Susans Norwich sourdough bread
I recently baked Susan's wonderful Norwich bread trying to follow her recipe as closley as possible with two exceptions. I used a starter (100%) made with whole wheat flour as that is what I have been using lately and I also made two batards using brotforms, one with 64 oz (volume) capacity and one with 80 oz. Both times I ended up with the loaves spreading out a lot before I scored them. The scoring didn't seem to make any difference in the shape before baking.
When I mixed the dough before adding salt the dough was very dense and stuck to the paddle and wouldn't combine so I added water a little at a time until it would. After a 30 min. autolase and addiung salt I had a similar problem with the dough clinging to the dough hook even at medium (3) speed on the KA mixer so I added more water until it would spread out and stick to bottom at least.
After about 4 min. the first time I made it and after about 6 min. the second time I scraped the sticky and slack dough into the bowl and put it into my home made proofing box ( thanks to people from TFL) I stretched and folded as best I could in the bowl as suggested. This would pick up the and of course I had to use a scraper to lift. The dough did have a firme feel to it but the next time for folding the dough had not risen or pulled together at all and didnt seem any different after folding than after the first fold. The first time I made the bread I hadto refrigerate it because of time constraints after 1 1/2 hours in the proofer.
Both bread attempts flattened out after tipping them out of the brotforms onto the parchment and peel. Both times it took a while before they loosened from the brotforms. I sprayed them with oil and dusted them with the combo of rice and AP flour. One of the loaves took a little mor persuasion to loosed up. This one flattened more than the others. My oven heats about 25 deg high so the second time I adjusted the temp to that condition. The first batch ended up with a harder crust and a little darker color. The bread tastes really great, has nice color but shows fewer and smaller holes.
After trying to find some snswers to the flattening on this and otherweb sites I searched Susan's web site for the recipe. I had printed it I think from TFL one time. There was one change I noticed right away that was she included a desired dough temp of 76 F. I the one I had printed previously the only reference was that the water added shoul be 74F. My house is usually about 68 deg.
Could this make that much difference? The dough was quite floppy when shaped.