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Troubleshooting failure

SoniaR's picture
SoniaR

Troubleshooting failure

I've only been baking sourdough bread seriously for 5 months but this is by far the biggest failure I've had! It also happens to be the first time I've used my new Fibrament stone. Here's what I did:

- It's a 50% whole wheat sourdough. Total 684g flour. The dough looked and felt fine.
- Proofed overnight in the fridge. Removed from fridge at 6:15 am. The house was cold: 59 F.
- Fibrament on second to bottom rack; at 7:15 it was 515 F. Stainless bowl also preheated. Gas oven.
- On a large cutting board, with a large piece of parchment paper, I turned the banneton over, dusted off flour and slashed. The slashes opened nicely.
- I misted the dough, then slid the parchment onto the stone and covered with a large stainless bowl that did not go beyond the size of the stone. No convection.
- Baked 20 minutes. Removed bowl. (It already looked really weird and flat at this point.) Baked additional 17 minutes with convection. Thermomenter inserted in bread read 211 F.
- The crust obviously looked really weird and was soft, except from the base to about 1" up. (Perhaps where mist hadn't hit it?)
- Cut into it 2 hours later and discovered photo #2!

Just last week I made the same formula, also proofed overnight in fridge, but baked in cloche (no mist), no stone. It turned out beautiful and delicious. I'd appreciate any insight on what went wrong. I have a hunch it might have been the misting.

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

It may be overproofed combined with an improperly degassed dough. Punching down during forming pops the larger fermentation bubbles but sometimes they gang up and form "the room where the baker sleeps". Being a little overproofed will cause the bubbles to collapse during the bake yielding the rather large size cavity exhibited in your loaf. I suggest eating around the bubble...,

Wild-Yeast

nmygarden's picture
nmygarden

I can picture tiny human figures in full spelunking gear, with little helmet headlights, setting out to explore a newly discovered underground world.

What a surprise this must have been, to find the extent of the gap. Looks like the dough puffed like a pita. I bet it tastes great, regardless.

WatertownNewbie's picture
WatertownNewbie

What did you do after first mixing the dough?  Any stretch-and-folds?  What intervals?  And how long did the dough ferment before you shaped and placed it into the banneton?

I agree that overproofing looks like what occurred, but I wonder whether the dough had overfermented before the shaping, and I also wonder whether the fermentation procedure lacked stretch-and-fold sessions during which gas would have been redistributed.

Evrenbingol's picture
Evrenbingol

My bet is on underproof retarded dough. usually happens if your dough was too cold and/or your starter was not healthy. Like you have not used it for a while and you feed the starter the day before and you use that levain in your bread. I would recommend you to use 2 feeds to 3 feeds with in your first 24 hours if you are reviving a starter.  I would recommend proofing in room temp for 2-3 hours before putting it into the fridge. 
But I think itis the cold effecting your fermentation. 

ALSO MAKE SURE YOU CALCULATE YOUR DDT to 59 is way to cold to bulk. Your house is almost like a retarder. 

Calculate the DDT and shoot for 80f right before bulk starts.  There are few things you can control with bread and water temp is the most important one

SoniaR's picture
SoniaR

Thanks, everyone. After reading the various replies, I'm realizing that dough temperature is probably the cause of many of my bread baking disappointments. As for the disaster of my OP, here's more detail on how I made it:

- formula and method: Breadwerx, 50% WW Sourdough, amounts 1.5% of his.
- Day 1: late afternoon mixed to shaggy ball: flour, water (no temp adjustment; filtered from tap), salt. Put in fridge. At bedtime, put on counter.
- Day 2: I should've added starter first thing in a.m., but it hadn't peaked so I had to wait until 11:00. Starter was very active. Started stretch and folds at 12:15, did 5 ending at 4:00. Pre-shaped. Shaped. Started proofing at 4:45.
- My plan was to bake that evening but I saw not much was happening and then it got late, so I stuck it in the fridge.
- Day 3: Removed from fridge at 6:15 am. Put in 515F oven at 7:15. The rest is on my OP.

All this time, morning ambient temp in kitchen is in fact worse than the 59 I thought. It more like 55F. Daytime is a bit more, maybe 60. We like a cold house...

On the one hand, the internal cavern is an obvious failure. But also, the outer sheen and smoothness and lack of texture difference where slashes are is another. Maybe all connected. My husband thinks the misting (cold water...) created a coating that the gasses could not break through. So they popped inside and created the cavern.

Sometimes I do things to create a warmer environment. For example, for starter, I put jar in bowl of warm water. Or I turn oven on for 10 seconds, leave light on, etc. It's all a hassle and I never get consistency. Now I get why professional bakers are always in short-sleeved t-shirts.

Given all this, I agree with Evrenbingol that underproofing is probably the issue here. I had to look up what DDT meant (I am indeed at newbie!) but am now educated somewhat and will work with water temp for sure next time.

Although with this Breadwerx method, since the water was added the night before, I'm not sure it matters. I have to get room temp dough up to 80F (what Evrenbingol suggested, I think) when I start bulk fermentation and S&Fs. I guess I'll have to figure out how to do that, or get a proofer.

Filomatic's picture
Filomatic

One way or another it's from being underproofed.  Large holes with tight crumb elsewhere.

SoniaR's picture
SoniaR

The slashes that were about 1/4" deep on raw dough before misting and baking seem to have self-sealed so that no gas could escape. I'm thinking that the sealing in of the gas didn't allow a normal oven spring, but instead acted like a balloon and just puffed up the inside but didn't allow the dough on the bottom to rise. Anyway, that's the theory, all that to say that I wonder what would have prevented the slashes from opening and letting out the gas. Something about the misting?