Sourdough Woes :(
So I have been nursing a starter now for almost a month and I have tried to make about 5 loaves with it over the past 2 weeks and they have all been pretty disastrous. First couple were bricks and the last couple of attempts have baked but the crumb is very heavy, I have no oven spring and despite the internal temp being in excess of 205f they have seemed undercooked.
So clearly I am doing something wrong.
My method to date has been following the Northwest Sourdough videos on Youtube as follows:
Day 1.
1. Feed starter with 50g flour & 50g water the day I want to make the dough.
2. Once the starter has doubled take 100g and mix with 250g water, 8g salt and 390g flour (rough mix til it combines and cleans the bowl)
3. Cover and set aside for an hour then stretch/fold the dough 4-6 times (repeat this 2 or 3 times with 30-60 minutes in between)
4. First shape, then bench rest for about 20 minutes
5. Second shape and put in banneton - cover and place in the fridge over night.
Day 2.
1. Remove dough from fridge and place in a warm spot (around 80f) to prove - do the poke test every 30-45 minutes when the indentation stays and the dough seems to have increased in volume it is ready to bake.
2. Remove from banneton (mine -always- sticks despite me oiling it when I first got it and flouring it before each use) brush off excess flour and place in an oven pre-heated to 230C. She uses a roasting tin lid which she has preheated, I have a large steel bowl I use.
3. After 20 minutes remove the lid, reduce temperature to 210C and cook for a final 20 minutes.
Problem 1: The dough spreads a lot when I take it out of the banneton
Problem 2: I get absolutely no oven spring
Problem 3: Very close crumb, very doughy bread seems undercooked despite internal temps.
I am using 750 TYP white flour which is supposed to be perfect for bread.
So my guesses regarding where things are going wrong:
1. Not enough starter (I note the easy sourdough recipe on here uses 50% more starter)
2. Using the starter at the wrong time (I have read some suggestions that the starter should be used before it reaches its peak)
3. Over or under proving (I don't understand this poke test thing, my dough seems to keep an imprint very quickly after removing from the fridge even though the dough volume doesn't seem to have changed - in the Northwest Sourdough videos she proved for about 4 hours after removing from the fridge)
4. Oven not hot enough (again the easy sourdough method on this site has oven preheated to 250C then dropped to 210C
So I am open to advice. My starter seems ok, at the moment it is sat on the bench in the kitchen and is about 250% (so more than doubled in size) after I fed it last night (about 11 hours ago) and the starter is still "domed" so hasn't started to sink back yet.
I have some clay quarry tiles I will use in the oven for the next bake but I don't think that is the problem. Really want to start baking yummy sourdough.
Also, how the hell can I stop the dough sticking to the banneton - it is really annoying. I note some people use a cloth inside their banneton - wouldn't the dough just stick to that instead? If cloth works well what type of cloth do you recommend?
Thanks in advance for any help.
to rice flour! I used to proof my dough in basket lined with a linen cloth dusted with regular flour. It worked sometimes, but i didn't like how much flour i ended up with on the outside of the loaf. Now i lightly dust the cloth with rice flour, I haven't had a single sticking incident since!
I think you might be over proving your dough. I can't help you with the poke test, i never use it, but from what you've described, the dough might be over proofed. Maybe try getting it into the fridge a little sooner and bake straight from the fridge.
If you could post some pictures, that would help the kind folks here give you better advice.
Happy baking!
This was my first attempt and I thought the problem was using wholemeal but I am getting pretty much the same result with white flour too.
First, it's not clear in Day 1 Step 1 how much starter you use. You add 50 grams each of water and flour, but to how much starter? 25 grams? I doesn't matter that much but it might affect how healthy your levain is.
One thing that works better for me is to retard the bulk ferment rather than the shaped proof. So I will do the stretching and folding over 3 to 5 hours (usually; depends how the dough is performing) and then put the bowl or bucket of dough in the fridge overnight. I shape it cold the next day, proof it in bannetons or other forms for (usually) a couple of hours, then bake. And as Ru says, use brown rice flour in your forms.
I find if I proof the shaped dough overnight in the fridge it almost always overproofs, unless it has a high percentage of whole grain flour, soaked grains or seeds, or cooked porridge. These things help it maintain it's shape (but you must be cautious - whole grains often proof faster than white flour).
I agree with both previous posters, their suggestions are good. If you would like to keep with the same technique you are using, however, here are a few other suggestions:
I almost always retard my loaves in bannetons overnight. In my experience, that is enough proofing, so I bake directly from the refrigerator. I generally use a couple of extra minutes steaming to allow for the temperature difference. Also, in my experience, the poke test on cold dough is useless as it always fails until it is too late. This results in overproofing, which sounds like your description. Baking cold also makes scoring easier.
If you use lined baskets lightly dusted with 50/50 rice flour/all purpose flour, It should be easier to release than directly from a banneton. It may be that your gluten is not sufficiently developed, which could be a contributing factor. The mantra here is to watch the dough and not the clock, it will help you to get the feel of the dough and the timing. Bake, bake, and bake some more, take notes and don't be afraid to fail. You will learn lots.
