March 9, 2015 - 4:31pm
How do I get more rise?
Hi all!
I've been playing around with the recipe below and have not been able to get any more rise than what's in the picture. My bread barely breaks the plane of the bread pan when I'm looking to get the type of rise in the bread on the left. I've been playing around with the rise times hence the slight collapse in my latest loaf in picture. The flavor is there it's just not light and airy like I'd like. Also, my loaf weighs 700 grams after baking when a loaf of the same length pictured on the left weighs 500 grams. Any suggestions would be greatly welcomed because I really want to nail this down.
Thanks,
Matt
220 grams starter
340 grams flour
15 grams dark flax seeds
1 cup water
4 grams salt
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Assuming a US cup of water, which weighs ~237 gm, your dough weighs 816 gm, so the baked loaf's weight isn't going to be anywhere near as low as 500 gm.
As for the lack of rise, do you know your starter is active? And what kind of method / timing have you been using?
as the preferment. I use half as much fir a loaf this size. With warm kitchen temperatures, this dough would ferment and proof very fast. Your picture on the right is a classic over ferment / over proof. So what temperature is the dough and what is your method of gluten development ferment and proofing? I would also have 1.000 g of dough in my standard US loaf pan instead of 700 g
I make it 65%.
Starter = 220g
Flour = 340g
220/340 x100 = 64.71%
Or am I missing something here. Recipe seems a bit off to me.
percent is what is used for calculations. The 220 g of starter if it is 100% hydration is only half flour so 110 g + 340 g = 450 g of flour total and only 110 g of that is in the starter so 110/450 - 24.4% of the flour is preferneted. I would consider 20% to be about average so this is a bit over average. Recipes with 30-40 and 50% prefermeted flour are not out of the question and pretty common..
Here in AZ with high summer and winter temperatures I like to use around 10% in the summer and 15% in the winter to slow things down so that the levain and dough develops better flavor - less levain usually means more flavor. But, there are times , when you have no time, to get a more sour bread you up the levain amount - this when more levain meams more flavor.
If the slice on the left comes from a commercial loaf, then you may struggle to match it without various additions and processing. My standard 400g loaves are barely 2/3 the size of a CBP loaf you buy in the supermarket. They get more volume due to the intensive high speed, higher temperature mixing process, more active fresh yeast and other additions to help with the processing and flour conditioning.
Also remember that selling air is cheaper than selling flour - if a shop can make something look bigger for the same price, then it will.
I think your one (on the right) might be on the verge of over proofing too. You'll lose any oven spring at that point, so keeping an eye on the proof is key too. (finger poke test)
A bit much starter too (IMO - possibly - depends on what you're after though). I usually use 40% of the flour weight in starter - you're using closer to 65% here. Your overall hydration (assuming 100% starter) is 55%.
This is a basic recipe I'd use for generic bread:
Flour: 100%, starter (@ 100% hydration): 40%, water: 52%, salt 1.5%
with numbers. e.g. flour: 400g, starter: 160g, water: 208g: salt: 6g (and throw in a handful of seeds too)
overall hydration is 60%.
I'd typically mix/knead that late evening (10pm) and let it do its thing on its own overnight, then shape/prove/bake from 7am onwards. (8am as I type this and I have 8 loaves proving in the kitchen right now - into the oven in 15-20 minutes for them)
But don't give up - experimentation is good if you have the time!
-Gordon
The rising time (one long rise interrupted with folding) will be short when compared to sourdough with less starter in the final dough. It all comes down to the starter and how long it and the dough fermented. so...
Tell us about the starter and when you decide to use it for baking. Tell us how it's fed and try to give us as much detail as possible. Temps, times, amounts and what type of flour you are using for the starter and the bread. Also more detail on how the bread dough was handled. What made you decide to shape it for the final rise in the pan? Did anything strike you as odd while baking the loaf? ex. did it take longer or wouldn't brown well. How hot was the oven?
