FWSY - longing for great oven spring/bloom
Hi all,
I'm a few months into my bread-baking journey, and have worked through a lot of the recipes in the Ken Forkish's 'Flour Water Salt Yeast' (FWSY) book. Although not for everyone, I've thoroughly enjoyed his approach.
I've baked 13 loaves since starting FWSY, and overall the results have been very good, whether using yeast, pre-ferments and/or levains, in part thanks to some advice from this website.
However, I have never yet managed to get that really impressive oven spring and bloom, where the loaves really opens up with exciting crevices! I don't usually score the dough as I was hoping for this happen naturally, but have tried using a lame a couple of times too, and I'm still not getting the dramatic oven spring I long for.
Can anyone who knows the FWSY approach advise on what I might be doing wrong or missing out? I log all of my efforts with details of the ingredients, temperatures, timings etc. here, and (as a rookie) I try to follow the FWSY recipes to the letter.
I know this kind of question has been asked many times before on many forums, but I can't pin-point specifically what I'm doing wrong.
Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Ed
How do you bake?
My ovensping dramatically improved once I start using a clay baker.
Thanks for your reply. I bake in a pre-heated cast-iron Dutch Oven, with the lid on for the first 30 minutes. So I think I should be getting better oven spring that I am.
If you’re using a DO, that’s already very good. Why use it lid-on for 30 minutes through? Have you tried with shorter lid-on times? Looks a bit long to me. You might want to check the other items on my checklist. A picture of one of your loaves, sliced through the middle would help too ;-).
Thanks. The recipes I’ve been following call for the lid to come off after 30 minutes, as the author has an obsession with very deep, dark brown crusts. Perhaps I should try taking it off sooner.
Here’s an example of one of my most recent loaves. Do you see what I mean when I say it’s good, but not great?
79E4CA5B-6636-4EE1-B464-01E7F1A24AB9.jpeg
Ed
(1) Build tension while forming. Easier to do on boules at the beginning, then move on to bâtards, then baguettes. Baby steps.
(2) Score as if you had done it a million times. Just keep going, don't stop in the middle. Not too deep, not too shallow, never vertical (90 degrees) to the dough surface. Create a shallow flap, not a cut.
(3) Bake under a dome: clay, stainless, Dutch Oven, inverted roasting pan for the initial 15-20 minutes.
(4) If your dome doesn't have a base, then you need a baking stone to rest your dome (and your loaf) on.
(5) Spritz some water after scoring (don't overdo it, 5-6 pumps should be OK)
(6) AND bake piping hot, making sure you preheat your (domestic) oven for one hour at the maximum possible temperature, broiler on if needed whatever the oven thermostat says. If you bake covered, you'll be alright.
Thanks for these tips. I feel like I’m already ticking most of those boxes, but still not getting that elusive oven spring. In particular:
I feel like I’m doing everything I should be, and I am getting pretty good results. But getting that bloom just feels like the one thing I’m consistently failing to achieve!
Thanks,
Ed
Ed,
(1) Spritz the dough once scored, before introducing in the Dutch Oven.
(2) For building tension with difficult doughs I use a wide (8-10 inch) stainless steel plaster spatula that I slide under the dough repeatedly, while using my pinky on the opposite side of the loaf to hold it in place. Less dough traveling and in the end less patting and touching those delicate alveoles.That also helps seal the bottom seam much better without flipping the dough over.
Spritz water on the spatula before using it, and regularly while using it. If dough adheres to it clean it with a kitchen towel. It has to be squeaky clean.
Bench knifes are not enough for my less experienced hands. Too thick, not so wide, too short. Get something from Stanley,to make sure it's real stainless steel. I always drop it in the dishwasher to clean it. Not a single stain of rust.
AND stay with one recipe and do it 25 times if needed. That worked for me. I've seen very experienced chefs bake a recipe maybe 100 times to perfect it, changing one parameter at the time. I'm a rookie, I'm not ashamed of doing the same.
Thanks again, really appreciate the time you’ve taken to respond.
I’ll definitely try spritzing the dough before I load it into the Dutch Oven, and see if I can get a spatula like that. I recently bought a couple of plastic dough scrapers but haven’t had the know-how to use them - I wonder if they might do the same job.
I think I do have the right kind of blade for scoring so just need to build confidence with that.
For me your number one tip... I should take your advice about sticking to one recipe and repeating until I perfect it, altering one variable at a time. Makes so much sense!
Thank you,
Ed
Please search Vermont Sourdough by Jeffrey Hamelman. Forum gurus (obviously not me) always recommend that one as a "training wheels" recipe. It helped me a lot and boosted my confidence as a baker big time. Just saying ;-)
I’ll look up that recipe by Jeffrey Hamelman, thank you.
I’ve possibly been a bit too stubborn and narrow-minded by sticking with the one book and one set of recipes. It was my way of trying to limit the variables, so I could understand the process more easily.
I‘ll open my mind to the Vermont Sourdough!
Ed,
You're probably already doing this, but please make sure you use high-quality flour. Avoid supermarket brands like the pest and settle for well-known premium flour brands.
My baking improved substantially once I moved away from whatever was on my grocer's shelf.
Cheers.
