May 29, 2020 - 9:48am
PLEASEEE help crumb issue
Hi guys,
I just baked a loaf of sourdough today, and when I cut into it , I feel like it’s a bit underproofed, but I’ve followed the recipe of a 4 hour bulk and an overnight retard in the fridge after shaping. What are your thoughts?
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Congratulations. What don't you like about this? Texture? Mouth feel? Maybe you didn't get the oven spring you were hoping for? Or an ear?
The crust look a little light otherwise the crumb looks ok. What recipe did you follow?
Thank you! I actually didn’t get the oven spring I wanted, but I kind of expected that. I had trouble shaping it. It keeps sticking to my work surface :( . I used the modern sourdough Margot recipe for this loaf.
Thank you! I actually didn’t get the oven spring I wanted, but I kind of expected that. I had trouble shaping it. It keeps sticking to my work surface :( . I used the modern sourdough Margot recipe for this loaf.
Points to underdevelopment of the gluten.. See this excellent video:
https://youtu.be/vSnAjDJy_4s
I just watched the video. Thank you for sharing it <3 . Their process really is much longer in terms of time, but I’ll give it a try next time hopefully
On developing gluten and dealing with stickiness and work that in to your current recipe. Hopefully it is a lower hydration recipe which is really best for beginners.
Although it's kind of paradoxical that "no-knead" which supposedly translates to "less work" or "easier" is generally a wet dough. And lower hydration usually translates to "kneading required".
Yes that’s funny! I actually don’t mind working with sloppy/wet doughs, it’s literally just the shaping that kills me :)
Together with good gluten development. Look at this guy shape..
https://youtu.be/eod5cUxAHRM?t=474
First he flours the top of the pre-shaped round. One thing he doesn't mention is that there's a light dusting of flour around the pre-shaped dough so when he uses the bench scraper to flip the round he's pushing flour under the sticky underbelly.
Then four folds, flip over again and turn and pull, turn and pull to get a boule. Flouring your hands just by gently passing them over the floured work surface helps too.
Ok the pre-shaped round is usually bench rested for about a half hour so that it develops a skin making it easier to shape the boule. Happy baking.
This loaf looks to be pretty well fermented to me. I think you could just work on your shaping (can’t we ALL!!)
What is the flour makeup of this loaf?
And how long did you let it sit before cutting into it?
Good morning,
In the line of previous posters that have pretty much summed it up, a bench scraper is your best friend.
But a bench scraper (width is usually 15cm / 6 inch) is sometimes not wide enough for the task, be it moving the dough comfortably or sealing the bottom of the loaf while you're forming it.
For this reason I've bought a couple of plaster spatulas. They're wider (one of them 20 cm /8 inch, the other one a massive 30 cm/ 12 inch), deeper, thinner and more flexible than your average bench scraper. They're inexpensive and very helpful while building my wet dough skills. Just make sure they're stainless and buy a brand name (Stanley?). They go straight into the dishwasher as many times as I need. Also don't forget to spray water on them before handling the dough.
The wider spatula is invaluable when moving wet dough baguettes to the couche as it's much sharper than your average(pricey) piece of wood.
Another important comment has been made above, if you look in detail, many of the YouTube videos show that the dough on the bench is surrounded by flour and when they slide the bench scraper below the dough, they'reaactually putting flour under it, therefore no more sticking when you want to lift it off the bench.
if you want a tighter crumb id drop the hydration a little and also degass the dough more during the shaping stages. Also adding whole grain/spelt to the recipe will result in a denser crumb