Dough extremly hard to handle
Hello!
Today I tried my hand at making some sourdough bread.
I used 790g of bread flour, 660g of water and 150g of starter (100% hydration).
This is the recipe, though I changed because I feared it was a bit too much dough for my bowl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJpIzr2sCDE&t=
After the autolyse I combined the starter and the dough and tried to knead or rather slap and fold the dough as instructed in the recipe, which was very difficult. The dough kept sticking to the surface.
Fast forward 25 mins, I tried to slap-and-fold it again. It sticked a bit less after about 10 minutes. The thing is, I was supposed to work the dough for only about 3 minutes each time, but it was way too hard to handle. The dough in the recipe video looked easier to work with, while my dough seemed way wetter and stickier.
After the bulk rise it was impossible to shape and I learned that I couldn´t even dream of flipping the dough because it kept sticking to the surface. It was just way too sticky.
Can anyone help me with this?
I´ve had this problem before, but I assumed it was because I only used whole wheat flour the first time I tried this, which absorbs more water than regular flour.
Hi Cloud,
So that recipe is a 83.5% hydration, which is really high. It is going to be sticky and at that hydration it is a lot about technique and paying attention to your dough. It is really easy to not develop enough strength, really easy to over handle and deflate it. I can see from your posts that you are starting out. If I were in your position, I'd find a couple recipes on here with a lower hydration (maybe 70 or so) and focus in on that and work on your technique and get a good feel for how the dough is supposed to be and then work up from there. I've been baking for over 20 years and I've found that I can get a big open crumb with at 65% hydration as well as a 85% hydration but it sure is a lot easier to not screw up the 65% hydration.
To address your concern directly, it could have been you didn't develop the bread enough, it could have been your temperature and his temperature is different when proofing which caused problems in the development of the loaf according to his calculated time in his recipe. There are a lot of factors to control that you can get obsessed about to bake the "perfect loaf" but I find it is much more satisfying to learn how the dough should feel and practice the more artisanal side of bread baking with tools of the science side than the other way around.
When working with high hydration doughs like that it is really hard to get the window pane test to work as you are developing during your stretch and fold. One thing that was mentioned somewhere else on the freshloaf (sorry I don't remember who) recommended to pour out your dough from the bowl when you go to do your later stretch and folds, if the dough is tearing and stays more attached to the bowl than to the rest of the dough as it "pours" out of the bowl you probably need to do more development i.e. another stretch and fold.
This. You need to cut your water by 20%.
Thank you so much for the advice!