Help me troubleshoot failed loaf
My wife baked a loaf using the following recipe:
https://livesimply.me/homemade-sourdough-bread-spelt-wheat/
And the poor thing came out looking like this:
As far as I know the recipe was followed to a T except for these changes:
- In Step One, we extended the 6 hour levain to 12 hours (overnight) and compensated for the change by halving the sourdough starter from 50g to 25g.
- In Step Two part 4, in spite of my protests, my wife used the kitchenaid with the dough hook to work in an additional 50 grams of flour. I was worried the mixer would overwork the dough.
I was occasionally brought into the bake to give my opinion on things and I had a strong suspicion something was wrong at Step 2 part 5, when the dough is supposed to be preshaped prior to loading into the banneton. The dough just felt like it had no body. The dough didn't want to hold its shape, like there was no gluten development. I have had this happen in dough in the past, and I guess I would really like to know what causes it. My guesses are that this is caused by either (1) overworking the dough or (2) chemical breakdown of the dough due.
Thoughts?
Yes, either and both of those things would have messed up the loaf.
"If you change the inputs or procedures, you change the output."
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1. First deviation from recipe: your logic was based on two incorrect assumptions:
a) the behavior of yeast. I would go into it, but there is math and science involved. (Lemme know if you're a math guy, or science/engineering geek.)
b) the behavior of spelt.
Net/fix: just follow the recipe.
2. Second deviation: You were right. Shouldn't use mixer after a 12 hour bulk ferment, _especially_ with spelt.
Net/fix: just reduce the water up front so you don't have to add flour. Hydration adjustment is common to all recipes because of variations in local ingredients, pre-existing moisture in the flour, and ambient humidity.
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BTW, Are you sure you used white spelt and not whole spelt? That loaf looks kind of dark.
It still looks good enough, so congrats!
1. I'm a math guy. My guess is I should have reduced the starter more than 2x since sourdough bacteria multiplies exponentially?
2. How is spelt different? I want to learn.
3. Good catch, it was whole spelt, we ground it ourselves. How would that have impacted the recipe?
The 12 hour bulk rise and the use of whole spelt changes were made out of necessity, which seems to be a constant for us... The timing of a lot of recipes and the ingredients on hand often aren't a perfect match for the recipe we have.
"1. I'm a math guy. My guess is I should have reduced the starter more than 2x since sourdough bacteria multiplies exponentially?"
Yup. And it's temp dependent too.
"2. How is spelt different? I want to learn."
Same genus as wheat, but different species. not just a varietal/strain difference. Triticum speltum vs Triticum Aestivum. Behaves very differently. Fragile. Requires delicate handling. Weak gluten. Ferments quickly. Starch starts breaking down into sugar quickly, as soon as you add water, leading to easy overfermentation and loss of starch if you exceed timings. It just cannot survive the same long timings as used for wheat.
In addition, even if you had reduced the starter more than 2x, the 12 hour timing still would not have worked for spelt. It has a narrow window of ferment and proofing time. even without the wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria, the starch-to-sugar conversion happens too quickly.
"3. Good catch, it was whole spelt, we ground it ourselves. How would that have impacted the recipe?"
Whole-grain has bran and germ. "White" (ie, refined) flour does not. Whole-grain flour just cannot be subbed in for white (branless and germless) flour. And bran has enzymes that speed up starch to sugar conversion. You need a recipe intended for whole grains. But not to worry, there are plenty. There is even a recent post on home-milled 100% whole spelt:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/64417/100-sourdough-spelt-bread
But it seems kind of complicated, and he does use a specific varietal of spelt. Just be aware that _all_ formulas/recipes are guidelines, and need adjusted to your local ingredients, ambient temp/humidity, moisture content of grain/flour, water, oven, and baking set-up.
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Spelt is a tricky grain to work with. Few seem to be able to master it. Do you have any regular hard red wheat, or hard white wheat grain to mill and bake with? As beginner bakers/home-millers, it would be easier to start out and learn with those. And then move on to spelt.
