Sourdough Newb
This is my first post here. I am a home cook with very little baking experience. I've gotten the sourdough bug and have a few questions.
I made my starter about 5 months ago. Most days I do 2 feedings and very recently started trying to do 3 a day. For feedings I discard all but 40g and add 40g of flour (all purpose/ dark rye, equal parts) and 40g of water.
Because I am so new, results have varied. Had a couple flat loaves. Some loaves have a more open crumb than others. The one consistency which I am questioning are some of the characteristics of the interior. They all tend to feel moist and the loaf comes out feeling heavy to me for the size. I take out of the oven with an interior temp of 210-212.
This is the last recipe I used:
Night before leaven build:
55g of starter, 200g Bobs Red Mill whole wheat flour, 220g water. The next morning it was full of big holes, rose nicely, and passed the float test.
In a bowl I added 275g of the leaven and 760g of water at 92 degrees and dissolved the starter in the water. Then I added 800g of AP King Arthur flour and 200g of Bobs whole wheat flour and mixed till there was no dry spots. Next I covered and let autolyse for 40 min at 75 degrees. Final dough temp before autolyse was 79 degrees.
After the 40 min I added 20g of salt and 50g of water. I mixed until the dough became sticky again. Covered and let sit for 30 min.
After the 30 min I started my stretch and folds. I did 1 set which consisted of grabbing the dough from the bottom and stretching and folding over itself 4 times. Quarter turn after each stretch and fold. Then covered and let sit for another 30 min.
I repeated this process till I felt the dough was strong enough. ended up doing 5 sets. Because I'm so new I think the dough was strong enough but I def could be wrong. After that I let it rest. Total time after autolyse was 4 hours (bulk ferment).
Then I put a little flour on my work surface, dumped out the dough, and split it into 2 pieces. I flipped one of the halves over and began to pre shape. My pre shape consisted of using my bench knife and hand to achieve a round shape. I made sure the bottom of the dough was catching on the surface and pulled it towards me. Once it was a nice round I covered and let sit on the counter for 10 min. Then I uncovered and let sit for another 10 min.
Now I did a final shape. I flipped the dough over and started at the side closest to me. I stretched the dough and fold it 2/3 of the way over itself. Then I took the 2 sides and stretched and folded each side over the other. Then I took the top piece and stretched and folded over the entire round and rolled the dough over. Then I used my hands to shape into a round. Finally I placed into a banneton.
I put in the fridge covered for 16 hours.
For cooking I preheated the oven at 500 for an hour with a 2 piece lodge cast iron cooker. I took the loaf straight from the fridge and put it on partchment paper and scored. Then I put it in the 2 piece cooker and covered, dropped the temp to 475 for 20 min. Then I uncovered and dropped the temp to 450 and baked for another 30 min.
I let rest on a wire rack for 5 hours before cutting. Interior still felt on the wet side and the bread was a bit heavy. Not sure if it supposed to be like this. Again, I lack experience with baking in general. Any guidance would be much appreciated. I will try to include some pics for reference.
Thanks in advance!
Also, doesnt the bread seem dark for the amount of whole wheat flour I used?
Sorry about the small pics. The slice is from the end, not the center.
I'm another newbie, so forgive me but I found your recipe a bit confusing. Am I correct in re-writing it as:
Levain mix: 475g; 227.5g flour (100%) + 247.5g water (108.8%)
Starter= 27.5g flour (13.75g rye / 13.75g AP) plus 27.5g water (total of 55g)
Add: 200g whole wheat flour plus 220g water
Dough mix: 2115g: 1132g flour (100%) + 953g water (84%) + 20g salt (1.77%)
From levain mix, discard 200g and only use 275g (132g flour, so 11.7% pre-fermented, plus 143g water)
Add 800g AP + 200g WW flour
Add 760g water with the flour + 50g water later with the salt
Add 20g salt
If this is correct, then kudos to you! That is a really high hydration dough for a newbie, and I know that it is very hard to work with.
First note would be that it seems odd to build that large of a levain and then discard so much of it. I can see having 10-30g more than needed (since some sticks to the container), but almost double seems highly wasteful.
