Low oven spring in tartine bread
I have tried baking the tartine sourdough bread several times, but I keep getting very low oven spring. I keep adjusting my times and technique, but have not really had success. Posting a representative bread here if anyone has suggestions.
I keep a rye starter that I feed a 1:2:2 starter, bread, and water twice a day. It is highly active and has a predictable rise and fall. Make up the levain the night before as specified in the book and in the morning it has bubbles on top and throughout and passes the float test. I use the recipe from tartine and stretch and fold every 30 minutes for the first two hours and then once or twice more in the last two hours (this time I went to 3, so it had a 5 hour bulk rise).
The dough felt airy and soft and pulled away from the edges of the container when I tilted it, and had increased in size some, but not double (maybe 30%). The dough did still feel a little wet and tacky when shaping. I shaped it into a boule and placed it into the fridge for an overnight rise. The next morning the boule was relatively flat and doesn't have much oven spring. The crust is crackly, but the crumb has bigger holes surrounded by denser areas.
Any suggestions would be appreciated!
I can't tell clearly from the photos, but the loaf looks under-risen and/or cooked in a too-low oven, possibly with too much steam (hence the shine and blisters question).
Did you do the finger-poke test on your final rise? it's a little slower to respond with a cold dough but still useful. The under-rise is increased if your oven temp is too low. You get flat loaves just like those in your photos. It's happened to me; pancake-bread is not a pleasant experience.
Adding a lot of steam can reduce oven temp. Adding too much also prevents a good crust from forming. Setting your initial oven temp ten degrees higher then turning it down once you've put the loaf inside can avoid this. As does releasing the steam after fifteen to twenty minutes by cracking open the oven door briefly (and/or removing your steam tray).
Hope this is helpful. Apologies if this is grandmother-sucks-eggs time.