October 23, 2023 - 6:15pm
Following Forkish' recipes but can't seem to get much oven spring - advice appreciated
New to using this site so please let me know if I should post in a different forum!
I’m following Forkish’ overnight white bread recipe - i’ve very satisfied with the taste and crust, but the loaf seems a bit flat and barely expanded out of the score
Hoping that some experts here will be able to give me a tip or diagnoses with these pictures here
I’ve already:
* made sure dutch oven is on the dot 475˚ using an oven thermometer
* used poke test to gauge optimal proofing (press down about an inch, see the indentation come back up slowly but not all the way
* Gently shaped the dough into a tight ball with a lot of tension
It’s possible that my scoring is a bit too shallow - will work on that next time.
Any other tips?
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What does the inside (crumb) look like? Do you have a photo of the cross-section?
I feel indebted to Ken Forkish, as I learned so much from his book and had my first successful loaves with it. However, I too had flat loaves with the overnight and some of his other levain recipes. I believe it is because his bulk fermentation times are quite long (typically 4-5 hours and of course longer for the "overnight" recipes). I believe these long bulk fermentations can easily lead to overproofing and flat loaves. In contrast, Hamelman's levain recipes typically call for 2 to 2.5 hours of bulk fermentation), and after adapting my approach and using shorter bulk fermentation, I have had reliable oven rise with formulas similar to Forkish's levain recipes. See photos, for example.
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Those loaves look great!
I want to urge you not to conclude flat out that 4-5 hours bulk ferment is too long. They just turned out to be too long for *you*, your flour, kitchen, and techniques. I routinely bulk ferment for 6 hours or longer (not necessarily with these specific recipes). What's so good about what you've done is that you were willing to deviate from a presumably solid recipe until you found variations that work for you. Everyone should take note!
TomP