Hammelman's Rustic Bread
Hey There!
I followed Floyd's quick recipe for the rustic bread, inspired by the idea of using few ingredients to produce a great bread... Well, it sure tasted and looked good, but the crumb was the worst ever I encountered. Dense, almost sticky... So, what is the deal here?
1- Can my yeast be getting weak? This was the first time I combined salt, yeast, water and flour in a preferment and left it at room temperature. Not much bubbling or rising as I have seen with BBA's preferments. But, the explanation from another post makes sense... the salt is the retarding factor here rather than the cooler temperature of a fridge.
2- I did knead, the windowpane test went well, and I folded... again, I didn't see that much rise in my proofing loaves, and I waited probably an hour longer than prescribed to achieve the bouncy state. I did get good oven spring.
3- Was my dough too wet? But that usually produces good crumb... That makes me question if the flour I was using wasn't strong enough, but then again, it did pass the windowpane test.
This happened to me again before when I tried making yeasted ciabatta. Dense crumb, flavor could have been better. Since I started using a sourdough starter for making bread, my yeasted productions are not as good. What's happening to me???
Best wishes for great bread experiences from Cyprus,
Hazim