Shaping, gluten development and suffering from summer heat
After a quite successful run this winter and spring, I've been struggling to decently shape my breads since the summer began. The bread I attempted to make today is a derivative of the Champlain Sourdough from Trevor Wilson. I "autolysed" overnight 850g of KA AP flour, 100g of Red fife, 50g of rye, 750g water and 20g of salt. The following morning, I added 100g of starter at 100% hydration (100% KA AP flour). I folded everything a few times to incorporate the starter. I confess I didn't kneed as he suggested. To compensate, I did 10 stretch and fold over the first 3 hours of BF and left the dough alone for its last hour. Total dough volume increased about 30 - 40% during BF. I did a quick preshaping after separating the dough in half and repeated my preshaping after 15 minutes as the dough wasn't holding its shape properly. I finally shaped the loaves and put them in banettons. Proofing for the first one lasted 45 minutes and seemed ok by the finger dent test. However, when I removed the dough from the banetton, I spread out and looked more like a pancake then a boule. I cooked at 450F covered for 20 min and uncovered for another 20 min. I did have oven spring but, as I expected, it looked more like a cake then anything else... The bottom part of the crumb was a bit gummy. My house temperature was a steady 75-77F during the day.
What I am doing wrong? As far as I can tell I can't seem to be getting enough gluten developed despite doing 10 S&F. Why is this a problem in the summer and not during winter/spring when I had better result with 4 or 5 S&F. Is this the same problem that Trevor Wilson describes in his Rubaud Method where he hints that proper BF/proofing don't equate with good gluten development?
Thanks!
Martin
Been there, seen that. When our household temperature rises from winter lows in the high 50's (F) to summer highs in the low or mid-80's, I've found that reducing the hydration of my weekly 60% whole grain breads 2-3% prevents the syndrome that you've shown. I assume that my doughs don't lose as much moisture into warm summer household air as they do into cooler (drier) winter air. Loaves come out virtually identical in the two seasons, despite slight change in formula.
Your travertine looks lovely :-)
Tom
Thank you very much. My previous attempt was with 80% hydration and you can easily imagine the disaster... I'll try a lower hydration percentage for my next attempt.
Is to prepare the day before and refrigerate. Before bed he'll take it out of the fridge to come back to room temperature ready for the morning.
Long autolyse is only recommended at cooler temperatures. Even if you have refrigerated the dough through the day, because it's summer and very warm, you might still be overdoing it when taking it out of the fridge to continue autolysing through the night.
To see if this is the issue why not trial and error by doing a 30 minutes autolyse without levain nor salt. Then carry on as normal watching the dough carefully.
I did the long autolyse at 59F overnight and left it to warm up for 3 hours. By the time I started working with it, the dough temperature was 77F. I did do a short autolyse with a "Tartine-style" dough handling last week (but with 80% hydration) with results that I wouldn't dare to show pictures of...
then I agree with lowering the hydration. 80% is very high when it has mostly AP flour.
Make it hold back 10% water and add more later if you think necessary.