My sourdough looks like shit! Help please!
Hi all
I am new to sourdough, just started my starter 2 weeks back and it's going strong.
The problem that I have is with the bread itself. I hope that I can get some guidance as to what the issue is.
My first time, it was way too sour. I used a 1:2:3 ratio (starter:water:dough). My guess is that the amount of starter was too much, which resulted in a very sour dough.
This time, I followed the Tartine bread recipe strictly.
1/4 tablespoon of starter with 50g of water and 50g of plain flour. I believe this is the leaven. Leave overnight.
Next morning (10 hours later), I discarded all but 60g of starter and added 175g of water. I dissolved the starter in the water and added 250g of flour. Just a light mixing and left it to rest for 30 min.
After resting, I added 5g of salt and 12.5g of water to the dough. Squish it up, light mixing, and then covered.
Every 30 mins, I did 4 folds. I did this 5 times. Then i left it for 1 hour. So total bulk fermentation time = 3.5 hours.
Then I did shaping. Threw it in the bowl (I do not have a proofing basket) and let it second rise for 3 hours.
Then I threw it into the oven at 450 F in a dutch oven. After 20 mins, I removed the dutch oven cover.
What came out looked like crap!! Any idea what the issue is? Overproofing?
Also, the dough was super wet the whole time so maybe I gotta lower the amount of water in the future.
FYI I live in an area that's high humidity and that's constantly about 80 - 86 F or 29 - 30 degrees C. This makes me wonder if I should reduce the rising time since the temperature here is much higher.
Scatological references are NOT appropriate for this site! Please refrain from such language.
Your water was 77%, baker's percentage. This might be a little high. The loaf looked to be under baked. The internal temperature should be about 195°F (91°C).
Ford
Get your cast iron good and hot. I preheat the oven with the Dutch oven inside. When it hits 450, waiting another 5 minutes doesn’t hurt. Then transfer your dough carefully and gently into the raging hot cast iron. You could try a banneton for proofing. If the dough is sufficiently proofed, it will be difficult to handle without smooshing. I hold the banneton in one hand, the hot cast iron in another. Put the pan upside down on top of the banneton, then flip them both over over together smoothly to gently transfer proofed boule into raging hot iron. Wear a good oven mitt. And don’t worry much about the fine details of starter feeding. As long as some old starter comes out and new flour goes in daily, the starter should function just fine. I can’t imagine the tedium of precisely measuring each time the starter gets a feed.
ps-it’s always interesting to find out who the language police are. Every one of us has the ability to ignore anything we want and read what we want, but some people can’t handle that and can’t handle allowing others to handle it either.
just started my starter 2 weeks back and it's going strong.
I've seen the definition of "going strong" vary quite a bit. When you feed, how long until it doubles in size, and does it ever triple or quadruple in size?
"My first time, it was way too sour. I used a 1:2:3 ratio (starter:water:dough)."
Doesn't sound like it was as sour as my first sourdough loaf. I got clever and thought I'd use a bunch of discarded starter/levain and put closer to 1:1 starter:dough.
You're doing a lot of "throwing."
"Then I did shaping. Threw it in the bowl (I do not have a proofing basket) and let it second rise for 3 hours."
When you removed it from the bowl, how much degassing took place? I'm guessing a lot. Did it do a lot of sticking to the bowl?
"Then I threw it into the oven at 450 F in a dutch oven. After 20 mins, I removed the dutch oven cover."
Then what? Did it spend just 20 minutes in the oven? It isn't clear exactly how long this was baked.
"Any idea what the issue is? Overproofing?"
I think I over-proofed my last loaves since they had more than quadrupled in size during bulk fermentation and I probably waited as long as someone in much cooler temperatures.
1:2:3 starter:water:flour should produce a lovely loaf and it's one of the most popular formulas. The problem isn't in the recipe.
From the photos though, although it's not much to go on, it seems like your starter didn't have much activity within the dough.
you want to bake it for 20 minutes under the lid at 450 F with a preheated DO and then take the lid off and bake for 5 minutes more to set the crust then take it out of the DO and finish baking it on the oven rack at 425 F convection. Bake till it hits 208 F on the inside but even 210 F is fine. 205 F is bat too low but if you let it sit overnight before cutting it might be OK. First time baking can be stressful and upsetting when it doesn't end up as one would like. But it is only bread that costs a buck to make, hardly a worthy thing to worry about and we will help you get it fixed so that you will be as proud of your loaves as we are of ours - no worries. Ford straightened you out on your language now we will straighten out your bread baking.
\Happy baking