Craters in my dough
Hello everyone, first time posting but long time viewing. I had a question about my dough and whether it is over fermented. So I seem to develop craters in my dough, at the bottom and was wondering if this is due to over-fermentation. Recipe and what I do is below.
Starter (50%) hydration (260g total)
Flour 384g (514 if my math is correct when including the starter)
Water 200g (330 total including starter) (63 to 65% hydration)
Salt 13g (2.5%)
Yeast (IDY) - A little under 1/2 a gram. My scale doesn't measure that out so I usually put in under 1/2tsp of yeast. (0.3%)
I leave the starter overnight between 16-24 hours in below room temp. Probably in the 60s. I put it in my basement where it gets pretty cold. I wait until bubbles form and it gets a little craggly.
I bulk ferment for about 8 hours in the same location as the starter in the basement where its in the 60s farenheit. Then I shape the dough balls and proof for 20 to 24 hours in the refrigerator which is at 40 degrees.
In the pictures I have two sets of dough.
The red tupperware dough I added/spiked 1gram of yeast while mixing all the ingredients together (starter, flour, water, yeast). This was the first time I've done this as an experiment. The craters on the bottom of the dough are not only more but also more defined.
The clear encased dough I didn't spike it with any extra yeast, just the <1/2g of yeast I put in the starter. There are craters but not as many.
I usually take my dough out about 4 hours prior to baking.
My question is, am I over fermenting my dough and what do the craters in the dough mean? Are they making my dough weaker and more prone to tearing?
The red tupperware may hard to see so my apologies.
This is the dough I did not add 1g of IDY to.
I added 1g of IDY to the below dough.
Is the 50% starter and 8 hours bulk ferment. I'd do 8 hours bulk ferment with 10% or less starter without any added yeast to-boot.
So even without over analysing the rest of the recipe I would think this needs a re-think.
EDIT: A picture of the finished loaf would tell us more.
Appreciate the reply. I usually use 20% starter but was experimenting with a higher starter just to see the results (guess not that good), but even with a 20% starter and every thing else in my original post being the same, I still get the craters. Not as many as the picture above but I still get them.
one would have to alter the ferment time. Once the dough is aerated and billowy then the bulk ferment is done. That aside, craters in the final dough could be anything from the ferment to the shaping.
When the photos are up then it will certainly be clearer but the recipe will need adjusting.
I took it out of the fridge and will hopefully provide a picture of the finished loaf in a couple of hours.
Let's see if I have the formula correct here. I think you mean 100% hydration starter (that is, made from a bit of mother culture with 130 grams of flour and 130 grams of water added, making the water weight 100% of the flour weight), not 50% hydration. If so, then you are correct, the finished dough is around 64% hydration.
When you say your starter has bubbles and is a 'little craggly', does that mean it has at least doubled in volume? If so it's probably nice and active and shouldn't require added yeast as a boost. But no harm in trying that anyway.
Now, that seems to be an extreme amount of starter for one loaf of bread. If it's active, and you are adding dry yeast, I'm not surprised it's a little over-fermented (and probably overproofed as well) with that amount of time, even in a cool temperature. As a comparison, I make a poolish bread that has 1/8 tsp. of dry yeast in the pre-ferment (no sourdough starter) and another 1/8 tsp in the finished dough, and it rises just fine in a shorter amount of time (about 8 hours for the poolish, overnight in the fridge for the bulk ferment and two hours for the final proof). Most of my sourdough breads have 15% to 25% levain (mother culture plus equal amounts of flour and water by weight), measuring the weight of starter against the total weight of flour. And again, my fermenting and proofing times are shorter than yours.
Lots of variables to try changing!
You are correct. 100% hydration starter. There wasn't a mother culture, it was a poolish if that makes sense. My apologies I'm still getting used to the verbage.
The starter (poolish) definitely doubled in volume. It has a lot of bubbles and some lines at the top like its close to caving in but not quite. Wish I had a picture.
Below is the result. I just put some cheese as I didn't have any sauce or mozzeralla on hand. It was a 10oz dough ball and I stretched it to 10 inches but could have probably stretched it farther considering how thick the crust turned out. I baked it at 550 degrees convection oven. I didn't let my oven heat up for a long time as I didn't have enough time so I threw it in as soon as the oven hit 550.
This is before I put the cheese on it.
This is the result.
Okay, that makes things a little more clear. So, given the amount of time and the amount of yeast (even without the sourdough starter), it's still not surprising that you got 'craters' or big gas bubbles in the dough. I'd recommend changing either the amount of yeast (go for 1/8 tsp in each of the poolish and the final dough), or the fermenting and proofing times (shorter for both).
Did you mean to make pizza all along, or did you do that because you couldn't do anything else with the dough? :) It looks like nice pizza anyway! It would have been very airy, holey and webby bread, I imagine.
I was going to make a pizza and was going to run to the store to get the ingredients but wanted to get the pictures out faster to get an idea of what I was doing wrong. :-)
I will definitely heed your advice (I'll go with a 10% poolish and adjust the fermentation time and yeast accordingly.
Hopefully I'll post future results soon.
I really appreciate taking your time to answer my questions.
I think based on the finished product and temperatures listed, it all looks normal. 50% is high. But 8 hrs at 65 for a bulk is about right, and pizza in the fridge is good for at least a full day Because it is so small and gets cold so fast.