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Help with Tartine loaf

nycone's picture
nycone

Help with Tartine loaf

All,

 I'm a novice baker.  I tried the Tartine Country Loaf and tried to follow directions exactly.  I had trouble with getting the loaf taught at the final folds. 

The crumb is very thick and heavy.

The result is in the photo.  Any advice is welcome

Benito's picture
Benito

Your description of the crumb as thick and heavy sounds like the gummy crumb from an underproofed dough.  

First have a look at your starter, how active is it?  If fed 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 how long does it take to double if the ambient temperature is around 80ºF?

gerryp123's picture
gerryp123

I've made this recipe several times, with result as expected. Directions in text are very complete.  Need to follow carefully with respect to temps and duration. 

This is particularly important during fermentation and folds.  Need dough temp before every fold to be within stated range; need to see a >20% increase at end of fermentation.  If not change proofing temp, extend timing and number of folds accordingly.  

Also applies to starter/levan.  Need stated temp, rise, aroma.

Other factors, but above are most important to solve problem stated.

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

(deleted)

nycone's picture
nycone

Yes, it was gummy.  The starter may be the issue.  It doubles in 12 hours in whole wheat flour, but does nothing in bleached flour.  Is this normal?

Benito's picture
Benito

It sounds like your starter might be the issue.  Without a really active starter your levain will be weak and your bread won’t rise.  I’d avoid bleached flour as it may adversely affect the microbes.  At what temperature is your starter growing at when you say it takes 12 hours to double?  As you know temperature has a huge effect on the rate of growth of your starter.

If you feed it your whole wheat flour, at a 1:2:2 ratio and kept it at 80ºF, how long would it take to double.  If it can do this within 3-4 hours your starter is quite active.  We need more information in order to help you.

WatertownNewbie's picture
WatertownNewbie

Perhaps this will help in some way: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/64305/tartine-basic-country-bread

Happy baking.

Ted

nycone's picture
nycone

After a little research and the comments above, it looks like my starter is weak.  I did my loaf when the leaven floated, but that wasn't enough.  I'm going to start over with a new starter.  Does anyone have a favorite "can't miss" method for making a starter?  I use the pineapple juice method, but I'd take advice.

PrayaDubia's picture
PrayaDubia

I would recommend working on strengthening your current starter rather than starting over. How old is your starter? At what temperature is it kept? (i.e fridge, room temp) What is your feeding regimen? On YouTube, there is a good video by FullProofBaking on strengthening your starter so that it doubles faster or even triples. 

You likely have a good colony of the right microbes but just not enough of them. Starting over will get you right back to where you are now but just take longer. Keeping your starter at warm room temp for a while and feeding it at peak are ways to strengthen it. Good luck!

Benito's picture
Benito

Take a small amount of your starter and create an offshoot. Feed it 1:2:2 and keep it in a warm spot. Feed it when it has peaked again and again 1:2:2 for several days a couple of times a day. Put it in the fridge if you need to. After a few days you’ll see that it is far more vigorous then you can switch back to whatever flour you want. 

nycone's picture
nycone
  1. I got my starter growing faster, as suggested.  I tried a loaf tonight.  It's much better than the first, but still a little "underdone" in the crumb and not as airy as I'd hoped.  The loaf too flat as well.  I had trouble getting body in the folds.  I'd still take advice.  I'm baking in a casserole dish with a top.  Would a Dutch Oven make the difference?
idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

in comment of Aug 6, looks good. Maybe try less hydration for less spread.

Another technique, almost a "trick", to reduce spread, is to match the size of the loaf to the baking vessel.  

I have 3 sizes of bannetons, 6", 8", 9", to match what I bake in, and by using baker's percentages, adjust the quantity of the ingredients with easy math, and weigh it in grams.

By matching the dough to the dish, the sides help support the loaf.

gerryp123's picture
gerryp123

In addition to having a good seal (to hold in the steam) I think its important that the "cooking pot" be a good radiator of heat from all sides.  Like a mini-oven within your oven.  A cast iron DO would do a better job at this than a (glass and ceramic ?) casserole.

nycone's picture
nycone

I used an aluminum heavy casserole by Calphalon (it's what I had).  I'd be happy to by cast iron, but I didn't want to buy one if I couldn't get the recipe to work in my hands.  I know there's a chance the cast iron might make the difference, thus my question.

Regarding hydration, I thought the more hydrated the loaf, the more it springs.  I was at 75%, but the cookbook talks about higher hydration giving more in the oven.

gerryp123's picture
gerryp123

I also use a heavy cast-aluminum DO and the results seem just fine - not much different than cast-iron.  As long as the seal is good and the loaf to be baked is only slightly smaller than the DO all should be OK.

nycone's picture
nycone

I tried the Tartine loaf again.  Much better starter (more active). 

The result was pretty much the same (slightly better than the past).  The loaves don't hood their shape, or rise in the oven as they should.  In retrospect, I'm having a lot of trouble getting the loaves to any body during folds.  They seem wet and sluggish, even though they have 75% hydration as the recipe calls for.

I'm at my wit's end.  Any help is welcome, or I'm basically going to have to throw on the towel on this.

 

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

It took ten sourdough loaves/tries  for me to get something I was proud of.

And that was after years of using commercial dry yeast.

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta

I tried the Tartine recipe for the first time yesterday.  the formula is too wet for my flours. (GM Harvest King unbromated unbleached, and Ardent Mills Whole Wheat)  They came out ok, but i've had some experience with wet dough and i felt like i was trying very hard to make it work.  I'll drop hydration 5% or more on my next try.

we have to adjust recipes to what we're working with. 

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta

Drop water by 75g on my tartine loaf. So much better. Easier to handle and taller more open crumb. 

full hydration ~78%



Reduced hydration. ~70% (but slightly under proofed)
Benito's picture
Benito

You’ll do yourself a big favour by reducing the hydration, I agree with Ciabatta there.  Until you get more experience, it is hard to handle wet dough.  Your flour may not be able to absorb as much water as the flour that Chad Robertson uses for his breads.  Reducing the hydration to 70% is a good place to start.  You can get very open crumb with lower hydration bread.  If you have a look at the baguette thread, many of us are baking baguettes with only 67% hydration and with really open crumb.  There is nothing wrong with dropping the hydration.  Whenever I bake a new recipe, I will usually drop the hydration several percent because I don’t know what the author’s flour is like.  Once you have more experience, you’ll be able to tell when you’re mixing your dough whether or not it can take more water or not.

Initially last year when I started baking sourdough breads, I was making an error using a recipe that called for some of the water to be held back and added gradually (bassinage) when adding the levain and salt.  For the life of me I couldn’t understand why the dough was so wet and sticky and challenging to shape.  It wasn’t until a few bakes when I realized that I was adding the total water initially and then adding even more water later so much more water than the recipe called for.  Once I rectified my error in the comprehension of the formula and how it was written, I could suddenly shape and handle the dough much better.

nycone's picture
nycone

I did another set of loaves tonight. 

 

This time with 67% hydration.  The result is MUCH better.  The crumb is not as open as I'd hoped for, but these resemble what I see others making.

 

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Huge improvement.  I’d say your flour isn’t able to absorb as much water as some people in other climates can.  Flour in a desert climate will absorb much more water than flour in a humid climate.

Now you can slowly increase the hydration if you wish and also next time push bulk fermentation a bit farther.  You can also use an aliquot jar to start gauging bulk fermentation.