Oven Temperature
Hi all,
To bake a sourdough bread, I usually set the oven temperature to 500F, then lower it to 4XXF (depending on the recipe). Do you use 350F to bake a sourdough bread?
Here's my confusion:
In Reinhart's Whole Grain Bread, there are quite a number of recipes that involve a soaker, biga and final dough. The weight of the biga is usually 398g. On the side note, he said that the biga can be replaced by the wild yeast starter. My question is, if I do use my sourdough starter in this recipe, does this make it a sourdough bread? And that I should bake it in a pre-heated oven of 500F?
I just did the Multigrain straun the other day with my sourdough starter (instead of a biga). The whole process went well and the dough proofed exactly what the book says: 1 1/2 times the original size. When I moved the dough from the proofing basket onto the sheet, the dough collapsed, and it remained flat in the oven, i.e. no oven spring. I wonder if it is something to do with the low temperature? At the same time, I read success story about baking this bread in 350F on this website...?
Thanks,
Michelle