Why does my bread come out like this?
Hi,
first post in this forum. I hope someone here can help me figure out what's wrong with my bread.
I used to bake beautiful bread, but I stopped baking during the summer because I didn't want to
turn on the oven while it was too warm already in our flat.
About two months ago I revived my sleeping starter and haven't been able to bake a single loaf
that I wanted to eat. They all come out gummy and dense, don't have much oven spring and the
crust is uneven and soft.
The recipe for this bread (2 loaves) was:
100g whole rye
100g whole wheat
300g wheat Typ 550 (the "normal white flour" in Germany)
400g wheat Typ 1050 (a bit "stronger" wheat flour)
200g mature levain
21g salt
680g water (i.e. 78% hydration)
I did a 30 min autolyse, mixed for 5 minutes, and then did a bulk fermentation for 10 hours at 19C/66F. During the first three hours I did three stretch & folds. After shaping I placed the bread in the fridge and baked it the next morning. Even after 10 hours of bulk fermentation, I still have a feeling that the dough is underfermented. It was really easy to handle and did not spread at all.
Is this normal? Should I leave it out even longer? Or might there be a problem with my starter? It is reasonably active, I did a 1:1:1 feeding (half white wheat, half white rye) and it doubled in about five hours. The next time I will scale down the recipe and bake only a single loaf because I cannot fit more croutons into the freezer ...
There may be other factors, but it is with near certainty that a major contributor to this crumb structure and oven spring results from under proofing the dough. It is pretty difficult to over proof, so be patient and look for sings of good activity, big bubbles and inflated dough are two.
Thanks for that general answer. I’m new to sourdough and have never heard anyone say it’s hard to overproof, and having only baked a few loaves so far, and some of them with pretty long proofs, they are more dense than I expect, but I’m always scared to overproof, but haven’t ever seen what an overproof loaf looks like. So I had kinda been naturally coming to that same conclusion on my own, but to hear someone else say so really is reassuring.
Whenever my bread didn't come out right I wondered whether I had overproofed or underproofed the dough. The symptoms seem to overlap sometimes, but after seeing today what a properly proofed dough looks like, I can say that all my failures up to this point were due to underproofing the dough. I don't think I will make that mistake again, because the look and feel of the dough was completely different to what I was used to.
That is a long bulk ferment to get an underproofed dough! I would suspect your starter is not fully active. Does it at least double in the jar in less than four hours before using it in the dough?
My starter doubles in < 5h at 19C/66F. The starter was not the problem, I baked again today (see post below) and extended the bulk fermentation, and the bread came out great.
Knowing that my bread was indeed underproofed, I was determined to give the next one the time it needed. So I mixed a dough (50g whole rye, 50g whole wheat, 350g wheat Typ 812, 100g levain, 10g salt, 340g water), applied three stretch and folds, and did the only thing I could do to make sure I would leave the dough the heck alone: I went to bed.
This morning the dough had risen considerably, so I was confident that I was on the right track. I preshaped it and shaped it 30 minutes after that and let it proof at room temperature (19C) for an hour.
The difference is night and day. I am really happy with this one, and the best thing is that I have seen what my dough _should_ look like when it's fully fermented, so chances are there are many tasty loaves of bread in my future.
Overall this bread was fermented for 11 hours at 19C / 66F (BF for the one in the original post was 9, not 10 hours as I had written before).
ElHefe,
First of all, congrats on getting a nicely fermented sourdough loaf. It looks delicious. Here is a nice reference on what to expect for fermentation time given a temperature and initial inoculation. Your inoculation was about 10% (50 gm of flour in starter divided by 500 gm flour in dough x 100 to give percent). The closest table entry for temperature is 65 degrees which shows about 12 hrs (or so) for total fermentation time, bulk plus final proof. Obviously you need to make little adjustments based on other factors ( how much salt, other ingredients like sugar or fat, hydration etc). But I find this table is a great way to set expectations based on the weather in my kitchen and also adjust the timing by raising inoculation in winter or lowering in summer to fit around my schedule.
http://www.wraithnj.com/breadpics/rise_time_table/bread_model_bwraith.htm
enjoy many great loaves of bread!
Thank you for the link, I am aware of the table but I think my starter might be a bit slower. In the table it says that at 10% inoculation the bulk fermentation should take 10.13 hours. In my case it was a little bit warmer, and the dough also needed a bit longer. But I will look at the table again for my next bakes.
One thing that I find curious is the proofing time given there. E.g., it says that at 50F, the loaves should proof for 19.12 hours. But there are so many recipes that recommend proofing over night in the fridge, for a much shorter time, at a much lower temperature.
I think the overnight proofs in the fridge work faster because the dough starts at room temp and isn’t down to refrigerator temperature for hours.
Also, you certainly are right about some levains being slower or faster - who knows the actual density of yeast cells in a particular one or the exact pH conditions? Home bakers don’t have the lab equipment to determine. I think of the table as a rough guide and I’ve found it a pretty good ‘first guess’ on fermentation times. Helpful for planning when to return from an outing or when to wake up.
I have never had much luck with a long cool bulk ferment. My normal is 5 hours at room temp. Amazing difference in just a few hours time.
Happy baking