The Fresh Loaf

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Slash marks not blooming in oven?

sheep1's picture
sheep1

Slash marks not blooming in oven?

I've been making lean 100% whole wheat sourdough bread with a percentage of home milled wheat (not actually 100% because I sometimes add bolted flour).  I've varied hydration from 75% to 90%.  I found a bolted flour locally (Type 85) and adding even 30% helps with lightening the loaf. I sometimes bake loaf the same day, starting early morning and baking late at night, other times I put it in the fridge for the final rise. I bake in a Dutch oven or a ceramic cloche at 475 degrees (turned down to 425 degrees).

After a lot of trial and error, I'm now getting good oven spring.  The crumb looks great, smaller holes in lower hydration, big holes with higher hydration.  Crust is great in the dutch oven. I am very happy with where I am in bread baking right now, finally after a year, but the only thing that is missing on my loaves- beautifully bloomed razor slashes.  I use a razor lame.  On loaves that are 100% home milled flour, the razor slashes don't work well- I think the larger bran in my home milled flour prevents a nice slash- the razor creates ugly  "ripping" of the dough.  Now that I'm using the home milled at only 40%, the slashes look good on the raw dough.  Can't figure out why the slash marks don't "bloom" in the oven?

Any ideas?

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

not too deep, the oven hot and proper steam, no issue with a DO. then the dough is over proofed.  Ther more the whoe grain in the mix the sooner it needs to get into the oven - no more than 85% proof.  This is hard to get right since whole grain breads are faster to proof.  So they are fast and they need to go n early.  This is the hardest thing in baking in my book.  Knowing when the bread is ready for the oven and having the oven at temperature at the same time.

Try putting it into the oven when it looks under proofed to you .  Happy baking 

AlanG's picture
AlanG

I have to admit to numerous slash failures over the time I've been baking sourdough.  I use the "traditional" Vermont Sourdough recipe as set forth by Hamelman but I follow the timing of David Snyder's San Joaquin variety.  I've found that in order to get the proper bloom is to make sure the dough is somewhat moist before it goes into the oven.  I usually bake 500g batards as I like that size and shape.  I do the final proof on a linen couche and I've found that if I dust the couche with an absorbent flour mixture (rice & wheat), the top of the loaf ends up being too dry and you get a ripping of the dough.  When I moved to just rice flour I have no problems at all.  I shorten the final proof in the summer when the kitchen is warm and lengthen it in the winter when it's cool.