Need help - Huge newbie FAILURE
Just getting into bread baking in general and sourdough in particular. So far I’ve made 4 loaves that came out pretty good (at least as far as I can tell), including one that was pretty much the same recipe as the disaster that I will now describe.
Yesterday I had a monumental failure with a 1000 gram flour recipe. I used 900g 11.5%protein white flour (Central Milling Organic Artisan Bakers Craft Plus) and 100g Bobs Red Mill whole wheat. My starter was very active and passed float test with flying colors. My recipe called for 900g water and 20g salt. I mixed 225g starter with 850g water, then added flours and autolysed about 2 hours. Next added 20g salt and rest of water. Then bulk fermentation for about 4 hours, with a set of turns/folds every 1/2 hour. My dough never developed any gluten and was just a soggy mess that wouldn’t hold any shape at all. Impossible to pre-shape or shape, as it just wasn’t possible to get any tension in the skin. (At this point I gave up, but left the dough in a bowl, and in the morning it had about doubled, but still wouldn’t hold any shape. Just for kicks I baked it in a loaf pan at 400F for about an hour to internal temp of 205F, and turned out a very nice brick any stone mason would be proud of). ?
I can’t figure out what went wrong, and would appreciate any help. Would it have made a difference if I autolysed just the flour and water before adding the starter?
Thanks in advance,
David
If those numbers are accurate, you've got way too much water. Sound like it's about 1100 flour and about 950 water. Try keeping the water to 65 or 70% of the total flour amount. Also, it will need more time to develope gluten. Reduce the starter amount and leave it overnight (like 12 hrs or more) to allow for good gluten formation. Keeping it in the fridge will help to keep it from over proofing. Keep in mind these are guesstimates, you'll have to play around with starter amount to keep the dough from going to far. Enjoy!
Just a few observations up front:
However having said all that, clearly if you've successfully followed that recipe that before, but failed this time - then something must have changed; so it's just a process of elimination I guess.
Prime suspect would be screwing up the measurements somehow. If can exclude that, then something external like contamination from the bowl or work surface (anti-bacterial cleaner maybe).
However, at 90% hydration, personally I think your results would be pretty much exactly as you describe.
Thanks Martin and Phaz. I was also thinking it was too much water as it was very wet & soggy, but that’s what the recipe said. (It was one of the recipes on The Perfect Loaf). I’m going to try again but reduce hydration to 75%
David
When startling out on the bread trail, it is most helpful, not too mention a whole lot easier to keep water below 70%. You don't need a lot of water to make good bread (it can actually be detrimental in some ways). You'll find handling (shaping in particular) to be a whole lot easier at 65% water - trying to form a ball with a bowl of soup is just asking for frustrating and a not so pleasurable experience. Enjoy!
I mixed up a new dough today - a single loaf this time - at 75% hydration and it shaped up just fine. I'm retarding proofing overnight in the fridge and will bake it tomorrow. So far it looks really good. I'll keep you posted.
The loaf came out really good. The crumb is not as light and airy as some, but it tastes really good.