San Joaquin Sourdough Batards: advice requested
I started baking dmsnyder's san joaquin batards this week. I'm not sure my results are up to par. The flours are central milling's ABC (90%), red hard whole wheat (5%), and CM's dark rye (5%). The levain is proofed on the kitchen counter overnight at 69-70 degrees, tripling in less than 10 hours and doubling in 7. Dough is mixed, stretch-folded and first ferment is done in the 70-73 degree kitchen. Cold overnight ferment is done at 56 degrees (wine fridge), and the final proofing is done in my cool kitchen which runs 70-74 degrees, increasing in temp as the day and proofing progress. I certainly struggle with the preshape and shaping due to the stickiness of the dough.
I bake on a preheated 500 degree steel under an inverted hotel pan with an injection of steam through a hole in the hotel pan at the start of bake, via this steam cleaner: https://amzn.to/2CpkaQL . The bake time is around 25 minutes. During the latter half the bread is uncovered and elevated off the steel to keep the bottom from scorching, the convection fan is turned on and the temp dropped to 440.
The crumb is a bit wet (possibly gummy?) and the crust is a bit leathery after the 2 hour cool. While the resulting bread is very edible especially toasted, I am not sure I'm getting the right rise out of it and would greatly appreciate advice.
Does this look underproofed? Poorly shaped?
I thank you all for any and all advice.
The crust looks like it's over steamed. There's no need to inject steam if you're already using a inverted pan over the loaf. it will self steam. I can tell from your crust when I first looked at the photo before reading about it. I recently experimented with steaming on stove top and then baking a loaf in toaster oven. the crust/skin looks the same.
is the steel very close to the heating elements? if not too close, i would recommend 475F and just leave the loaf on there the whole time. if the steel is close to the heating element, it's likely that it gets above 500F. Steel gets hotter than stone and heats up quicker when the elements turn on.
The large bubbles in the crumb looks like it's just from shaping. pop big bubbles during reshape and make sure you dont trap extra gas during folds.
Otherwise, the crumb looks great. You may get more rise with out the added steam, but it's actually not bad at all.
PIN,
SJS is my goto pain au levain. You might want to review David’s clearly articulated steps which I have adopted for most of the breads I make because they just work...for me, anyway.
When bulk reaches +/- 50%, he recommends refrigeration (38 dF +/-) for 12-18 hours. The cold dough is generally very easy to handle in my experience. Preshape, rest for 60, shape and rest for 45 minutes, then bake.
Sounds like you’re bulking/proofing longer at significantly higher temps than I’ve been using. So you’re possibly over proofing a bit? The pic actually looks pretty good from here (ok a few large bubbles) so maybe you just need to bake a little longer? Do you measure internal temp to gauge done-ness? I look for 205 dF +/-. After internal temp and crust color achieved I also tend to leave loaves in turned off oven for 10-15 minutes with door cracked. Hope this helps.
Good luck,
Phil