August 29, 2022 - 4:24am
Ideal Sourdough Crumb
Hello, I was wondering how sourdough crumb should look like. i’ve been baking sourdough for quite some time now and each time the crumb looks different and I’m not sure if my sourdoughs are well, under or over proofed.
kindly help advise.
Thank you so much.
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People prefer different crumb structures, there is no ideal. Sometimes it's obvious that the dough was underfermented (huge holes surrounded by dense areas), more rarely it's overfermented (less obvious and less of a problem, generally). Then whether the crumb is open, closed, or everything in between - depends on what you like.
In my opinion, all crumbs displayed here are great, probably the bottom one is my favourite, very beautiful.
Thank you very much for your reply :D Very happy to hear that they are all good. Is it possible that they are different due to the type of flour or the hydration level? The bottom one has the highest hydration 😄
Certainly the type of flour and hydration influences the crumb, along with many other variables!
hello :))
Got it! Will need to explore and practice a lot more :D
Thank you so much.
:)
❤️❤️
All three of your crumb-shots look pretty fabulous. I suspect you know that. Well done! You should indeed be proud of such consistency. Obtaining routinely fine results like that in sourdough bread baking is far more challenging than just random and occasionally boast-worthy products.
As far as "ideal" sourdough crumbs, I would venture that relatively uniform alveoli size across the crumb profile is a fairly common and respected objective. Not 100% identical alveoli diameters throughout, like Wonderbread, but within a fairly narrow range of sizes and uniformly distributed top to bottom, side to side. The breadth of and distribution within that range, and where the range sits astride the spectrum of possible alveoli diameters, are matters of personal taste and the objective and/or tradition of a particular formula. For example, ryes' range is at the small diameter end of the spectrum and pan de cristal is at the large diameter end. Our home preference is for a uniform crumb with no alveolus greater in diameter than the thickness at which the bread will be sliced for sandwiches. Larger than that invites jam to leak onto fingers, laps and tablecloths.
Beautiful breads you're baking there. I'm sure many would be happy to hear of your technique and process.
Happy baking,
Tom
Hi Tom,
Thank you so much for replying and sharing your thoughts on the ideal crumb. Just looked up Pan de crystal since this is the first time I heard of it :D very interesting. I will need to try it out.
Regarding the technique and process, I usually do as follows,
- autolyse the dough for about 1 hour then add the starter (I use 20% starter)
- after 30 minutes, add salt
- after 30 minutes, stretch and fold
- after 30 minutes, lamination
- after 30 minutes, 1st coil fold
- after 30 minutes, 2nd coil fold
- after the dough doubled in size, preshape it. (it takes around 6 hours since adding the starter at 25 c. I usually take out around 15g of the dough and put it in a tiny cup to really measure the dough size.)
- after 20 minutes, shape
- retard in the fridge for around 13-16 hours
- bake :D
Glad to hear that all the crumbs look ok. I will need to work on how to make it more consistent 🤣