Gluten Deteriorates During Fermentation
Hello all,
I've followed this site for a while and have finally decided to join in the fun.
I'm having some issues with making breads with higher hydration levels. I've tried making a higher hydration dough 3-4 times now and have had the same results each time. The dough comes together well while mixing, enough to come together and hold itself without flattening, but it will flatten out after about an hour. I've been using the stretch and fold method but as the dough ferments more, the gluten seems to deteriorate and eventually tears when I try to stretch it, and it no longer holds itself together if I try and form any shape. I've tried baking it in this condition and I end up with a terrible concoction.
Generally during mixing the dough looks good, after about an hour I do the first stretch and fold and there seems to be some gluten development happening, but with each subsequent hour of rising and a stretch and fold the dough seems to get worse and worse. Because of this I can never form a taught skin either.
I'm not really sure where it's going wrong. I'm using a healthy starter and it gets lots of rise (I get doubling in each hour of rise time). I'm not really following any particular recipe as I do things by eye and by feel, but the rough measurements are 2 cups (1:1) starter, 1 cup water, 2-3 tsp salt, and about 3 cups flour (just enough for it to come together and hold it's own, a little sticky).
Any thoughts?
What kind of flour are you using? What temps are we at?
You say you get double rise every hour, is that the leaven or the dough? ... and you havent any yeast in there?
If youre using decent flour and an active leaven as you say, your mix looks a bit on the wetter side of things, you should only need ( depending on temps of course) around 2hrs bulk and then shape with 2 sets of fold within the first hr. Not sure what else.... usually gluten will do its thing..... unless theres some issue with your flour or youre fermenting way too long...?
Generally an AP with some gluten flour added, but this picture is a mix of 1/2 cup rye, 1/2 cup whole wheat, 2 tbsp gluten flour, and the remaining is AP. The rising temp is about 70F and the doubling is the dough mix, starter and all.
The mix looks way too wet I agree, but this tends to happen over time. Initially when I'm mixing it looks very good, and after the first hour still good, but in subsequent steps it starts to look more and more wet until I get to the stage where this picture was taken.
It could be the length of fermenting. I tend to run it for about a day to get a good sour taste. I have had success with a similar recipe but in a shorter period of time, but I found it too have a weak sourdough taste.
Wetness shouldnt be the issue, ciabatta is made from very wet dough, and as the dough and gluten relaxes it will appear wetter. I havent used AP flour much but many do. Temp is fine.... my speculation would be over fermenting, though your leaven would have to be on steroids for that to happen within 2hrs.
I would try just using a decent bread flour, like 12% protein, dont over mix, and bulk for 1hr with folds, shape and rise again, and then bake when it doubles and/or looks right... That way you can test the variables and write a recipe down so you can record changes. There are a gazillion recipes out there to try...
Perhaps someone else might have some suggestions :)
Thanks for the help!
I'll try out a shorter fermentation time then and start from there.
Adrian
I think Amber makes a good point about hydration.
If we allow 4.75 oz for a cup of flour, 3 cups would equal 14.25 oz. Considering the 2 cups of starter is worth another cup of flour, that would bring the flour to 4 cups or 19 oz.
Assuming that is all true, then with the 1 cup of water from the starter and the 1 cup added to the final dough, you would have 16 oz water.
16 oz divided by 19 would give you about 84% hydration, which would be fairly high for an AP dough, in my opinion.
I don't want to discourage you from mixing by hand, feel and eye (that is a valuable thing), but perhaps to start, it might be useful to be more exacting with the quantities of the ingredients.
An inexpensive digital scale could be useful (I think) so that you would more accurately weigh your ingredients rather then the measures of 'cups' and such. Just to start.
There could be many other things going on, but the 84% hydration with AP flour, would be my first suspect for the problem you describe.
If you are looking for sour, try proofing in the 90F temp range. And don't forget, flour not only hydrates, but developes gluten over time.
And if you are tearing the gluten with the stretch and folds, obviously, stop. That might be the time to shape and bake (so to speak) or cold retard.
I don't know, there are a lot of unasked, unanswered questions, but that would be where I would start.
I hope I got the math right, but check it yourself just to be sure.
dobie
ps - welcome to the forum Adrian
If it really is TOO wet that will make fermentation more rapid too.
It's a bit to hard to tell what's going on without knowing flour to starter ratio - I can with equal ease envision 2 cups of starter as 200 g and 400 g.
suave
True that.
dobie
The understanding required to make bread by look and feel is generally acquired by first following tried and tested formulae, and achieving good results. Breadmaking is fairly forgiving of small process and constituent deviations, but your dough seems to have strayed way wide of the proven path.
My suggestion would be to (as dobie suggests) use weights rather than volume measures, but also to follow a tried and tested recipe. When you are achieving consistently good results, by all means tweak the recipe to your taste, but record the deviations (processes, ingredients, and weights). This will probably show you immediately the cause of any problems, but if you aren't able to figure it out, it will enable the many skilled bakers here at TFL to understand and help you. Also, when adjusting a proven formula, change just one thing at a time, so you can isolate and correlate its effect.
All else being the same, as you increase hydration, dough will become harder to handle. So depending on what you're used to, if you're now trying to work with dough that has quite a bit higher hydration, the feel will be significantly different, and your expectations should be set accordingly. For example, 60% and 70% hydration is "only" a 10% difference, but all else being equal, the two doughs will be very different.
Also, you may find it easier to measure by weight in order to determine your hydrations and to be more consistent when repeating recipes.
using way too much starter.if it is 100% hydration. To make your starter 00% hydration use 1/2 cup of water for 1 cup of flour. A good recipe that will come out to around 71% hydration is the 1.2.3 recipe where you use 1 cup of starter, 2 cups of water and 3 cups of flour. This assumes 125 g per C of flour and 238 g per cup of water. This is a proven recipe for SD using AP flour. Your problems should all go away using this recipe but, you need to get a scale to bake bread and get easily consistent and reproducable results .
Happy baking
I'm with Dab it would appear that you have the starter and water quantities around the wrong way 3 flour 2 water 1 starter is what's required. The speed of the rise would also be explained by this too. Also the amount of fresh gluten is also lessened if you have double the starter. I once experimented using starter only for the liquid content of a small dough and it just wouldn't hold any shape at all it was devoid of any strength. Gluten definitely deteriorates with extended time after it is formed.
My advice here is that I am talking weights rather than cups as each of those three ingredients will be different as a cup full as Dab points out.
regards Derek
I wonder if it's something with your starter. I have read that some well-developed starters can create a chemical environment that breaks gluten down. Years ago, when I was playing with starter, I used to love the smell of a really alcoholic brew, but I had trouble with my bread, too. That may have been the issue for me and it might be worth your time to do a little research on this.
is over proofed. The 2 cups of starter puts a lot of pre-fermented flour into the recipe and then to go for a long bulk rise make for too much bulk fermenting when basically half the dough already had one, I would skip the bulk rise (using the recipe in the original posting) and give it only a rest to hydrate the flour, use a little less water (because a sourdough gets "wetter" as it ferments) aiming for a slightly stiffer dough. and then after all the slapping, give it a final proof. Let it rise about 3/4 of "double," if very large bubbles, pop or lightly/gently fold the dough to even out the crumb or shape again and bake in less than a half hour.