The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Hello and advice sought!

Kat__'s picture
Kat__

Hello and advice sought!

Hello fellow bread enthusiasts!

New to the site but have been baking SD on-off for the last year. Really getting into it and would love some advice on what is going on with my loaves!

My results vary massively and general issue I am having is a dense crumb and poor oven spring (i.e. The usual!). Would love some advice on the following loaves (2x) which is a good example of my general process:

RT = 26c

Loaf is 800g w/ 75% white, 15% wholegrain and 10% rye - all stoneground and organic. Hydration at roughly 77%.

Levain build 12.5hr prior to adding to dough. Was built with cold water and still floated but  had fallen quite a bit - over-fermented?

45min autolyse flour/filtered water (temp = 27c). Added levain (at 10% total dough weight) & mixed with stretch&fold for 8min. Dough was not very smooth but I left it at this. 30min later added salt at 1% total dough weight) and mixed as above for 4min. Folded 5x every 30min then left until end of bulk ferment. Bulk ferment = 4.25hr at which point almost double in size and bubbly. DT ~25c. Pre-shaped (folded like an envelope then tightened into a ball by dragging), left covered for 25min then shaped. I tried two different shaping techniques - one looser, one tighter. Generally as per Tartine videos. Placed in lightly floured banneton and left at RT for 45min then refrigerated at 3c for 13.5hrs. 

Held shape together very well before scoring. Scored with slash which I went over a little but was generally quite shallow. Baked at 250c in DO with lid for 28min, then lid off and oven down to 230c for about 15min.

Im not entirely sure where I went wrong to get such minimal rise - possibly over-fermented levain, over-proved, under-mixed dough? Should I tighten my shaping? I wonder if the temperature is too high (I'm in Australia)? I'm frustrated with inconsistency as sometimes following a similar process yields me much nicer loaves!

Any thoughts welcome!! Thank you!! Note the bread also looks very flat as it has been squashed around a bit but hopefully you get the idea :)


Kat
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joc1954's picture
joc1954

Kat, I would say that your dough is over proofed. Bulk fermentation at your room temperature for over 4 hours and then leaving shaped loaf for 45 minutes at same RT before retarding is probably too much. What you can experiment with is: shorten bulk fermentation for one hour, retard immediate after final shape and then check the dough after few hours. It might be proofed enough to go straight to oven only after 6 hours. 

You can slightly lover the hydration to 73-75% if your dough spreads when you tip it to the DO.

I am sure other much more experienced TFL members will give you good suggestions as well.

Happy baking,  Kat

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

Over fermented dough than levain. If you don't catch it when it has peaked it doesn't mean it's run out of food. It just means it's not strong enough to hold the gas. A levain, normally, being liquid will begin to fall after doubled - tripled but will carry on fermenting. Going an hour or two over doesn't mean it can't act like a levain anymore.

Your recipe looks pretty sound and Joze has given some good ideas.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

is well under 1% and lack of enough salt to control the fermentation will lead to varying results.  Try at least 1% on the dough flour weight.  Salt tightens gluten and protein bonds in the matrix making them more resistant to the decomposing effects of fermentation.  If you're after low salt loaves then try to make the loaves smaller (or use a bread pan) and shorten bulk fermentation times.

The crumb shot looks pretty good, even browning, even crumb and the scoring spread shows it did spring, only more out than up which brings makes me ask, did it spread at scoring or later in the oven?  With dough this fermented, and I bet it was very wobbly, I might have made the choice not to score.