Thiol degradation in rye sour
This is the third time I've watched my bread break down after it started out looking good, and now that I have read this excellent post from OldWoodenSpoon, I believe I am dealing with thiol degradation.
I have to admit that I haven't taken the time to learn baking percentages so I got a little lost in the many excellent comments and even in the solution.
This is my rye starter. I have two others that are working fabulously - a white one and a whole wheat one. I think I should just take a bit of the white starter and turn it rye, rather than feeding through this one... I think I would have trouble with 10 days of consistency...
Thoughts? Advice?
On another note, I have lurked for years and I finally joined to ask this question. Lots of great information on this site!!
recipe, times, temp would be helpful. How old is the rye starter? Did the feeding change to a stiffer ratio?
Starter is about a year old, maybe more.
Feeding is 1/3 water 1/3 starter 1/3 rye flour by weight. I keep it in the fridge for 2-3 weeks between feedings. I take it out when I am going to use it and feed it, use the amount I need for the recipe and put the rest into a clean wick jar and back into the fridge.
This recipe is:
403 g starter
3 g yeast
150 g water
15 g salt
20 g molasses
300 g bread flour (plus more as I work the dough)
3 g Caraway seeds
I bring everything together in a kitchen aid with a dough hook, pull to stretch on the counter with a dough manager (blade), fold in thirds twice and put it in a warm place to rise. I have a steam oven so I usually put it to 90 degrees with steam for 25 minutes and then turn it off for another 30 between folds.
This time, the first two folds looked good. Then the third fold, when I should start to see it looking ready or almost ready, it started breaking. So I left it another two times, and it was more breaky each time.
So I thought maybe I would just shape it and see what happened. But... when I can can 45 minutes later, it was flat and completely broken on top.
That's when I found the thiol post and decided to ask for some advice.
I have two healthy starters, one that is all white (the parent) and one that is all wheat (sibling to the rye).
I keep them all in wick jars in the fridge.
The amount of starter does not look right. 40% percent prefermented flour is something you would only see in whole rye bread. 200 starter/400 flour would be more than enough to raise the dough, even without yeast. My guess is that you put in so much leaveners that they burn through the dough in no time.
with this recipe before?
Several things strike me and it isn't thiol. There is a large ratio of starter to flour in the recipe combined with a good amount of heat and a long fermenting time for that much prefermented flour. Chances are good the starter is lopsided in bacteria growth from what I understand about maintaining starters. A second feeding and waiting for a partial rise of the reserved starter before the long stint in the fridge for several weeks might help. The starter strikes me as underfed. Is it fed more than once before using? How does it behave before using? How long does it take the starter to peak? Double in volume?
Salt is 3%. 10g is 2% not sure it makes any difference other than having a salty loaf.
I find that an underfed starter is less prone to an abundance of Thiol compounds than an overfed one. I could easily be wrong. It sounds more like bacterial and enzyme attack of the gluten matrix, over fermentation, even with bread flour which should hold up for at least the mixing of dough and a quick final rise.
Try it doubling the yeast amount to 6g or more and see what happens while shortening the bulk to a single final proof under 80° F.