Gummy crumb, no rise
Just like the title says. I've had multiple loaves come out now with a gummy/tacky type crumb and with no oven rise. Coincidentally they don't seem to rise hardly at all when proofing as well. Here is the recipe for my latest attempt:
Flour- 450g (KA bread flour)
Water- 333 g
Salt- 9g
Starter- 100g
Total hydration: 76.6%
I'm just going to copy/paste my notes into this to give you an idea of what I did:
Mixed starter around 4pm and by 6:45pm the float test worked, it was over double in size (77*F inside), Mixed water and starter, then with dough at 7pm. 3rd stretch and fold by 7:50pm. Cover with plastic wrap and will put in fridge (45*F) at 8pm until tomorrow afternoon. Checked at 6am and barely any air bubbles and hadn't really risen, same thing at 3pm, did stretch and fold at 3pm and left on counter. Shaped with dough scraper on bench at 3:15pm and then put into banneton. Floured finger poke yields a small dent but bounces back quickly. Preheated oven for 60min and put the dough in at 500* for 22min, lid off and down to 450* for 29min. Could have gone a little longer still as the crust got soft as it cooled. Inside is almost like it's not completely cooked, super doughy, doesn't smell like sourdough, crust is ok but the rest is bland. Total proofing time= 19hrs in fridge, 1hr on counter
The first time I attempted this recipe I had the same results and the proofing time was 10.5hrs. Both loaves didn't rise while proofing. The "breadmaking 101" seems to point to it being overproofed. Any suggestions on what to do?
*Edit*- My starter passed the "float" test on both occasions and looks/smells great at the time of use.
Several thoughts:
1) A 50-minute bulk ferment is very short. I would stretch this out to at least 2-3 hours. By popping the dough in the fridge so quickly and for so long (see below) without giving the dough and starter much chance to do their thing would not help generate any growth or lift in your dough.
2) The time the dough spent in the fridge seems rather extended at this phase of your dough build. The cold proof usually happens after a bulk ferment and final shaping. If my math is correct, your dough only got about 2 hours of room temp time, but not consecutively, so it never had a chance to 'take off'.
3) The 4th S&F completed after the cold retard and immediately before shaping seems counter-productive and too late in the game to build much gluten or serve any purpose. It likely deflated any gasses that had built up.
4) The finger poke test won't work for this kind of recipe where the dough did not have enough time to rise and has spent approximately 19 hours in the fridge. Cold dough won't respond reliably to the poke test, especially one that hasn't had a chance to ferment adequately.
5) The high hydration of your dough could be part of the problem. You might consider switching to a lower hydration recipe, more like 65-70%.
I would recommend you search this site for a basic, more conventional sourdough recipe. If you complete an autolyse, adequate bulk ferment, shape and THEN do an extended period in the fridge, you will likely have better luck, since it sounds like your starter is not part of the problem. Keep trying and you will find a recipe that works for you!
Thank you very much for the reply. I'm taking a lot of those into consideration and might start anew with a recipe like you suggested.
Here's a good starting point that will likely provide you with some good information and guidance, and will probably result in a tasty loaf, although you might want to reduce the water to 360-365 to make shaping a little easier. In the past, I've made some pretty respectable and tasty loaves following this general recipe, and I didn't even bother with the autolyse part and just mixed all the ingredients together at the beginning. Let us know how you get on!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNzJLP61nnQ
Thank you so much for the recommendation. I only bake one loaf at a time and usually have no problem with the percentages for scaling my loaf size but if I want to cut the "remaining dough" part of that recipe in half (so it's a total of 500g) how do I cut the levain down? Would I just halve the levain recipe as well?
Yes, you should halve the levain amount as well if you are reducing all the other ingredients by 50%, so 100g instead of 200g. I hope you'll let us know how it turns out!
Well I tried this recipe just this past 4th of July weekend and it turned out fantastic. Everything was going so well that I forgot to score the dough when I put it in the oven. I realized it after about 1 minute and then pulled it out to score it. This has been my best loaf to date and other than the scoring job I couldn't be happier with the look, smell, crumb and flavor. I will be using this recipe moving forward and am baking another loaf tomorrow. Here are the photos:
and another
Looks great! Well done! I'm glad that recipe worked out for you. I'd keep making it a several more times, then you can start tweaking things if you want, like trying different flour combinations. Looks tasty!
Thank you very much for the guidance. I plan to "master" it and then start adjusting it.