Issue with pure levain loaf
Hello,
This summer I started working with sourdough and have been very happy with the results. The Pain De Campagne from FWSY is a favorite (levain with some commercial yeast), and I've been trying to move to a 100% levain loaf (overnight country blond with 12% levain). I've tried making this recipe about 4 times now, and every result has failed for the same reason. By the time the bulk fermentation is complete (dough has risen to the 2.5 x 3 initial volume), the bread has lost most of it's structure. The gluten dissolves when you pull a piece of dough off, and it can take on a cottage cheese like texture. I'm assuming that too much acidity is being produced which is causing the gluten to dissolve. To try and address this, I've made sure my levain is young, and used a cooler temperature during bulk ferment (60-68F - basically no rise after 16 hours, but rose quickly after increasing temp to 70s). I increased the amount of levain to 14% and proofed between 75 and 80F, (almost 3x volume after 10 hours). I'm using the same high protein bread flour (13.3%) throughout this. I think the only other option I have left to try would be a bulk ferment in the 80-85F range.
Does anyone have a suggestion of what the issue might be or how to address this? Do I need to look at creating a new starter, or just trying a different recipe?
Thanks for any suggestions!
I think the problem is that you are letting the dough rise TOO much in bulk fermentation. With commercial yeast, it's normal that the dough will blow up to 2-3 X the original volume, but with pure levain, you are playing a slightly more dangerous game. The yeasts will keep working and keep adding air into the dough, but at the same time you will have a lot of acidifying bacteria working as well ; this is less so with a dough that has some commercial yeast added, since the yeast are clearly doing the bulk of the work (no pun intended) while the bacteria are more of a side project. In pure levain breads, it's more equalized.
I would not let the dough do much more than double in volume during the bulk ferment if you are using only a little bit of levain. I use about the same dose of levain and I let my dough get about 1.5 - 2 X bigger before shaping.
...they all function within much the the same pH range and proportion of yeast to LB, especially a mature one like yours. It's not the amount of starter either (just see how many recipes there are here on TFL for 321 sourdoughs and yours is a lot lower proportion).
The cottage cheese texture is the giveaway (I must remember to use that description in baking workshops, thanks), Like lepainSamic says, you're over-fermenting. I don't own FSWY, but I'm willing to be that hidden away somewhere in there Ken Forkish says not to rely upon volume doubling as the sole indicator of fermentation. I know he makes a big deal of it in his videos and it's better to go by volume than timings, but it can be unreliable. All that has happened is that you're attempting a new recipe; something that's tricky for all of us. Don't forget FSWY was written assuming conditions that might not match your own. If you keep going you'll get it right. Maybe try really hard to maintain the dough within the temperatures KF specifies? Also try shortening the cold retard, at least until you get a good idea of how the dough is responding? It also might simply be that you need to adjust hydration to suit your own flour (it can vary a lot between flours, even those with matching protein percentages).
In case you don't know, over-fermenting is not ideal but the dough can recover. The yeast has not died just become exhausted. Unless your working at very high hydration levels, you don't need extra flour, just rework the dough lightly until you get some good gluten development (a few stretch-and-folds with rests in-between should do it) then shape and prove. However, the final rise will take longer, so watch it with care.
If you search on FWSY on this site, you'll find all kinds of comments and advice on adjusting both the bulk ferment and final proofing times for this bread. Most people (myself included) have reduced the room temperature ferment and proof times and ended up with much better results. I don't think the original instructions to let the dough volume triple work very well for most people, so doubling seems to be sufficient. Watch the final proof and make a note of when this dough is ready for you to bake.
Thanks for all the comments everyone. I had tried to stick to the temperature/volume ranges in the book, but after that failed the first few times I started to experiment. Next time I'll try with adjusting the proof time and go with a lower dough volume and see how it goes.
Also, thanks for your comment RoundhayBake on the possibility of being able to salvage the dough if this happens again. I had tried to work with it after last nights failure but there was no bringing it back directly, but I didn't try adding much additional flour. Hopefully it will work next time and I won't have to experiment on that option!
What you're describing sounds like proteolytic dough to me. While I agree that letting the dough double or triple in volume during the bulk is unnecessary, a healthy dough should be able to double or triple without breaking down to cottage cheese.
Proteolytic dough is usually caused by a proteolytic starter, and proteolytic starter is usually caused by underfeeding. Anytime your dough begins to break down, degrade or dissolve, the first place you should look to is your starter health (assuming reasonable fermentation times/temps for the dough, of course).
So the question becomes how are you maintaining your starter?
Trevor
I had pretty much the same experience you had. Although I had baked a few loafs before I bought FWSY, the Pain De Campagne recipe gave me my first loaf with really good oven rise. I was very pleased with it, but when I tried a pure levain recipe from the book I had my greatest failure in baking. It turned out to be an inedible pancake with almost no rise, and I had to just throw it out.
I investigated further when I bought the book "Tartine Bread". The basic country bread recipe in that book is similar to Forkish's pure levain recipe in all respects except one: the time suggested for bulk fermentation is far less than what Forkish recommends.
Of course you should always go by what your dough is doing rather than the recipe when it comes to fermentation times, but for beginners like me without the experience to trust our sense of how far the fermentation has progressed, we accept the suggested time in the recipe as a guideline. But Forkish's times for the pure levain recipes seem to be waaaaaay off, I mean his times are three times greater than the correct bulk fermentation times for the loaves I've baked. His book is great but in this one respect he should really correct this if he ever has a second edition.
As to why his times for pure levain seem to diverge so greatly from most people's experience, the main theory I've heard is that perhaps his kitchen is cooler than what some of the readers have for their ambient temperature. I don't buy this (at least not entirely) for two reasons. First of all, I don't find his recipes for commercial yeast or the hybrid recipes to be off in the bulk fermentation times. (Some have found his times in general to be too long but I haven't had that experience). Second, I don't think a temperature difference is enough to account for the discrepancy. Unless his kitchen is as cold as a refrigerator, I don't think it could account for stretching the bulk fermentation time out from four hours (which is about the max for me) to twelve or fourteen hours.
My theory is that the difference is due to the levain. For the recipes that use commercial yeast, he is using the same yeast we are. For recipes that are pure levain, he is using a culture that might be quite different from what I'm using or that you are using.
Anyway, I found success with his pure levain recipes as soon as I started having expectations of fermentation times far shorter than what he suggests (and it is NOT an overnight recipe in this case unless you stick it in the refrigerator as the Pain De Campagne recipe calls for).