-Brad
OK so I had about 150g of starter in my jar this morning, I just fed it 75g flour & 75g water and will try the 150g starter recipe along with the tips and feedback from this thread. I will be baking tomorrow so hopefully it will turn out well, I will post photos once it is finished.
Thanks everyone.
Your description of the dough spreading is a classic sign of dough that did not rise much during the bulk fermentation. Same with the lack of ovenspring. And same with the gummy crumb. Dough that underproofs during bulk is very common among new sourdough bakers -- most of us have suffered this issue when we first began. The problem usually lies in the starter.
If it takes 10-11 hours for your starter to double in volume (assuming you're using wheat flour, not rye) then that indicates a weak starter. A healthy starter should at least double in volume within 8 hours or so of refreshment (tripling in volume is even better). Starter problems are usually a result of ineffective starter maintenance.
It sounds to me like you're adding too much starter during the refreshment. This could cause an accumulation of acid build up over time which makes for a weak starter. A detailed description of your starter maintenance routine would be very helpful here. But in general, a good refreshment ratio (if you keep a 100% hydration starter) would be something like a 1:2:2 ratio (1 part starter, 2 parts water, 2 parts flour; all by weight) at least twice a day if you keep it at room temperature.
Once you have a starter that can reliably double or triple in volume within 8 hours of refreshment you should start seeing much better results. It's very important during the bulk proof that the dough rise at least 30% in volume (50% might be better) before you preround the loaf. If the dough doesn't accumulate enough gas during the bulk then it will have too little structure to hold its shape as it proofs. That causes spreading. You'll know that you didn't bulk your dough long enough if your preround spreads out flat like a pancake.
So don't give up. Most of us (including myself) have all gone through that initial struggle when we first started baking sourdough. The first and most important thing a new sourdough baker must do is learn to understand, maintain and use their sourdough starter. And it takes time. That's the first big hurdle, so be patient and observant and eventually you'll get to know your starter very well. That's when the fun begins.
Cheers!
Trevor
Thanks for the feedback Trevor but I should add that it didn't take 11 hours for the starter to double, I just meant that it had been 11 hours since I fed it when I checked it and it was more than doubled. I feed it before I go to bed and I always have a bunch of stuff to do in the morning so I don't generally check it until nearly mid day.
I fed it this morning about 4 hours ago and it is already around 60% expanded - I expect it to be doubled easily within the 8 hour mark and probably significantly more.
I only feed it once a day and I usually feed it on a 1:0.5:0.5 ratio (so 100g of original starter I would add 50g water, 50g flour) and yes it is a wheat starter (was rye but I have converted it to wheat over the past 2 weeks). I can certainly increase the ratio but that would mean discarding a lot of starter each day because if I start with 100g starter I would need to add 200g water & 200g flour, then I would be discarding 400g of starter and again adding 200g water & 200g flour. That seems way too much and very wasteful, I would effectively be throwing away almost 1kg of flour a day if I feed it twice a day with those ratios.
I will see how the next bake goes and make some changes if it still has problems.
I also started to make a new starter just over a week ago, which has been TYP 550 white flour from the start (no rye) because I wanted to see if it would behave better than the rye one I originally started with.
My original starter is called Bob, the TYP 550 is called Kevin - I talk to them frequently and draw little faces on their jars - much to the exasperation of my fiancee (she thinks I am strange). But then what can I say, I am 42 and a huge Minions fan ;)
Just speaking from experience here, but using such a high seed amount (especially feeding just once a day) is almost certainly going to give you an overly acidic, and eventually proteolytic starter. Every time you inoculate a new batch of starter you are bringing a certain acid load to the mix from the seed. For the long term health of your starter it's necessary to keep that acid load from accumulating too much. That's typically achieved by using much smaller seed amounts, and more frequent feeding (if kept at room temperature).
Do you find that your starter is runny, kind of like thin glue when you use it? If so, then that's a sign of an overly acidic and proteolytic starter. Healthy starter at 100% hydration shouldn't dribble or run like glue -- it should look more like a yeast poolish, kind of spongy. If you grab a handful it'll hold together and fall from your fingers in clumps -- it won't dribble off them like syrup.
If you're on Instagram, I have a video post demonstrating what healthy 100% hydration starter looks like. Give me a shout: @trevorjaywilson and I'll point you to the post.
Regarding discarding so much starter -- you can reduce the amount of starter entirely. For instance, you can use a seed amount of just 25 grams (or even less). So your refreshment would look like this: 25g starter, 50g water and 50g flour. At each feeding you'd only be discarding 100 grams starter. And you can keep even smaller amounts than that. And once you have a healthy starter you can keep it in the fridge and feed it maybe just once a week or so -- or even less (look up dabrownman's "No muss no fuss starter" post here on TFL).
I hope that helps. Cheers!
Thanks for giving helpful info. One question: do you feed your starter, then put it in the fridge, for say a week, or do you recommend putting it in at another stage?
My starter has never been in the fridge, it has been kept at room temp since day one. Temp in my kitchen is around 72-78f depending on the day.