Second note would be that the "autolyse" should be flour and water only - and would not include the levain. The autolyse is to hydrate the flour (especially whole grain flour) and start the development of gluten without any fermentation. As soon as the levain hits flour, then fermentation starts. The salt actually slows fermentation down, so having the first mix fermenting without the salt is actually giving you less overall time to work with before the dough starts breaking down. Using the warmed water also speeds up fermentation.
Based on what you wrote, you actually are starting the bulk fermentation at the initial mix, and speeding up the process by delaying the addition of salt and using warmed water. Your overall fermentation time including mixing before pre-shaping is around 5 hours at 75 degrees --- which is going to be pretty close to the edge of being over fermented.
Then you are dividing, pre-shaping, resting, and shaping before placing in to a form and refrigerating. It sounds like you are pretty skilled at this (especially at that hydration), so I'm guessing about 1 hour total at room temp before hitting the fridge? If that's right, then it depends on how quickly your fridge gets the dough cooled and what your fridge setting is as to whether your loaves will be under-proofed, over-proofed, or just right. You would need to time how long at room temp and then check the temp of your dough for a bit to see what your actual timing is like.
From the look of your loaves and how you describe the feel of them, I would suspect that they are perhaps a bit under-proofed: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/troubleshoot-bad-bread-messed-up-loaf.html. I would also suspect that you need to develop the gluten more (which can be difficult with such a high hydration) at the beginning.
Sourdough breads will usually have a more moist crumb than yeast breads, and will often feel gummy if sliced in less than 24 hours after coming out of the oven, but the fact that you find the loaves "heavy" feeling even with that high of an internal temp is what seems off. The colour of the crumb is not surprising with that percentage of whole wheat flour and the wee bit of rye from the starter.
I wonder if you might be like me and have more success starting with a lower hydration recipe. I really enjoy the one from Trevor J Wilson on his Breadwerx site titled "How to get an open crumb from stiff dough": http://www.breadwerx.com/
Hopefully this is of some help to you! You might also find it useful to check out dabrownman's NFMF starter information: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/40918/no-muss-no-fuss-starter While it seems like your current starter maintenance is working for you, a lot of us prefer less maintenance and less waste / discards and find that keeping the NMNF starter in the fridge and then building up to the levain (with minimal if any discard) since we find it easier and cheaper.
Keep baking happy!
I really appreciate the feedback!
the recipe is correct. I followed it from here: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/higher-hydration-sourdough-bread/
i scaled down the le to create less waste and have the measurements written down in my notebook. However, I was at work when I made the post and just followed what it said on the website. I have done a bunch of loaves at a much lower hydration. This particular time (and a few others) I wanted to see if I could handle a higher hydration loaf.
As far as the autolyse process, I just followed that particular recipe. Other recipes have been like you outlined. Most of the recipes I have followed came from the perfect loaf blog.
as far as time from bulk ferment to in the fridge, I would say total time would be no more than 45 min and I would say probably less. My fridge is set to 38 degrees.
Ive often wondered if I was building the gluten enough during bulk and have never thought it was as strong as it should be. i always try making the window pane and using my fingers to see how strong it is. What do you do if it just doesn't seem to get strong enough doing 1 set of folds every half hour? Can you do stretch and folds for most of bulk without giving it at least an hour and a half to bulk without being touched?
is it possible with the amount of time I let it proof that it is underproofed?
ive had similar results to the pics I posted of the loaf in this recipe even at lower hydrations. i get oven spring (Not sure if it is as much as it should be) but it has that under proofed look. Could the gluten development possibly be my problem?
as far as the wet feeling interior, maybe I'm just comparing it to ones made with commercial yeast and shouldn't be. Same for the weight.
of wastage in the levain, and the weird-to-me process, it's no wonder that I've never been interested in trying one of the recipes from that site! I've seen it referred to with positive responses, but just never saw anything on there that appealed to me. It's a good thing that there are recipes and formulae from all different sources that make sense to all of us different bakers! For my style, I tend towards stuff from Trevor J Wilson at Breadwerx, and I also do a lot of browsing on here and try the formulae that appeal to me (and haven't had a bad one yet).