The look of the crumb tells me it is over proofed or too wet: irregular and thin top crust, inside crumb not showing patterns of dough rising while being baked. If you take the total weight of the water and divide by the total weight of the flour (include starter parts) then multiply by 100, what is the hydration of the dough?
Note in comparing weights of loaves: End slices weigh more than middle slices so if you cut the commercial loaf to make it the same size length as your just cooled loaf, cut out the middle and include both ends for a closer comparison. :)
Mini
Hopefully I don't miss anyone's questions. The starter is very active. Right now the temperature in my kitchen is 65 degrees. I'll take the starter out of the fridge and let it sit for a few hours, discard all but about 125 grams and add in equal parts water and flour - typically 125 grams each. I'm using an organic, unbleached white flour. Within minutes I can see activity and it becomes fully active within three to four hours. I will repeat this process two to three times before actually using it.
The loaf on the left is not a true commercial loaf. It's a local bakery and on the ingredients the only additional ingredients are vegetable oil and sugar. I believe the vegetable oil is for the exterior because there's a shine on the crust but I could be wrong. Commercial yeast is not listed as an ingredient, just cultured yeast.
For proofing I've done a 12 hour/4 hour, one 12 hour, one 16 hour, and a couple of other two proof lengths.
Cooking takes 39 minutes at 450 degrees and it's a gas oven. I use a pan of water in the oven when baking as well. Each loaf has cooked exactly the same at this time and temperature.
I tried a final rise in the pan just to experiment. On a few previous attempts, the handling collapsed the dough so I wanted to see what would happen if I let it rise in the pan.
From what I'm reading it sounds like I need to go lighter on the starter and watch my proof time. Any suggestions for the time?
Thanks for all of the help in trying to nail this down. It's a lot of fun to see what works and what doesn't.
"For proofing I've done a 12 hour/4 hour, one 12 hour, one 16 hour, and a couple of other two proof lengths".
This amount of time for 65% starter is far too long.
How about the 1:2:3 method?
1 part starter : 2 parts water : 3 parts flour + 2% of total flour for salt
e.g. 150g starter + 300g water + 450g flour + 10g salt
1. Autolyse 300g water + 450g flour for 30min.
2. Sprinkle salt on top followed by Starter and combine.
3. Give a good knead for 10-15min until dough comes together with medium gluten formation.
4. Bulk-Ferment for 4-6 hours incorporating stretch and folds.
5. Shape dough and bench rest for 15min.
6. Shape dough into banneton and final proof till ready (or retard in the fridge if you wish)
7. Bake in pre-heated oven.
Thank you Abe, this really made it easy to understand the process, and as a result I was able to produce the loaf below. You can see in the upper left corner of the picture the printout of your post with the directions.
Baked for 40 minutes in my Traeger pellet grill.
That is a really nice loaf and from what I can see you've got a good crumb. This is a simple recipe you can keep in your head. As easy as 123. Can be your goto recipe. I have plenty more recipes for you. Email me here anytime you wish.
did you get in the baking chamber? I think it could use a tad more heat for a slightly darker crust. (Could be the light glare giving it a pale look.) Might want to try shortening the final proofing time, the bumpy crust might be an indicator of too much stretching of the dough. Let the heat of the oven raise it that last bit to "double."
That reminds me, I need to heat up my grill and burn out the spiders. :) burn baby burn!
protein content? fibre? hard or soft wheat? origin?
That's a cold kitchen so fermenting will be slow, very slow.
The flour is Bob's Red Mill brand which is U.S. in origin and a hard red wheat. I'm not sure on the protein.
I know. This winter has been brutal. I've actually brought the starter/loaf into another room at times because of the temp. in the kitchen. I'm glad it's finally warming up.
shouldn't be too hard to figure out. As the preferment to flour is practically 1 to 1.5, it should take a bit longer than your 1 to 1 feeding. Because of the large amount is already fermented, you only need to ferment part of the dough to bake it.
If your starter feeding peaks in activity in 4 to 5 hours, I would guess that this rise would take about 6 hrs. With some folding at 3 hrs, 4 hrs and shaping at 5 hrs. That is just a rough guess.