February 26, 2019 - 9:13pm
My first white sourdough loaf.
Hi everyone! I have started getting serious about home baking recently and have been following this forum on and off. So I thought why not get some valuable critique on my latest bake.
This is a somewhat improvised loaf.
- 77% hydration
- ~12% levain
- 75F FDT and ~12h bulk fermentation
- 13h proof in fridge (didn’t plan and had to go work ?)
- 45 minutes bench rest
- baked in 475F with dutch oven
Since I’m relatively new with levain builds, I’d like to know if the result shows any hint of over-proofing, or areas that can be improved upon!
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Lovely bake. It's your first loaf and your starter clearly works. You should be proud of that.
Now for some analysing...
12h for 12% levain seems long and yet from the crumb alone i'd think it was under fermented. Big holes can mean shaping issues however it's a tight crumb elsewhere indicating it needed more time. Your dough timing should be more than enough for a fully active starter/levain so i'm thinking you need to look at your starter.
Thinking back, you might be right about under-fermentation. I submit that my kitchen is slightly colder, averaging around 65F. After 12 hours of bulk ferment, the dough probably didn't to double in volume (had to shape and retard the proofing in fridge before heading into work)
How old is your starter?
The starter is only 12 days old, I followed a scaled down version of FWSY levain recipe. I had to pause the feeding for a few days before reviving it over the course of 3 days before using it in this recipe.
How quickly does it take to peak?
Probably missed this point, as I came back to an active starter and used it to start this bake.
What is your maintenance schedule?
1 feeding every 24H using a scaled FWSY recipe
Did you wait for your levain to be mature enough?
I'm guessing probably not, hope with continued use of the levain this will solve itself!
12 days is still young but performing very well considering and it'll get stronger in the next few weeks.
If your starter can mature in warm temps, 76-78F, within 6-8 hours that's a good indicator it's strong and firing on all cylinders.
Perhaps you need to start a 12 hourly feeding schedule now it's viable. If you wish to keep to once every 24 hours then you need to think about dropping the inoculation %, and/or hydration, or refrigerating once peaked to re-feed again 24 hours after the last feeding.
Once viable good feeds help strengthen a starter.
My most recent bake turned out much better than the previous. Unfortunately, I don’t have such a warm spot in my kitchen to keep the starter. This time around I had much better control over the timings in the recipe.
All other variables were similar to the previous bake, except for the fact that this one has some whole wheat in it. The crumb turned out much more “uniform” and still airy compared to the previous. A slight mishap with the banneton meant a last minute re-shaping prior to the bake caused some traces of flour in the loaf.
Other than that, I couldn’t be more pleased with this one ?
Nice! ?
With a creative trick or two, or some money spent, you can find (or add) a warm spot in your kitchen. However, if your kitchen is not too cold, you can often just learn to compensate for the lower heat, by increasing the time etc. It looks like you're already doing that.