Why is my dough so dense!
Last week I made a pair of beautiful loaves of sourdough! Honestly one of my best bakes (I've been baking sourdough just 6 or 7 months now). I tried replicating what I did this week but came out with one of my worst bakes in a while. I now have 2 pretty dense loaves (one in the oven again to be transformed into crouton crackers). What confuses me is that there are also huge holes in amongst the dense bread. What am I doing wrong? Not enough kneading? Go back to stretch and pull? Too short final proof?
Here's what I did:
Last night
- Mixed 170 g fed starter with 355 g water, 700 g flour
- Autolysed 30-45 min, then added in 50g water mixed with 2 tsp salt
- Kneaded dough maybe 20-30 or so minutes
(Normally I do stretch-and-fold but I don't like how long that takes and last week I just kneaded it and it came out so beautifully that I thought I'd try kneading it again. Oddly, it took much longer this time than last time to get any type of window pane success.)
- Bulk ferment in fridge over night (I always do this step)
Today
- Took out of fridge this morning, divided, let sit 20-30 min on counter
- Preshape and let sit another 30 min on counter
- Shaped and let rise 2-3 hours, basically until it *slowly* rose back when I poked it
- Baked in dutch oven at 500F for 20 min, turned down to 450 for 10 min, lid off for another 10 min
Normally I get decent (if not amazing) bakes and the only real thing I did differently this time was knead it rather than stretch-and-pull. But that had worked so nicely for me last week.
Thanks!
I think the answer is in your starter. Can you explain what happened before the making of the dough.
Starter maintenance and prep for the bake!
I have a starter I normally keep in the fridge but take out usually a couple days before I bake to make sure it is well fed. You might be right that it's the starter--I ended up taking this one out a little later, just a day before I baked. I feed it on a 1:1:1 ratio. I thought it was ready to go because it was very bubbly and active and passed the float test with flying colors right before I mixed it to make dough, but maybe I need to keep it out another day?
When I'm not baking, I feed my starter once a week. I keep it pretty small--50 g starter, 50 g whole wheat flour, 50 g water. I usually leave it out a little bit after I feed it before putting it back in the fridge. When I bake, the final feeding before I bake is usually 100 g starter, 100 g flour (usually white because I like white bread sours the best), and 100 g water so I've got a full 150-170 g of levain to pull from for the bake.
Bread machines make such wonderful Breads! The only thing I know to make is basic white bread and dough's...
That's good to know! Though I don't currently have a bread machine and I enjoy the physical act of making it
Looks rather under-fermented to me; you mentioned abandoning the stretch & folds....one of the reasons for doing this is it gives the dough a while to ferment that doesn't occur during kneading. The overnight stint in the refrigerator was probably insufficient.
Try heating water 110 degrees, 3 Cups flour, 11/2 Tsp salt then only 1/4 Tsp Rapid Rise Yeast. Mix all ingredients in 6 quart box cover tightly let set stand 2-4 hours. Heat oven 450 DEGREES while oven is heating your Dutch oven Mix femmented flour to wax paper by hand a few turns. Put in heated Dutch oven 30 mins with cover ON then remove cover Bake another 10-15 mins til golden brown!
Try heating 12 ounces of water to a 110 Degrees, 3 cup flour ,1-1/2 Tsp salt, 1/4 Tsp Rapid Rise Yeast
Hm, that's good info! Maybe I'll head back to the stretch and folds or break up the kneading into sections to let it sit. Or maybe I should just leave it in the fridge for longer. Thanks!
I don't think the refrigerator will ever work as the primary location for bulk fermentation. You'll need some time at room temperature..
For these amounts I'd go with at least 5-6 hours of bulk fermentation at room temperature. 30 minutes + overnight sounds grossly insuffcient.
I would say you need to do a bulk ferment at room temperature for 2 hours or if you want to shorten it then maybe 1.5 hours at around 78-80 F. Then do your overnight bulk in the refrigerator. Next day let the dough come back to room temperature for 2 hours, shape and proof for 1-1.5 hours or longer depending on the dough.
Good luck.
I wonder if many of the times we blame starter strength, it's really inadequate dough strength developed in the bulk fermentation (i.e., lack of turns)?
How was it when you took it ouf the fridge? It should at least start feel light and bubbly. You're using 10% prefermented flour and at that ratio I would bulk ferment at room temp around 4-5h. Overnight in Fridge probably not much happening, as the yeast/bacteria population is just too low at that point. Put it in fridge after a 3 hours in room temp maybe to get the yeast started?