Forgot Folding during Bulk Fermentation
Hello,
this is my first time making sourdough. I've used a 100% hydration starter and intended to make 3 loaves. So I used about 900g bread flour, 300g whole wheat stone ground, 24g salt (approximately, don't have the recipe sitting in front of me). My starter was refreshed/fed with 50g bread/whole wheat and water. It's about a month old and has smelled great and shows fermentation. Seems perfectly healthy to me!
Yesterday I completed the autolyse and mixed in more flour and water to start bulk fermentation. I forgot that I was supposed to fold the dough onto itself every 30-45 minutes for 3-4 hours. I've done all the steps correctly until now, and it smells nice and fragrant, has bubbles, etc. Didn't remember until near bedtime that I was meant to be folding it, so it only got one fold before bed. Left it on the top shelf in my cabinet, which is where I keep my starter and left it autolyse. Woke up this morning and started the folding process, thinking it would come together. But it isn't coming together at all! It does have some stretch but is more like a batter than a bread dough. I think I need to add more flour but haven't yet. I wanted to ask before making changes.
I'll update with a photo soon. Any advice would be helpful. I really don't want to toss it!
Allie, please reply with the exact weights of the ingredients.
I know you are in a hurry to get this figured out. Please send pictures of your dough and we’ll try to help. I’m standing by...
Danny
If no other option is available, try baking them in a pan or some sort of mold.
Hi,
I'm a little confused by what you wrote as you don't seem to mention incorporating the starter/levain at any point. After the autolyse and to start the bulk ferment, you don't add more flour and water like you said, you just add the salt and levain. Is this what you did?
Also, I don't know the temperature of the room, but generally leaving the dough out overnight would be way too long and the dough could turn into soup. A bulk ferment could take anywhere from 3 hours to 7 hours, but rarely day into the next morning like you are describing.
Maybe better bakers will be able to offer a way to save this, but I think it's likely that the dough is too far gone unfortunately.
Hello,
I followed the directions of this recipe until I forgot the folding: https://food52.com/recipes/80565-table-loaf
It begins with creating a leaven from the starter, followed by adding the remaining water, then flour for the whole recipe. Followed by a rest. Then salt for the rest of the recipe then bulk fermentation with stretch and folding. I followed this well until the folding, which I forgot.
It gets pretty cold here at night, especially since it's heading into fall. And I have left my starter in the same place as the dough since I made it, so I assumed it would be fine as the starter is healthy.
So why would the dough turn to soup? I'm curious, and thanks for your help!
Hello,
I decided to add more flour and did some more stretching and folding. it is coming together some but it still doesn't look like a dough. I think I am going to try moving it to a floured surface and doing some more folding and adding flour to see if it develops any. If not I might toss it. I think I made this mistake (though I am not sure what mistake it is yet!) with some pizza dough. The pizza dough is edible and reeeeally flavorful, but very dense, no nice bubbles.
Allie when you enlarge the formula (to bake 3 breads) you made some miscalculations. Since I don’t know how much water you added, I am unable to calculate the hydration. The flour ratios are off. Not figuring in the flour in the levain, Sarah calls for 33% whole grain and you mixed ~26%. With bread small things can make a big difference.
If you want to bake this recipe/formula again, let me know how much you want the total dough to weigh and I send you the weights of each ingredient.
Sarah’s formula looks very nice. Here hydration is just shy of 79%, which is good for that much whole grain.
Are you aware that whole grain makes the bread more difficult to bake. Most people that are new to sourdough learn with white flour first and then explore whole grain after successfully baking the first.
We learn much more from our mistakes, than we do with our success.
We are here to help. Let us know how we can...
Dan
The grams I used for the leaven are 30 active starter, 75 water and whole wheat flour.
For the rest it was 180 leaven, 900 water, 930 bread flour, 240 whole wheat flour, 24 salt.
Not sure how much I added just now with the slap and folding, but it has come together more now and I'm going to put it in the fridge and bake it off in the morning and see how it goes. I used whole wheat for this. I think I'll also stick a thermometer in the cabinet where I keep dough and starter just to see how hot it gets.
OK, the ingredients are spot on.
Good idea about the thermometer. Let us your your temp. A good way to get an accurate reading is to place a glass of water where you want to check the temp. Leave it four 4 hours or more. Overnight it s great. Then take a reading on the water.
A small variance in temp (only 3 or 4 degrees) will have an affect on the timing of your ferment.
Good luck with your breads. Please send images of the loaves and crumb, no matter how they turn out. The images should tell us something.
Danny
Slap and Folds till strength is built up in the dough then shape and straight into final proofing. Dough will probably become more loose till it strengthens up again but persevere. I've done this before and produced a lovely lace crumb with great oven spring.
I didn't forget to stretch and fold last night, but I fed my starter and forgot to make the dough until almost 9 pm. I let it autolyse and added salt after 30 minutes, stretched it and put it in the fridge overnight. I was so sure it would be over-proofed but the dough looks pretty great (it's in the oven now).