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Home milled grain also behaves different than store-bought whole grain flour. It has more oil. (oil evaporates from flour over time). It generally has larger particle sizes, and has more active enzymes, and ferments super fast. So you took on three new/challening things at once: Spelt, whole grain, home milled.
Given all that, your loaf actually turned out pretty good.
Overproofed.
Spelt has very low gluten and dough strength, it's the nature of the beast.
Next time follow the formula to the letter. If I were you I would cut the total bulk ferment and proof time in half compared with the original formula because of your climate, assuming you are in Texas as your userid suggests. This means 25% of the proof time used in the pictured loaf above.
Bread formulae, specifically proofing times, need to be taken with a grain of salt (no pun intended). These should be taken as suggestions and starting points.
There are wide variations in kitchen temperature and humidity seasonally and geographically all over the world, as well as differences in yeast. The end result is a very wide range of fermentation conditions for each loaf and each baker. Therefore a formula and method tailored to the local climate and ingredients is needed, developed by the baker through experience.
One of the more useful concepts I have learned lately is from Bruno Albouze on YouTube, and that is Desired Dough Temperature (DDT). This is a step towards standardizing breadmaking. Without standards, it's a guessing game. As a math person you might relate to this.
It was my idea to extend the bulk ferment to 12 hours. The change allowed us to reduce the bake time by a half day because it enabled us to get started the night before. At first, I was worried about 12 hours at 78dF (the temp of my house) with spelt, but when I googled long autolyse for spelt, I somehow convinced myself that it was Rye that I needed to be worried about.
So, I guess Rye is like Spelt but even more difficult?
Also, there was another reason I felt good about the modification. 25g starter:550g flour:400g water (1:22:16) is much less than the ratio used in a theperfectloaf whole grain spelt recipe I have made before. That recipe's overnight (12hr) levain has a ratio of 6g starter:41g whole grain spelt:41g water (1:7:7). I realize the (1:7:7) was for a levain and the (1:22:16) was for a bulk ferment.
I think I realize my mistake now. The levain in the perfect loaf is responsible for only 3.5% of the weight of the final loaf. So, if the gluten is wiped out in only 3.5% of the loaf during a prolonged levain build, then, it doesn't matter. My bulk rise wiped out the gluten for the entire loaf of bread due to the fermentation of the whole grain spelt.
https://www.theperfectloaf.com/whole-grain-spelt-pan-loaf/
"The levain in the perfect loaf is responsible for only 3.5% of the weight of the final loaf. So, if the gluten is wiped out in only 3.5% of the loaf during a prolonged levain build, then, it doesn't matter. My bulk rise wiped out the gluten for the entire loaf of bread due to the fermentation of the whole grain spelt."
Now you're making progress in getting the bigger picture.
But fermentation, per se, is only part. The starch in whole grain flour breaks down into sugar faster due to the enzymes contributed by the bran. Just water alone activates the enzymes and starch-to-sugar conversion. Spelt even more so, and I don't know exactly why... perhaps because the spelt's starch is not as complexly bound together (shorter chains/web of starch to begin with), or maybe because the endosperm has its own enzymes in addition to whats in the bran.
Spelt has a well known history of "being easier to digest", so the less complex starch, or increased enzymes makes some bit of sense to me.
"So, I guess Rye is like Spelt but even more difficult?"
I haven't made any rye loaves. So I can't make a direct comparison. I've used _some_ rye for taste, up to 5%, maybe 10% once. But... again, it's just a different animal, different species. It's a grass, as wheat is a grass, but rye is not a type of wheat.
From what I've seen on TFL, getting a good rye loaf is easier than getting a good spelt loaf. But then maybe expectations are different enough. People know going in that rye is going to be dense. People do not generally understand that spelt is not wheat. Rye has always been around, and available. Spelt was out of favor so so long, that the tradition and expectations were lost.
Rye can handle long soaks and long ferments. (Look up Borodinsky Rye bread videos.) Spelt just seems unable to.
Check out the link I gave above. And scroll through the comments to see photos and his spelt formula. The timings are short. George P found "the sweet spot" for his varietal of spelt. Any deviation, and it won't come out the same. and it is unlikely, though techncially possbile, that your spelt berries are the same varietal as his. His are definitely a darker red than my spelt was.
