More discouragement!
Been having troubles baking- all my loaves end up saggy and flat, with decent flavor, but terrible texture. Dense and flat- dense and flat- no matter what recipe i tried. I thought that gluten development was my problem- so i S&F'ed like crazy, hand kneaded for endless sessions... And this only did so much to give dough noticeable stregnth- both in high and regular hydration. And i thought maybe my gluten was okay, but i was terrible at shaping, or wasnt getting it. Truely, i am not getting a tense skin over my dough, and they always sag out and get wider instead of taller during their final ferment.
Ive even put aside my starters for now, and brought out the instant yeast, the stand mixer... ANYTHING to get a decent loaf.
I got my hands on BREAD - Hamelman, and tried the Ciabatta with Stiff Biga, tried to follow it to a T- and the only thing i can remember didnt go perfect, was my Biga probably went overnight at about 5 degrees colder than what the recipe reccomended (but i did leave it out an extra 4 hours or so to compensate).
for those that dont have the book, i did the following:
100% flour
73% water
2%Salt
1.2% Yeast
Mix some flour water and yeast to make biga, let ferment 12-16 hr at 70 degrees F
Mix all ingrediants to combine, and add in biga
Use mixer to partially develop gluten
bulk ferment 3 hrs, with two Folds, one at 1hr, and one after 2 hrs.
Shape and ferment 1.5hr
bake with steam 500- then turn down to 460
I was so excited, but yet again....
CRAP.
What is this??
I dont know where to turn next. Im so sick of having flat, spongy to dense textured bread. Does anyone have any ideas?