The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Sourness of Bread

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Sourness of Bread

It seems that most sourdough bread bakers are aiming for breads with quite some sourness.  I'm the opposite.  Last Sunday I made two batches of breads following Mr Dimuzio's advice to a blogger here (can't locate the thread now) of a 4-build starter at 1.67 parts flour plus one of 1:1:1 ratio that I want to make pain de mie with.  The results :

Both breads were very sour, the sourest that I had ever made.  Since I followed the method of feeding the starter 3 times before making bread I was able to finish baking my breads within 6 hours from mixing.  The batard on the right was still within 6 hours but the pain de mie took 8 hours in its final proofing.  Both crumbs are very good, particularly the pain de mie - fluffy yet springy.  What should I do to continue to yield this texture without the super-sourness???

Enid 

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Enid:

Your breads look nice.  Could you please share your formula for the pain de mie? Thanks.

Yippee 

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Hi Yippie

My formula was :

All-purpose Flour - 280g

Starter - 150g

Water - 150g

non-fat milk powder - 13g

Sugar - 10g

Salt - 7g

Grapeseed Oil - 26g

I used grapeseed oil because that's my cooking oil and butter would be better.  I mixed everything in a KA stand-mixer and 10 mins of the mixing was at 3-4 speed - bulk ferment for 1 hour - divide, round-up  and rest 20 mins - roll up and rest 15 mins - roll again and proof in pan until the dough almost reached the edge of the pan - cover and bake at 410F for 45 mins - remove the cover after 37 mins or so into baking to brown the top.  The cover was not the original pan lid.  I created a domed cover with a tin-foil cake loaf pan and weighed it down with the original lid.

If you don't mind the super-sournes, you might try.  This was my 1st try to make a pure sourdough pain de mie and I'll keep experimenting until I could reach this texture with much less sourness.  If you see any clue to this, please share with me.

Thanks, Enid

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Enid:

Thank you for your formula.  What's the hydration of your starter? Thanks again.

Yippee

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Yippie

The starter's hydration was 100% and was fed at 1:1:1 ratio.  The formula was a 69% total hydration.  I took off the amount of water and flour in starter when I made the pain de mie.

Enid

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Enid:

Could you tell me the dimension of your pullman pan so that I may adjust the size/weight of my dough accordingly? Thanks.

Yippee

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Hi Yippie

The dimension of my pan is 8"x4"x4".  Happy baking!

Enid

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Hi Mr DiMuzio

Thank you so much for answering my problem.  I will try your suggestion next week.  Before then, can I ask how many times do I need to feed my starter before mixing the dough?

If I wasn't aiming for a pain de mie, I wouldn't have to proof the loaf for 8 hours.  I normally rely on the pan to tell me when to bake i.e. the dough risen to 85-90% of the pan's height.  As for the batard, it was baked within 6 hours of mixing.

Enid

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Oh, Mr DiMuzio, I was too eager to try and had already fed my starter 4 times yesterday at 1:2:1 (S:F:W) ratio; and once more this morning (before seeing your reply) as I plan to make bread today.  My starter is an averagely active one - it takes 10-12 hours to reach its peak.  So I noticed it had not expanded much at the end of 4 hours, though it became a very soft dough.  I'll boost the pain de mie with 1g of instant yeast and let the batard stay a pure sourdough.  I hope the batard won't turn out a brick.

I'll try your above feeding ratio on my next bake.  In the meantime, is there a way that I could tune my starter up to a more active one, say, peak in 6-8 hours?

Thanks, Enid

bblearner's picture
bblearner

My home is normally at 70-72.  This morning it was cloudy and room temperature was 70 and after a whole afternoon of sun, it has reached 79.  So today I had to turn on the oven to 150F and switch it off with light to final proof my breads - my usual practice.  Even by doing this, all my yeasted breads took more than double the time called for in recipes in final proofing.  Enid

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Mr DiMuzio, here comes the result :

 

My husband didn't take a photo of the pain de mie's crumb but I can assure you it is not sour at all and is as fluffy and springy as I like.  I won't count the result this time as it had the help of 1g's instant yeast.  For the batard, it certainly is not open enough compared with sourdoughs that I made with the regular 3/4-build starters.  There is a very mild sourness in it and I consider that very acceptable and a characteristic of sourdough breads.  The batard is my weekly bake and recently they burst on the side.  I presume this is the result of shaping too tight. 

I live in Vancouver, Canada.  I started baking bread this seriously since November last year and created my starter in February this year.  There was only once or twice that the kitchen temperature reached 30C that the final proofing could finish in 2.5 hours.

From now on, I'll work on the correct temperature to get a more active starter (fed 4-hourly) to achieve my ideal breads.

Thank you very very much, Enid

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Hi Mr DiMuzio

The batard's hydration was only 72%.  (Ingredients were: AP Flour 95%, Dark Rye Flour 5%, Water 72%, Salt 2.2% and 50% hydration Starter 50%).  Actually I was following Richard Bertinet's book "Crust" for the formula on sourdough breads.  His method uses a starter of 50% hydration, and dough hydration 82%.  My 1st sourdough bread was flat and sour.  When I changed to your 60% hydration starter, fed 3 times, mentioned in davidg618's post I cut down the water to 70% and got a nicely risen and good flavour boule.

The batard was kneaded by hand - no mixer used.  I found it impossible to just stretch and fold when a firm starter was involved but during bulk fermentation, two stretch-and-fold's were performed in an hourly interval.  I rounded the dough up as soon as I felt it was smooth and not sticking to the counter anymore.

