a question about scoring high hydration bread
Hello, I have been experimenting with sourdough breads between 65% and 75% with varying degrees of success.
The most common complaint I have is to do with scoring.
In the picture you see a bread made with roughly 65% hydration, baked in a tin.
I leave it in the tin to prove but when I score it, it always comes out this shape. I believe this is because The beginning of the score is ok but by the time I reach the end of the tin the score has become sticky and less 'direct' because I'm reaching the edge of the tin.
So I get a bread that is wonderfully risen one end and horribly compact the other. This happens every time I put a fairly wet dough in a tin.
I must say, the whole scoring thing is fairly unsatisfactory for me. I'm using a professional lathe but the bread just seems to stick back together immediately. I'm wondering whether I'm trying to cut too deep. Or whether my bread hasn't got enough surface tension. I always end up hacking around and going over the score to try and make it deeper and wider.
I am being mindful to create a taut surface tension but this doesn't seem to be helping.
When I make breads with a lower hydration I never have this problem. But when I get into the mid 60's this is what I get.
Any help gratefully received.
I think you may be right about the surface tension. Also, the surface needs to be relatively dry, so either uncover it at least 15 minutes before you score and sprinkle a little flour on the top first (though it looks like you do this already).
I find my freestanding loaves do this sometimes, and I think it has something to do with hot dry spots in my oven (nearer the door, nearer the top element, nearer the oven wall, whatever). Do you spray the loaf at all after loading it into the oven? Do you turn it during the bake, and when?
Thanks for this reply. The loaf always has the unrisen side nearest the door. I wonder if that's the answer. I don't turn it during the bake but I do often put ice cubes in to create steam.
Let me have another go putting the bread in horizontally and see if that works. Thanks again for the reply.
You may be overproofed. A less than perfect score shouldn't result in such a misshapen loaf. And a 65% loaf isn't very high hydration.
Thanks for this reply.
I'm not sure I'm overproofed because the bread doesn't rise much while proofing and the spring comes in the oven. You're right about the hydration. but I'm either getting my sums totally wrong (I don't think so) or I just find scoring loaves of 65% difficult. Like I said, when I have a firm dough, the scoring is easy and the bread comes out beautifully risen. But when I work with a wetter dough (one that will stick to your hands if you don't flour them) I always have a difficult time with the scoring.
Out of interest, what do you recommend time wise for proving? I find that I get the same results whether I prove my bread for 30 mins or two hours. The bread rises a little more but it does most of the rising in the oven.
"I find that I get the same results whether I prove my bread for 30 mins or two hours. The bread rises a little more but it does most of the rising in the oven."
This is very suspicious. It actually sounds like your bread is underproofed, although that ought to make scoring easier.
If you're only proofing two hours, that seems short for using only natural leavening. I cheat with my own, adding some commercial yeast. If you're not getting 1.5 to 2 times the volume, then it needs to proof longer or you need a stronger levain.
I think you're right. At the moment I use a lot of guesswork. Sometimes my dough rises to double volume in two hours. Sometimes it hardly rises at all. I wonder if this has something to do with the amount of starter I used in the mixture. I also wonder if it has something to do with how long I leave the dough to stretch (sometimes I leave the dough for hours stretching occasionally, other times I stretch it three times in a couple of hours then bake).
What I do know is that my 75% hydration dough looks a lot less controllable than the ones I see on the videos. Mine sticks to my hands and the scrapers and is very difficult to handle. Not nearly as elastic as the ones I see in the videos.