December 28, 2021 - 8:43am
Can never pass windowpane test
Hey all!
Been making Sourdough for the last year or so. Over the past few months my starter has grown considerably stronger (much higher growth and easily passes float test) and my sourdough has shown improvements.
However, no matter what I try I am never able to properly pass the windowpane test. It never gets the gluten development with the stretch and folds that I believe it should get to. I've even tried using a stand mixer for the initial mix to make sure everything is properly incorporated and start the gluten development, which has helped a little but still not to the level I want it to get to.
Any advice on how to better develop stronger gluten then 6-8 rounds of stretch and folds and pass that windowpane test?
Thanks
Max
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S/F doesn't do much, unless you do it constantly for a few hours. Simple fix. Enjoy!
Have you tried to slap and fold instead? I used to do a slap and fold to smooth out the dough and would get it pass a windowpane test every time, nowadays, I have a machine to do that, so I save a lot of energy developing the dough up front along with a 1-2 hours of autolyzing. I find that my baguettes would still turn out fine with a relatively weak dough so I am not sure if passing a windowpane test is necessary. Good luck.
Hi Max, I wonder if you’d share your recipe you are having problems with. A couple of things come to mind particularly if you even mix with a stand mixer and cannot get to a full windowpane. Your hydration for your flour(s) could be too high. Have you tried bassinage? So mix at a low hydration, say reduce by 10% hydration. That will give the gluten a head start, then gradually add more water.
Obviously some flours have greater potential for gluten, say a strong bread flour compared to whole spelt, so the type of flours you’re using will have a big effect on whether you can even expect to be able to pull a good window pane.
Benny
My recipe that I follow is
800g AP King Arthur Flour, 150g WW King Arthur Flour, 50g Bob's Red Mill Rye Flour, 675g Water
Mix in Stand Mixer, autolyse for 1-2 hours.
Add 200g risen starter (100% King Arthur Organic AP Flour) + 50g water. Mix in stand mixer until well combined but not pulling away from sides
Transfer to oiled bowl for Stretch and Folds every 30 minutes for 3-4 hours. Incorporate 20g Salt after first Stretch and fold.
Split into 2 loaves and bench rest for 30 minutes. Shape and put into bannetons
For the Bassinage, at what stage would you add the additional water?
Assuming your starter is 100% hydration then this is 75% hydration dough. You might want to consider backing off the hydration by not adding the 50g of water when you add the levain.
If you were to decide to add it, I would add it after the dough had moderate to good gluten development. So after you have added the levain and kneaded it in the stand mixer or by slap and folds. You could then add the water in small amounts if the dough felt too stiff or dry and mixed further to gradually absorb the additional water, stopping when the dough was no longer too stiff.
Sounds like you are not using the machine to your advantage, which is to develop dough strength via machine kneading. Most planetary machines don't do a good job kneading the dough anyway so you may as well do it by hand via a slap and fold method, which could take some hand strength to do it. FYI, I use the same KA flours you use but I usually have 40-50% whole grain in my baguette dough lately. I used to be obsessed with developing a windowpane but nowadays I usually forget about it as I can feel the strength of the dough when I do a lamination. Doing a lamination is like doing a windowpane of the whole dough as I usually stretch it so thin to a point of tearing. Anyhow, hope you will have some fun trying some of the suggestions in this thread.
Max, you could give this easy test a try.
Take 100g of King Arthur All Purpose flour and add 65g of water. Knead or fold as you would typically and see if the gluten develops.
If you do give this a try, let us know your results.
Danny
You may already be doing this, but make sure you let the dough rest before attempting to pull the window pane. I recall testing it too early in my initial attempts.
I found that even with a weak 100% whole wheat lean dough, 1 long fold, followed 1 hr later with lamination brought about a lot of elasticity.