Tartine Country Loaf
So after getting the Tartine book at Christmas I have been trying my hand at the basic Country Loaf lately. Unfortunately after what I felt was a promising beginning things have not been going to plan. In 4 attempts at least one of the loafs has exploded out of the bottom during baking. Yesterdays attempt saw both loaves explode. I am hoping for some help in figuring out where it is I am going wrong please.
I am using a slightly altered version of the country loaf recipe. I am using an all white flour 100% hydration starter.
For my leaven I discard the majority of my starter and feed it 200g flour and 200g water the night before. I did this last thing before I left work on Friday, mixing the dough first thing Saturday when I get in. This gives the leaven 10-11 hours time to rise. I have found that the leaven has nearly doubled in size by the time I get to mix the dough. In Tartine I know it mentions to expect roughly a 20% increase but I guess my first question is does it matter if the leaven is extremely active? It obviously passes the float test with flying colours.
I then mix the following
700g Water
200g leaven
900g T55 or Strong White Flour
100g Fine Rye Flour
into a dough.
After 40 minutes rest I add 35g Salt and 50g Water. Upping the salt slightly from the original recipe.
I then transfer the dough into a plastic container where I allowed the dough to bulk ferment for approximately 6 hours stretching and folding every 30 minutes for the first two hours then every hour thereafter. The reason for the 6 hours is that my climate is deinitely a little cooler than SF so I have been giving it some extra time.
After the 6 hours bulk ferment I split the dough and perform the initial shaping per the guidelines laid out in the book. I fold the dough so as to reseal the cut and round it with the seal on the bottom by pulling and turning the dough towards me. At this point I was pretty happy with the dough it was nice and plump and holding its shape well.
After a 30 minute bench rest I reshaped the dough and transferred it to bread baskets for the final rise. I stored the doughs in the fridge overnight for approximately 14 hours.
Baking - I don't have access to Dutch Ovens at home or in work, at home I have a gas oven ( I am yet to check but I am pretty sure it is not capable of breaking 400F. As such I have opted to do all my baking in work. Without a dutch oven I have been using upturned heavy metal trays which I leave in the oven as it preheats to 480F. To try and generate steam in the oven I put a small tray of soaked tee towels in the bottom of the oven. Just before I set the oven to preheat I took the doughs out of the refrigerator so as to come to room temperature.
When I put the loaves into the oven I poured one litre of water onto the bottom of the oven to generate some extra steam. I also have a spray gun with which I spray some extra water in after 10 minutes. For timings I do 20 minutes at 480f (250C) followed by 20-30 minutes at 430F (220C). The resulting loaves split at the bottom and formed a very uneven crumb which was relatively denser on the bottom with large air pockets at the top.
The below pictures show the resulting loafs. Unfortunately as a relative newbie I am not sure where I am exactly going wrong I feel like possible trouble areas might be:
1. Steam - I am not getting enough steam into the oven to allow the bread to get the correct oven spring upwards
2. Scoring - I am not scoring deep enough to allow the loaves to open correctly. I am currently using a stanley knife to score the bread but plan to use a full razor blade to score my next batch.
3. Shaping - I may be making a mistake in either of the shapings or the stretch and folds which is creating a weakness beneath the surface of my dough and leads to this tumurous like bulge.
All feedback welcomed!
when I look at your crust and crumb. Scoring might be your issue so I suggest that you bake your loaves seam side up and don't score them. The loaves will split at the natural seams at the top of the loaves and create a very organic look. I bake most of my loaves this way.
I know that others will weigh in but in the meantime, try baking seam side up.
Thanks! To go seam side up do you shape it seam side up and then allow it to prove in the baskets seam side down?
Just shape it the way you normally do and when you flip it over to do tension pulls, you leave it that way (seam side down) when popping it into the baskets. When your loaf is proofed, you can tip it out directly into your pot or, what I do is tip it out on the counter sprinkled with cornmeal. Then I pick it up, seam side up, and gently and carefully lower it into my pot.
Because of the scoring issue, there was a blowout, lol, a week spot where the gases had to escape b/c the scoring was imperfect. I find scoring to be very very hard.
hester
Ye I don't think I'm scoring near to deep enough but that may be wrong.
Any tips? I had been trying to do different patterns but I might just do the 'traditional' square score and see how that turns out. Also interested to see how dannis no scoring method works out so I will probably do a few loaves that way also
is right. For me, I didn't solve the problem until I covered the loaves for the first 12 - 15 minutes and scored better, at a 30 degree angle to the top of the loaf. My issue was that the scores were closing up too quickly in the very hot oven. I couldn't generate enough steam w lava rocks and boiling water. I eventually started using a cloche, which I prefer to a dutch oven. My breads turn out much better now using one of these: http://sassafrasstore.com/superstone-la-cloche/
It is an insufficient steam issue. I've seen it enough times. 100% certain. At home where I don't have a steamer, I bake on a stone with am inverted metal bowl over the loaf.
I have a stone at home but unfortunately the oven available here is useless. I'm using heavy metal trays as a substitue in work however a lot of these are a little bent so I'm not sure if I cover the loaves with bowls that they'll properly seal in the steam from the loaf. I will try that this week though when I get back into work thanks :).
I had thought if I uses the wet tea towel, water on bottom of oven and spray gun that it should be generating ennough steam :/
Scoring can be a significant problem for a couple of reasons that I've worked through. My main sourdough is a variation of David Snyder's San Joaquin recipe. The final rise for 500g batards is in a linen couche that is dusted with flour. I was using a mixture of rice and AP flour and things were OK and when I ran out of the mix and prepared a new one, I was getting blow out almost every time. I can only figure that I had too much AP flour in the mix. I've moved back to using just rice flower and have had no problems. With respect to depth of scoring, I've found that it needs to be slightly more than 1/4 inch. Less than that and blowouts are common. Following the two rules above my success rate at avoiding blow outs is >95%.
I have an electric oven with a convection feature and use the towel method for creating steam. It works quite well. I bake on a 1/4 inch steel with the towel pan beneath it. All ovens have to vent otherwise you would get pressure build up. My KitchenAid vents but it's pretty low unless the convection feature is turned on where one gets more venting because of the fan. Here is what works for me: 1) pre-heat the oven to 500F for 30 minutes using convection setting; 2) turn to bake mode at 500F and place the soaked & heated towel tray in the oven for 5 minutes; load the loaves (I do 2 500g batards at a time) and lower heat to 460F in the bake mode (no convection) and add 3/4 cup of very hot water to the towel tray; 3) after 15 minutes, remove the towel tray and turn the convection mode on at 420F and bake an additional 15 minutes until the bread is done. You will need to check the oven temperature to make sure it is accurate and also the internal temperature of the bread after baking to make sure the second 15 minute bake is correct. If not, adjust appropriately.