Thanks. I’ve only been using high quality flour - Marriage’s and Shipton Mill, which I’ve been buying direct online.
I’ve mostly been using strong flour, although the recipes I’ve been following call for all-purpose, as Forkish prefers the lower protein content.
I’m not sure quite how the flours here in the UK compare with those in the US, but most forum posts and comments I’ve seen suggest that strong works best.
One more thing a super strong starter will help.
How to get you starter super strong is easy just feed it more.
Mine is fed twice daly on 1:5:5.
and it starts tomdecline after 12 ours.
Thanks, I’ll take that advice on board.
I’m tempted to step back to a more basic recipe using instant yeast rather than levain, until I can solve this issue of oven spring. If I can succeed using yeast first, then I’ll have more confidence mastering the levain.
The bread looks great. For spring and bloom I might look more to underlying dough strength, since that affects whether the loaf bursts upwards in the oven rather than sideways.
Thanks Colin, really appreciate the advice. Perhaps I should do a few more folds and/or improve my stretching technique during bulk fermentation.
Hi Ed
I also think your bread looks very nice.
A while back I really struggled with the Forkish overnight country blond recipe. Looking back at it, I see it calls for a nearly 300% increase in volume during the bulk ferment, which is what I assume you did, since you say you followed the recipe exactly. As I recall, the dough ended up super jiggly and very hard to shape, and it tended to collapse when I transferred it to the Dutch oven and scored it. So, while I agree that doing a recipe over and over is a good idea, maybe this is not the recipe to start with.
Maybe you should try a recipe where the rise during bulk is somewhere between 30% and 50%, and see what this does both to the ease of shaping and to the oven spring. My own experience is that over-proofing during bulk and issues with shaping were both big contributors to poor oven spring.
There is a very good string dealing with the various consequences of different degrees of bulk fermentation, and how to judge when to stop it, under the title “Sourdough Bulk Fermentation”, OP was HKBreadwinner.
Thanks for this Derek,
I haven’t been able to measure the volume increase during bulk fermentation precisely, as my container is quite wide and I only make enough for 1 loaf at a time (meaning the dough starts bulk fermentation as a blob in the middle of the container). So I’ve had to trust my (probably inaccurate judgement to estimate when it’s increased in line with Forkish’s recommendations.
You’re absolutely right that the approximate trebling in size for the Country Blonde recipe results in a very jiggly dough that’s hard to handle, shape and ulit at ely transfer to the Dutch Oven. I didn’t even try to score that one!
With all of that said, my issue isn’t just with those more complex of the FWSY recipes. I’ve had the same oven spring under-performance with loaves using Forkish’s straight dough, biga and poolish recipes as well.
I’ve just been having a read of the ‘Sourdough Bulk Fermentation’ thread, and I’m starting to feel slightly out of my depth with the technical detail, but I do want to learn. Perhaps it’s time for me to take a few steps back and practice with a more basic recipe, as you suggest.
Would it make sense to practice with a straight dough until I can get a better result, and then progress back to using levain?
Ed
Ed, a little trick you could try in the future with the next bake you do is to remove a 30 g bit of dough after you/ve done your first stretch and fold. Place this 30 g dough ball into a narrow drinking glass. Mark the side of the glass where the dough ball is and from there you’ll be able to determine your dough’s volume increase quite accurately. I’ve found this incredibly helpful recently when my starter has been acting up and bulk fermentation was going super slowly.
Benny
Hi Benny,
I love this idea - great little hack for measuring bulk fermentation growth! I'll definitely try it.
Ed
I think it would be fine to keep on with the levain. Your loaves looked good, I am sure a bit more practice will do it for you. Recording systematically, as you are doing, is good, so my advice is to choose a recipe and stick to that for a while. Maybe something with a 3 to 4 hr bulk and overnight proofing in the fridge. The fridge proof is quite forgiving, and cold dough is easier to get into the dutch oven without damaging it. So, if you make sure the starter is very active when you incorporate it, autolyse is easy, so that leaves the bulk fermentation and the shaping as the two main variables to work on. Maybe also start with a dough that is not super wet. I think it is quite hard to make completely inedible sourdough bread, so trying stuff is rarely a waste of time.
I don’t see why you should not keep on with the levain, if that is where you want to go. Maybe choose something with a 3 to 4 hr bulk and overnight proofing in the fridge. The fridge proof is quite forgiving because there is virtually no additional rise, and cold dough is easier to get into the dutch oven without damaging it, so that takes a few variables off the table. Also, maybe start with something that is not super wet. if you make sure the starter is very active when you incorporate it, that leaves the bulk fermentation and the shaping as the two main variables to work on. It seems to be quite hard to make inedible sourdough bread, so practice is rarely a waste of time.
I’ll take this on board, thanks again.
I really like Forkish’s Pain de Campagne and Field Blend #1 and #2 in FWSY. They’re hybrid levain doughs with ~5 hour bulk fermentation and overnight proofing in the fridge, so maybe I’ll choose one of them.
All of his recipes seem to have high hydration (these are all 78%), but maybe I could adjust that down a little. These wet doughs are all I know, so if there’s an alternative recipe you’d strongly recommend, let me know.