I used to bake bread with unbleached all-purpose flour by Robin Hood but once touring in Costco, we came across the Rogers All-purpose flour, 10Kg bag priced at least CAD2 cheaper than an RH 5Kg bag and was attracted by the price and forgot to look for the word "unbleached".  I have been regretting this till now.  It takes me at least 6 weeks to use the 10Kg up and its breads were not flavourful enough!!

I'm still adamant in making a pure sourdough pain de mie and hope to be able to do this with a more active starter and the "right" temperature.

Thank you once again, Enid

Yippee's picture
Yippee

 (Ingredients were: AP Flour 95%, Dark Rye Flour 5%, Water 72%, Salt 2.2% and 50% hydration Starter 50%).  

 

Mr. DiMuzio:

Thank you very much for your informative posts.  Each and every time, I learn something new from them.

In the above formula, my interpretation of the water % is that the overall hydration of the final dough, including the water in the starter, is 72%.  Am I correct?  

If a formula calls for eggs, oil/butter, would you include them as part of the overall hydration %  [72%(if I interpret correctly) in the above example] as well?

Thanks again.

Yippee

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Hi Mr DiMuzio,

Those percentages were calculated by me.  They were not listed in Richard Bertinet's book and nowhere in his recipes had he used the word "percentage".  You asked about the hydration of my batard so I thought I'd better tell by the "%" mark, i.e. "They should have just told you he was 8 yrs. old.".  Sorry for the confusion.

I knew I was sloppy when I calculate the ingredients of my sourdough breads and thought I would get away with any failure if I extended the final proofing time without knowing that I would get extra sourness.  I will take heed to work more carefully in my next bake.

Yours and Mr Hamelman's books are on my order list.  I need to pend the order till October for release of a book on knitting so that I can enjoy free-shipping.

Enid

deblacksmith's picture
deblacksmith

I just saw this thread and it is very interesting and confirms what I have been learning from the TFL and Dan's writings and book.

I too was looking to make a much less sour "sour dough" and had been quite frustrated with my very sour bread (most folks seem to want more sour, I wanted much less.)  My last sour dough turned out what I call "not too sour".  I was doing first 4 feedings a day and then 5 feedings the day before making the bread.  Very active starter but doing it at "room temperature"  currently about 76 to 78 F.  I lelf the starter over night at room temperature but did feed just before bed and first thing in the morning.  I was at 80 precent hydration of the starter, all bread flour.

The results were good -- but I have to now try moving to the 4 hour feeds at 85 F and refrigerate over night.  I happen to have a old lab oven (rather small, too small for bread) that was designed to hold temperature to +/- 1 degree F.  I have never tried it at near room temperature but will have to see what it can do.  (I use it in the shop for tempering of tool steels -- mostly around 400 F).  If that does not do what I want I can use a light bulb and a thermostat in an old cooler.  (I have the thermostat somewhere in my junk collection.)

Thanks to everyone for this thread and to all for the great information.

Dave

 

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Hi Yippie,

I actually should thank you for raising that question.  It reminded me to pay attention to every detail when baking breads.  Being sloppy won't let me get my ideal bread. 

Thanks, Enid

Hi Dave, 

I, too was thinking of using a light bulb, a thermometer and a cooler to get the "85F" to build the levain.  All of a sudden, it came to my mind that we do have a transformer inside a kitchen cabinet that we use to operate our coffee machine.  I made a test a couple of days ago - if I had only the transformer on, I'd get that temperature; if the coffee machine was on too, it's way too high.  I'll be on to my next experiment very soon - the coming weekend!!!

Regards, Enid

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Mr. DiMuzio:

Could you please explain why this method is not "appropriate for a sourdough that uses no manufactured yeast" (p.196)?

Does that mean I would not achieve the optimum result if I use this method to make a Pain de Mie with levain exclusively? Thank you.

Yippee

 

Yippee's picture
Yippee

...manufactured yeast...breads that were designed to use it

Mr. DiMuzio:

I realize this, and that's why I have not had the urge to try making a 100% levain sandwich bread until I saw Enid's fluffy and springy bread.  Then I knew even with levain exclusively, the texture I desire can be achieved. However, I hope to duplicate such a loaf with minimal babysitting and eliminate any folds of my dough. With that said, I do want to try a new technique this time: measuring water temperature, which I would normally ignore, just to experiment the 'power' of following precise calculation. 

I'm going to use the dough function of my Zojirushi, which has also helped me to produce very nice yeasted sandwich loaves in the past.  Mr. DiMuzio, if I don't mind the acidic aftertaste in a pain de mie, would you please make a suggestion in procedures which I can utilize the refrigerator to either bulk ferment or proof, or both. Thank you.

Yippee

    

Yippee's picture
Yippee

for your pointers, Mr. DiMuzio.  I'll give it a try.

Yippee

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Enid:

I finally made it this past weekend.  Please visit my blog to see my first pain de mie. Thanks again for all your help.

Yippee   

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Yippee

Congratulations!!  What could be more satisfying than to create one's own formula/method and yield pleasing results - especially an "encore" from your kids.

Enid

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Enid:

Have you ever made dome-shaped sourdough loaf in your pullman pan(no lid)? If so, would you please share the weight of dough used?  Luckily, my pullman is the same size as yours, so no adjustment needed the first time. Thanks.

Yippee

bblearner's picture
bblearner

Yippie

The photo in my first post on this thread shows my dome-shaped pain de mie and the dough size was illustrated in my answer to your request re that bread's formula.  I also described how I achieved that dome-shape in that post.

Enid

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Oh, I see.  I was using that size for my close-lid loaf since I thought you were making the same type (close-lid) at both times.  Thanks.

Yippee