My sourdough has lost its mojo
I baked bread for the first time in over a month. I was busy baking cakes, bars, and mochi for various social gatherings and for a retreat at my Zen center.
Aagh! Two failure-to-rise loaves. I had disregarded the scribbled note at the bottom of my printed out recipe (kept in a binder near the stove) that tells me to add 2-1/4 teaspoons instant dry yeast to the autolyzed flour+water, along with the sourdough starter and the salt. I had adopted that crutch earlier, after another run of flattish loaves. It worked. Everyone loved the bread. Great crumb.
OK, lesson learned. I modified the recipe file, to add the dry yeast to the dough with the starter and salt. Also to add all the other refinements that were scribbled all over the old recipe. No more scribbles.
I wish I knew why my starter won't raise the bread and open the crumb. It used to do so.
I wish I knew what to do with the failed bread. I don't need any more bread crumbs. I wonder if it would work in strata or bread pudding, even though dense. It's edible.
how you keep your starter and how you get it ready for making bread.
And yes, you can use dense bread for bread pudding. I am making bread pudding right now with a spiced cranberry raisin loaf that got forgotten in the freezer. It had dried out quite a bit when I thawed it so bread pudding it is!
The starter was a month old. 70%, kept in refrigerator in a plastic tub with an airhole in the top. I scraped off the dry top and used much of the remainder. Then I refreshed the starter.
But I do not think it was the age of the starter. I had this flat loaf problem earlier, with fresher starter.
The dough did not rise in the refrigerator when retarded overnight. Perhaps three stretch-and-folds at 20 minutes each and a 1 hour bulk ferment used up all the oomph in the starter? Perhaps degassing after the bulk ferment takes out too much air? Perhaps it's the fact that I'm in the tropics? We think it's cold when it goes down to 70 F.
Or perhaps my starter (which has been going for many years) has been invaded by some stray yeastie that doesn't produce much gas? The starter was from Friends of Carl, who are propagating a starter that dates from 1850 or so, when it came over the Oregon Trail. They send it out in packets, dried.
you used? I have changed my procedure over the last year or so and I am getting way more consistent results. If it is an old technique, I can give you the new one.
As to your starter, did it rise when you refreshed it? Was it full of bubbles when to went to add it to the dough?
Danni bread
Makes two loaves.
900 g bread flour (or bread flour + ww flour)
580 g water
Autolyze for several hours.
300 g 70% starter
18 g salt
2-1/4 teaspoons instant dry yeast
Mix. Do three stretch-and-folds at 20 minute intervals.
Let rise for one hour.
Cut dough in half. Each piece should be 899 g or less. Make sure that they are approximately the same weight. Flatten, roll up, and form into loaves. Put loaves into bannetons (or equivalents). Cover with large plastic bags, closed with clothespins. Retard overnight in refrigerator.
Next day, heat oven to 325 F. Put two Dutch ovens into oven to heat. When oven is ready, put loaves into pans and slash. Add lids.
Bake 28 minutes with lids; 19 minutes without lids.
Cool on racks; wait 30 minutes to cut. Better to wait until loaves are cool, but who can wait?
So lets see what I can do with what you have there. Try this:
900 g bread flour
70 g wholewheat flour
650 g water
18 g salt
185 g of 100% hydration starter (procedure in recipe)
The morning before:
1. Take 13 g of your starter and feed it 13 g of water and 13 g of your wholewheat flour. Let rise all day at about 73 F.
The night before:
1. Add 26 g of water and 26 g of wholewheat flour to the levain you started in the morning. Let rise all night at about 73 F.
Dough making day:
1. Feed the levain 52 g of water and 52 g of bread flour. Put in a warm place like your oven with the light on for about 5 hours. It should come close to doubling and through the wall of the container if you use a clear container, you should see lots and lots of bubbles. It will probably also bubble on top.
2. Three hours after you fed your levain, mix the 650 g of water with the 900 g of bread flour and 70 g of wholewheat flour. Cover and let sit for 2 hours.
3. Once the two hours are up, mix your levain and your salt with the dough. Once everything is well mixed, let sit for 30 minutes.
4. If you have a mixer, put it on at low speed (Level 2 for a kitchenmaid) and mix for 5 minutes. Then go on to step 6.
5. If you don't have a mixer, then take the dough out of the container you have it in, and do 70 slaps and folds on the counter. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes. Do another 40 slaps and folds, cover and let rest another 30 minutes. Then do a final 10 slap and folds and put back in your bowl.
6. Let rest 30 minutes and do stretches and folds every 30 minutes until you can see small irregular bubbles through the walls of your container. This usually takes about 4 and half hours for me in a warm place such as the oven with the light on. Be gentle when doing your folds near the end. You don't want to squish all the air out of the dough. The dough should not have risen very much
7. Put your dough in the fridge and forget it for 2 to 3 hours. At the end of this, the dough should have risen anywhere from 20 to 50%. It will be much easier to handle when it is cold.
8. Take the dough out of the fridge, and take your dough of of the container. Sprinkle the top with flour and divide into two portions of ~900 g. Round out the portions into rounds with a dough scraper and let rest one hour on the counter.
9. Do a final shape by flouring the rounds and flipping the rounds over on a lightly floured counter. Gently stretch the dough out into a circle. Pull and fold the third of the dough closest to you over the middle. Pull the right side and fold over the middle and do the same to the left. Fold the top end to the center patting out any cavities. Finally stretch the two top corners and fold over each other in the middle. Roll the bottom of the dough away from you until the seam is underneath the dough. Cup your hands around the dough and pull towards you, doing this on all sides of the dough to round it off. Finally spin the dough to make a nice right boule.
10. Sprinkle rice flour in the bannetons. Place the dough seam side down in the bannetons, cover, let rest for a few minutes on the counter and then put to bed in a cold (38F) fridge for 9-10 hours.
Baking Day
1. The next morning, heat the oven to 475F with the Dutch ovens inside for 45 minutes to an hour. Turn out the dough seam side up onto a cornmeal sprinkled counter. Place rounds of parchment paper in the bottom of the pots, and carefully place the dough seam side up inside.
2. Cover the pots and bake the loaves at 450 F for 30 minutes, remove the lids, drop the temperature to 425F, and bake for another 17 minutes. Internal temperature should be 205F or more.
Its quite a long process but this should give you the rise you are looking for if you follow the steps exactly as written.
My sourdough starter expands, but does not bubble.
It won't go up to 475 F. It will go to 325 F. I have adapted by cooking things longer, though this affects the texture. I made a pie again and the crust was good, but not flaky.