Even as a newbie, I'd say that you can trust your "feel" for the weight being too high and the crumb feeling too heavy and wet. You KNOW when it's right - when you pull it out of the oven, and it feels light and airy, and you get that perfect hollow thump out of the bottom... It won't "feel" like a yeast bread, but you still know when the difference between when it comes out with a crumb that you're happy with or not.
Personally, I have run in to issues that looked like underproofing from not developing the gluten enough, having the starter not strong enough, going by the recipe timing instead of watching the dough (and my house is too cool for most recipe timing), and actually underproofing because I didn't understand the look and feel of that particular dough and I guessed wrong (experience - gotta love it). I found this post and the linked table to be invaluable in figuring out how to tweak timing to suit my cool house: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5381/sourdough-rise-time-table
I have never been able to develop the gluten enough with just stretch and folds. I tried the slap-and-fold and managed to cunningly redecorate my kitchen with abstract stipple (not good), tried the traditional work on the bench with a bunch of flour (messy, awkward, didn't like it), and settled on the kneading in the bowl demonstrated by Trevor on Breadwerx. I think that it is really important to get the gluten development strong at the beginning, and it makes a big difference in the final crumb.
I also found that it is more difficult to develop the gluten with higher hydration, so I followed the suggestion of Danni3ll3 from here to mix the dough at around 70-75% (depending on what feels right with the flour mix) and get the gluten developed, let the dough rest for a bit, and then add more water with the second round of kneading until I get it to the hydration that I want. I like to use a large proportion of whole grains (with usually a healthy chunk of rye), and prefer a more tight crumb (so the sandwich condiments don't leak out), so I also use Danni3ll3's and Mini Oven's advice to work the dough more on the stretch-and-folds than is usually recommended. I most often don't get the big "artisan" holes, but I do get a light and airy and tender crumb.
It looks to me like you are definitely on the right track for what you want, but that it's just going to take a bit more experimentation to get there. I'd suggest that you choose a recipe that you really like at a lower hydration (say 70%), and try it with using a kneading method to develop the gluten before getting in to the stretch-and-folds. See what that does, and then have a look at that table to see where you might need to tweak the timing to suit your house, and see what that does. Once you've got those dialed in, then start working the hydration up again until you get the results that you want. You are really close to consistent results, so it looks like it's just a matter of figuring out what minor tweaks need to be made.
Just remember - no matter what happens, you are still making much better bread than you could buy, and hopefully you are having fun doing it. Keep baking happy!
thanks very much for the response!
im going to take your advice and try out some different recipes from other places and keep it to a lower hydration till I get desired results. I'll check the one you suggested.
I've always questioned my gluten development and have been trying different things but it may very well just be that.
Im having tons of fun and look forward to the weekend. Not easy with work and 2 small children, work, etc.... I'll make a great retiree!
I try not to cook with or use too much butter but there is really nothing better than a slice of this bread with some butter spread on top.
You said you added "In a bowl I added 275g of the leaven and 760g of water at 92 degrees and dissolved the starter in the water." I wonder whether the temperature of this added water might have killed the yeast. I suggest you just use room temperature water.
I would do the final time of bake at about 300°F to an interior temperature of 195 - 205°F,
Good luck!
Ford
It's common to include the levain in the autolyse when it makes up a significant portion of the final dough, so that doesn't surprise me. But you could feed the levain a lower amount of flour/water to cut your waste.
Personally, I think your bread looks pretty fantastic. Your crumb structure is good and high hydration doughs tend to be a wee bit flatter than lower hydration doughs. I'd be pretty satisfied with your result if it came out of my oven.
It's possible you have an active starter but not as active as others whose loaves you see exploding.
One thing that can easily happen when you try to make a significantly higher-hydration loaf than you're used to is over-reliance on the clock due to not knowing how the higher-hydration dough should look and feel when it's ready to bake.
There are two basic ways to address this. One is to bake more 84% hydration loaves until you learn to recognize when they're ready. The other is to work up to 84% in steps, starting with a hydration where you already know what a ready to bake dough is like, and increasing the hydration in steps (say a couple of % at a time), staying at each level until you can produce consistently good loaves before moving to the next. The latter has an easier learning curve, but may take longer.
Thanks for all the great feedback/responses. This is a great site with a wealth of knowledge.
Any tips on what to look for to know that the gluten is developed enough? I think this may be my biggest struggle right now.