So that was my starter today after 10 hours (I fed it at 11:30am). I am not sure what time it doubled as I was out shopping until 9:15pm but as you can see it has almost tripled in 10 hours. It is a thick foamy/spongy mix full of co2 pockets (you can even see them in the jar).
I just made a dough using the recipe on here for basic sourdough:
150g starter
285g water
100g wholemeal
400g strong white (TYP 750 here)
8g salt
The dough is currently sat in the kitchen at room temp, I will do the first stretch in about 30 minutes and continue to stretch it every 30-45 minutes until I go to bed (at which point I will put it in the fridge.
I also bought some rice flour and some cloth to go in my banneton.
I am going prove in the fridge for around 14 - 16 hours and then bake straight from the fridge tomorrow afternoon in a hotter oven (250C for first 15 minutes then drop to 210C). I also retrieved my clay quarry tiles from the car so I will bake on them for the first time. Is there anything special I should do to season the tiles or shall I just cook them for an hour before I put the bread in?
I use a pizza stone that doesn't need seasoning. Tiles shouldn't be any different. I keep it in the oven all the time and cook other things than bread on it, as supposedly it helps distribute heat evenly.
As to the starter question, I fed mine and put it in the fridge, as I'll be out of town.
My new acquisition is a 4 quart cast iron Dutch oven, which eliminates the hassle of steaming the oven by various methods.
Am not familiar with the TYP 750. Assume it's bleached all purpose flour. I'm in Texas, where we grow good wheat in the north of the state.
TYP 450 is AP flour - bread flour starts around TYP 600, TYP 750 is a very strong bread flour, anything above 750 tends to start having a lot more of the grain (wholemeal). I am in Poland, most of our economy is agriculture :)
I can't find a dutch oven here (I have looked everywhere) but I am thinking maybe I can find one online - for now I just have a dish of water in the oven when I bake.
is most likely at the high end of the scale... around 8 Maybe you can find out. That would explain the half feeding working for the moment. I've had to increase my inoculations too with water pH of 7.9 it takes a little longer for the bacteria to lower the pH for the yeast. But once lowered, the yeast get going, they go with the warm humid temps.
I would be interested to know what would happen with 40g starter plus 80g water and 80g flour or a 1:2:2 ratio feeding. The end result is still 200g of starter.
My water goes through a Brita filter because we have hard water in my city - so the pH should be quite neutral - I would be surprised if it was higher than 7.2 - I don't have anything to test it with though and have no idea where to get litmus paper here in Poland.
Would something like this work instead of a Dutch Oven?
http://allegro.pl/garnek-rzymski-bulgarski-gliniany-do-piekarnika-8l-i6312616932.html
(If you open it in Google Chrome you will be able to translate the page into English)
the baked loaf out of it if the rim is smaller than the sides of the pot. I've used two frying pans with one as a lid, their burnable handles removed. Look for thick rims and deep shapes with nice curves from base to side.
I think I might have cracked it -- This is such a huge improvement on my other attempts.
It is cooling at the moment but will take crumb pics later.
Looks great. Get a Dutch oven on Amazon.com, or try Lodge, the manufacturer of traditional cast iron. 4-5 quart ones are fine for single loaves.
So here are the crumb shots. The flavor is good but I think longer bulk fermentation just to really bring out the flavor. Texture is nice and chewy but still just a *little* moist/gummy. It is a good loaf but not quite a perfect loaf yet. I think the next will be better yet :)
with at least one more folding. Coming along great! Feel the dough often with both hands against the loaf while it bulks to feel the density of the dough.
Meanwhile: Try switching to larger starter feeds (use smaller amounts of starter) to increase the yeast population. Feed at peak for a wheat starter and about 1 to 2 hours after peak for a rye starter. The first feeding may be slow but the time it takes for the volume to increase should pick up speed with each feeding.
This latest loaf turned out awesome :)
Too perfect! Must've been photoshopped, for sure!
For real tho, that's amazing.
What did you do different? How did you get that perfect crust/ear formation?
I did a couple of things differently this time.
First of all I had to go out shortly after mixing the dough, so it had about 3 hours of rest before I did any gluten stretching.
Then I did three stages of slap about 30-45 minutes apart.
Then 2 stages of fold.
Then I put the bulk into the fridge over night.
After about 12 hours, I removed from the fridge and did the first form - bench rested for 30 minutes then did second form and put in banneton. I covered and put it in the bed (around 82f) (yes literally the bed) for 90 minutes at which point it just felt right so I baked it.
I cut it with my Yanagi knife (44cm carbon steel 60 HRC and razor sharp) about half an inch deep. Baked on my clay tiles at 250C under a steel mixing bowl for 20 minutes then turned oven down to 210C and removed the lid but kept adding water to the bottom tray to create steam every 8-10 minutes.
The bread is incredibly light and fluffy with a really nice crumb (will add photos shortly) and despite not being very sour (young starter) the flavour is fantastic. I am very very pleased with the result.
Here is a photo of the crumb
If only we had aroma-vision. :)