Please help with Tartine Style Loaf
Hello,
In years past I baked the basic country loaf recipe out of Tartine Bread with great success many times. After about five years, I'm back at it in a new home and haven't had much success in my first few tries. The loaves haven't had great spring and I'm not sure what's going on. Perhaps the leaven? I feed it twice a day, one spoonful of leaven, 50g AP flour, 50g room temp water. This was my latest attempt:
PM 1 mix leaven: 1 TBS, 200g AP flour 200g 80 degree water
AM Day Two, Leaven did not smell sour, wasn't very bubbly, but had been 10+ hours.
Autolyse 650g Wit Wilkerkorn Soft White Flour 350g Hard Red Wheat Flour
800g 80 degree water
Rest 40 min. Add leaven, 20g salt, 50g water.
4 hours bulk fermentation, dough felt very warm, 5 stretch and folds every 30 mins first 2.5hrs because it was tacky and didn't feel strong.
30min bench rest, loaves spread a little but they were pretty wet.
Shaping, 4 hours final rest in bannetons at room temp. Poke test bounced back only a little, perhaps I overproofed?
Bake at 500/30 450/30 in Combo Cooker Cast Iron.
Hi Josh. It sounds like your starter might have been too old? To test if your leaven is ready to be used, you drop a spoonful of it in water and if it floats you're good to go. A strong (young) starter should smell sweet and be bubbly. I feed mine twice a day, and I usually use my leaven when it's 5-6 hours old at about 76F (it's more than doubled in size at that point, smells sweet and is bubbly). How much starter did you use? Also, if your dough felt warm, you might have over-proofed it as well. You can take the temperature of the dough after each fold (it should be between 75-80F) and if it's on the warmer side, it'll proof faster so you'll want to fold more often and shorten the bulk fermentation. Welcome back to bread-baking, I hope you're happier with your next loaf!