Hi everyone

I've embarked into the world of sourdough baking and am running into the same problem with every loaf: my bread isn't rising properly during its final proofing. Everything looks healthy and rises well during the first two proofings but once I shape it/put it in the tin, it barely rises. I'd love some advice from some seasoned (haha) bakers on what I could be doing wrong.

Teegstar

I just wanted to recommend the recipe given on this site: Seeded Sourdough Recipe, and post a couple of pictures of my try at the bread. I found the recipe to be well done, and the ferment/proof times pretty close to what I used. I was surprised the loaf came out as well as it did, as I thought the seeds may break the worked up gluten (I did do a couple more stretch and folds than called for, maybe that helped, perhaps not), and the oven spring was fairly good for how little a boule I made (may be due to a better scoring pattern, or a higher hydration than I am used to, or luck). Anyways, thanks to the original post-er, as I have found a reliable seeded sourdough recipe that I will definitely make again. 

 Seth

Sorry for the low quality of pictures- taken with a macbook. 

The taste and texture were good, and even had hints of peanut butter (yet there were no peanuts in it, guess it was the roasting of sesame/sunflower seeds).

Every Christmas Eve, I bake about 50 loaves of bread and deliver to friends and family.  I've been doing this for about 25 years.  I have a bad back, and I cant seem to take the long day of mixing and baking anymore, so I've moved to naturally fermented breads over the last few years.  Generally that's been a help as I easily have my dough ready for shaping and baking in the morning, pushing half the work into the day before.  Now, I'd really like to push the shaping to the night before as well, dealing only with baking the day before Christmas.

I'm currently working on this year's recipe, and plan on going with an onion pumpernickel.  I have the flavor profile under control, and my first test run went pretty well.  The 2nd not as good as I believe the dough overproofed and was too slack as it went into the oven; didn't get the height I was looking for.  Crumb was fine, just not an appealing final shape.

For purposes of discussion, I'm using KA flours, about 23% pump, 23% dark rye, 54% all purpose. 70% hydration. Starter was about 5% of flour weight.  This last batch I even raised the salt a bit to about 2.5%. (you can find the full recipe HERE )

I'm looking for suggestions to help the loaves survive a long (maybe up to 12 hours until the final loave gets baked) final proof and still look shapely coming out of the oven.  I also had a problem with the dough sticking to a well floured couche after such a long proof.  I'd rather not reduce the hydration much as I liked the crumb, but realize that may have to be the final solution.  I'm thinking of moving the all purpose flour to high gluten, or even clear, to survive that long proof.

While I'm no stranger to using a starter, there are obviously members here far better versed than I am.  I believe I might be able to add some strength by increasing the percentage of starter as well.  I'd really appreciate any/all suggestions.

--Warren

I made JoeVa's sourdough with Durum Flour and while very tasty there are more holes than crumb. Anyone know why? I followed his formula but added 1 TBLS. vital wheat gluten because I was using all purpose flour with the durum and thought the AP might need a boost. When I took it out of the fridge this morning it looked ready to bake so as soon as the oven was ready I put one in then baked the other when the first came out. This photo is of the second loaf. The crumb was not as open on the first but almost. You can see I did not get the lift that Joe got. Like I said, the taste was very good.

I plan to do this again soon using higluten flour and I just might bulk ferment the dough overnight and stretch/fold and shape/bake the net day.

weavershouse

Well, I tried it: two different starters, each handled to emphasize yeast activity in one, flavor production (sourness) in the second. I have three starters, all from commercial sources. Two were purchased online, the third came from a well-known bakery, with even more well-known bakers. I chose one of the online-sourced starters; it's been consistently more active (measured by proofing times, and oven-spring) than the other two, and I chose the bakery-one for its good, but not overwhelming, sourness. I maintain the first starter at 100% hydration, I keep the second one at 67% hydration. I built both formula-ready starters (450 g each) over a period of twenty-four hours tripling the seed-sarter mass 3 times, the beginning, and the end of the next two 8 hour periods, finishing with a formula-ready starter with a mass 27 time the original seed starter. I also adjust the hydration by 1/3 the difference between the seed-starters' hydration, and the target fornula-ready starters' hydrations at each build: 125%, and 60% respectively.

Bread Formula scaled to make 3, 1.5 lb. loaves.

Total starter weight: 900 g (450 each)

Total dough weight: 2250 g

Hydration: 67%

Flour:                              Baker's percentage:

AP flour in starters: 481g      36%

Whole Rye Flour: 225g          17%

All-purpose Flour 312g          23.5%

Bread Flour 312g                  23.5%

Salt: 27g                               2%

Water in starters: 419g

Water added        475g

All three loaves were baked, one at a time, under an aluminum foil cover, on a baking stone at 480°F, 10 minutes with steam. 15 additional minutes uncovered, without steam at 450°F. Reading from the top of the pile counterclockwise #1, #2 and #3; #2 was retarded for approximately 3-1/2 hour, and # 3 5 hours.

