September 5, 2018 - 6:00pm
Loafs not rising well
Hello, I am trying to make a good sandwich loaf and it is not rising well. It tastes really good though...
I would really appreciate a good tip or trick for timing, or if anyone has a good recipe I can use with my sourdough starter, I would be happy to try it.
I attached a photo of my bread, it sounds like the recipe I have been using does not have enough salt in it. It sounds like if I continue to use this recipe i need to up the salt to 17-19 gm.
For two loaves it is
800 gm strong flour (i use King Arthur bread flour)
10 gm salt
460 water
320 sourdough starter
Share
http://www.classofoods.com/page1_8.html
Some science behind salt
thanks for the link
Leslie
and I've come across some interesting points like it strengthens weak gluten. So the amount of salt, as it does have a range, can be used to influence the outcome of ones final loaf. Not just for taste. So even by staying within the guidelines and range one might say that because the flour is weak then upping the salt may be a good idea or vice versa. Also the paleness of the a loaf can be down to too little salt. Up until now the main players were starter, flour and water and salt just added in with not much thought as to why beyond flavour. Now I know it plays other rolls some fine tuning for recipes when it comes to salt percentage will be needed.
I disagree with the notion you should use salt to affect anything other than flavor; the other variables that salt affects can be changed by other means that don't affect flavor.
What do you mean "not rising well"? The crumb looks pretty good for a sandwich loaf. If you mean it's not tall enough, you may just need to increase the dough quantity for the pan you're using.
Things that might help: 1) make sure you get a windowpane after mixing. 2) after the bulk fermentation, punch down and do another one. 3) Make sure you get a tight final shaping. If the dough feels weak, then keep reshaping until it doesn't.
Yes, you need more salt.
Just looking at the photo, I would say the dough was not well developed, and it may also be over-proofed (note the dense crumb at the bottom compared to the top, and the general irregularity of the top crust). KA bread flour is plenty strong so the finished bread should have a lacy, shiny crumb. It looks like there was a double longitudinal slash, one of which either never opened for lack of oven spring, or closed up because the loaf deflated when it was slashed). So the window pane test is an essential intermediate test that you can run to see if your dough is well developed, and you would be well served to run a proofing test where you form three loaves from one batch of dough and bake them sequentially to observe the differences in the crumb from under-, properly-, and over-proofed dough.
Thank you all for the advice and feedback. I am going to keep trying with this and try avoid getting frustrated with the process. I truly want to get this figured out. I had not realized how much science is involved with bread baking, but that is what appeals to me the most. At least most of the less optimal loaves still usually taste good. My coworkers and friends seem to like it at least.
So you have to wait at least until it cools to judge it. It is my observation that a really good loaf of 100% rye will almost always be better a day or two after it was baked as the starch crystallizes and the crumb firms up.
While there is science to help explain what is going on, and you can apply science to help design a different bread, it is still the skill of the baker that makes it good and process rigor that makes it consistent.