I ended up giving away some of my spelt berries. And using the rest no more than 25% of the flour in bread. I just never got the hang of it.
I think this is mostly semantics... but...
"But fermentation, per se, is only part. The starch in whole grain flour breaks down into sugar faster due to the enzymes contributed by the bran. Just water alone activates the enzymes and starch-to-sugar conversion. Spelt even more so, and I don't know exactly why... perhaps because the spelt's starch is not as complexly bound together (shorter chains/web of starch to begin with), or maybe because the endosperm has its own enzymes in addition to whats in the bran."
I thought the breaking down of starch due to enzymes IS also considered fermentation. Doesn't fermentation refer to the breakdown of organic matter by enzyme, regardless of where the enzymes come from? (yeast, bran, etc.)
"Rye can handle long soaks and long ferments. (Look up Borodinsky Rye bread videos.) Spelt just seems unable to."
The maddening part of bread, beer, and wine making :-) So much conflicting information and it can be a real pain to find the truth.
"Don't use an autolyse with sourdough rye bread. Because rye flour doesn't develop gluten the way wheat flour does, and also ferments more quickly, adding an autolyse can cause the dough to deteriorate."
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2017/09/29/using-the-autolyse-method
I'll read your links later today, thanks for the help. Gotta get working on a sourdough pizza dough right now.
"I thought the breaking down of starch due to enzymes IS also considered fermentation. Doesn't fermentation refer to the breakdown of organic matter by enzyme, regardless of where the enzymes come from? (yeast, bran, etc.)"
Perhaps it is semantics. I think of fermentation as what the yeast and LAB does: eat sugar, exhale CO2 and pee alcohol along with those flavorful byproducts (acids and esters). Enzymatic breakdown of starch to sugar has to happen before (and along with) that.
Do yeast, or yeast byproducts directly break down starch to sugar? I don't know. I did read where some LAB eats a maltose molecule (a disaccharide of 2 linked glucose molecules) and spits out one of the glucose molecules, and the wild yeast then picks up that discarded glucose molecule
To understand the processes that the dough goes through, my mental picture revolves around these major things:
1. enzymes cause wet starch to break down into simpler sugars.
2. Yeast+LAB eat sugars and produce CO2, alcohol, and flavors.
3. In a process I don't grasp yet, the water, the yeast cells, the CO2 creation/expansion somehow, over time, man-handle or assmbles the separate gliadin and glutenin into the desireable gluten, and causes it to form in a scaffold-like structure. This can be accelerated by hand kneading or a mechanical mixer, but still happens, over time, without human or mechanical intervention.
4. The acids produced by the LAB eventually have a deleterious effect on both starch and gluten.
5. For coarse-ground home-milled flour, the soaking/hydration phase is a concern. 1, 2, and 3 can't happen properly unless the flour particles are hydrated sufficiently.
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1 and 2 are separate things, especially as relates to "innoculation %" (how much yeast per gram of flour) and fermentation time. Adding more yeast doesn't mean much if there is no sugar to eat. Lots of time and sugar doesn't mean much if there's too little yeast. If too much time goes by, then there is too much sugar, and/or too much acid damage.
"Rye can handle long soaks and long ferments. (Look up Borodinsky Rye bread videos.) Spelt just seems unable to."
The maddening part of bread, beer, and wine making :-) So much conflicting information and it can be a real pain to find the truth.
"Don't use an autolyse with sourdough rye bread. Because rye flour doesn't develop gluten the way wheat flour does, and also ferments more quickly, adding an autolyse can cause the dough to deteriorate."
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2017/09/29/using-the-autolyse-method
Good catch. I over-generalized.
Rye does ferment quickly with it's enzymes. And it has little gluten. The timing depends on what kind of rye bread you're making. Borodinsky rye is a very sugary bread. 100% rye can be bitter, so you want the extra sugar. But if you're mixing rye and wheat the extra enzymatic activity of rye can mess up your wheat.
(I just watched a Borodinsky rye recipe on youtube that Yippee linked to. Looked delicious.)