The bread has a taste more pronounced than previous sourdoughs I've made with one or the other starters, but that could be the extra rye flour. I made a mistake; I used 10% of the dough weight, rather than ten percent of the total flour weight to caculate the desired rye content. Despite the mistake, we love the flavor. I also experienced slightly less oven spring than usual, using only starter #1.

David G

I've run the gamut of challenges switching my bread baking from my home kitchen to a little house in a Tuscan hill town.

Check out my blog at http://patriciagreathouse.blogspot.com/ to read about it.

Thanks!

Patricia

I have had numerous requests for my Sourdough Cinnamon Swirl Bread recipe. Here it is, but it is in volume measurements. If someone wants to convert it to grams, be my guest. I'm not good at conversions and this is an old recipe, before everyone was interested in using weights.

Sourdough Cinnamon Swirl Bread

2 cups active, bubbly starter

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla (optional)

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup instant mashed potato flakes

3 1/2 cups flour (half AP, half bread flour)

Mix and knead the dough. Place in an oiled bowl and cover with plastic. Bulk ferment until about 1 1/2 times the original size. This makes a very soft dough. Roll out dough on floured or Pam sprayed surface into a rectangle about 9 x 18 inches. Spread with soft butter, sprinkle with sugar, and very generously with cinnamon, leaving 1/2" on one of the 9" ends clean for sealing. Roll up as for cinnamon rolls. Try to keep the roll snug as you roll. Place in greased loaf pan. Spray oil top of loaf and cover with plastic. Proof until almost double in size. Bake at 350°F for 30 to 40 minutes, or until done.

I don't frost my loaf because I like to toast my bread and it just melts in the toaster. As an alternative to frosting, I have brushed on an egg white wash and then sprinkled with coarse raw sugar just before baking.

How to tell if a sourdough starter is still alive? If a sourdough starter is dead, is there anyway to rescue it? What happen if use dead sourdough starter in bread?

Fall has finally reached Tallahassee and I have been having a good time experimenting with longer sourdough rising times.  Last winter was my first cold season as a sourdough bread baker and I had a lot of ups and downs (literal "ups and downs" when it came to dough rising!).  This year I feel a little more in control of my starter now that I know how to manage the feeding schedule so that it suits both my lifestyle and that of the creatures in my starter.  Of course, a consistently healthy starter is only part of the equation when it comes to making a great loaf of bread!

In a recent thread I got some inadvertent reassurance from Eric (ehanner) that I could let the bulk fermentation go on overnight at a cooler room temperature.  The main goal being that the dough should double in volume.  I breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded with my baking.

I followed the BBA Basic Sourdough formula (as usual these days) but used about half white whole wheat flour, resulting in a nice flavor but a dense crumb.  I didn't realize until shaping the loaves that I should have increased the hydration to account for the "thirsty" whole wheat flour, and my "feel" is not developed enough yet so that I can easily tell if the hydration is correct when I'm mixing my dough.  Overall though, I was happy with my loaves and when I think back to the soupy pancakes that I was producing last year I know that I have come far.

Mixed dough ready for it's overnight rise.

Doubled by the next morning.  You can see where I poked it in the upper left hand corner.

Shaped loaves ready to rise.  I'm still working on sealing the bottom seams better.

Boules scored and ready to bake.  Batards still under the blanket.

Finished boules.

Finished batards.

Batard crumb (slightly out of focus).

Thanks to everyone who read this post.  Any feedback or suggestions are always appreciated.

Summer

Last weekend I gave Susan’s Sourdough Boule another try after it had come out with a crumb that was too dense the first time around. Since the ingredients were exactly the same as in one of Susan’s recipes (I used KA bread flour and pre-soaked flax seeds), the culprit could only be the starter. This time I made sure it was up to speed and strength after feeding it twice before using it and it happily produced the desired results:

It tasted wonderfully and I'll certainly make it again!

The other bread I made was the Sourdough Seed Bread (“Bread” p. 176). There had been two recent posts about this great recipe and I really wanted to try it. We absolutely LOVE it. My husband thought that my loaves should be bigger than the recent ones I made, thus I baked the entire recipe into one huge loaf, it weighed in at 1.7 kg (3.75 lbs)!!

A bit of a challenge to slice... This bread will be a staple in my repertoire, no doubt!