night anyways, when Joe cheerfully said 'break the levain up into bits' and I was dealing with a substance not unlike cool molasses. Anyways, it came together into a slightly flattish boule, that's.. um... fairly heavy. This will be a robust loaf!
Hi
High temperature and humidity is your problem. Your starter is clearly too ripe.
Cut down on the amount of levain, and feed it generously with fresh flour and COOL water. Cut down the time you are fermenting it for. Your levain is quite clearly too ripe from everything you have written above.
I don't know the formula; I've had a glance thru' the Ortiz book a while back; but I'm not that familiar. Maybe you could use a stiff levain, cut down on fermentation time, and introduce a strict temperature regime?
Best wishes
Andy
Thanks, Andy!
That's just about the conclusion I'm coming to here as well, but it's nice to have it confirmed. This particular method uses stiff levains throughout, a pretty simple regime of them: mix a chef of flour/water/cumin/milk, refresh it twice (building it up) and then make dough. Each stage is mixed quite stiff, firm-but-sticky doughs.
It's possble I am backing in to wild leavening the hard way, but I'm attracted to the approach because it explicitly avoids "maintaining" a starter. You start from scratch each time through.
Well, not quite -- at some point you start using old dough for the chef, and presumably because you have an established population of yeast, things move along a lot faster.
Anyways, thanks for all the input, folks! My last runthrough was more successful, probably because I have been keeping things cooler.