First Real SD Loaf Turned Out Like a Brick!
Ok, so I thought I'd try some new "more advanced" techniques (this normally gets me into trouble!) and, well... things didn't go exactly as planned. Here's the story...
I've had a starter going for a few months now (all AP @ 100%) from which I build my levain for each bake. Until this past weekend I was baking only regular ol' white bread in a 1.5 Lb loaf pan and have been experiencing increasing success with my loaves getting better each time - learning curve not too steep - progressing nicely. The only advanced techniques I'd been using thus far, in my humble opinion, were maintaining a starter, building a levain, and working with increasingly higher and higher hydration dough (my "white bread" is up to 70%).
So I decided it's time to pull all the stops (this also normally gets me into trouble...) and make a full-blown sourdough loaf. I procured an earthenware bread dome (basically a clay Dutch oven) and researched a recipe that looked like something I could make, and off I went.
This one involved several new "advanced" techniques but I though what the heck - if I'm gonna do this I may as well go big. It was a recipe for two 900g loaves so I halved it because I really only wanted to try this out on one loaf. It involved building the levain - check. It was a 78% hydration recipe - challenge accepted. But it also included a 4-hour autolyse step - never done THAT before... and a bulk ferment stage - never done THAT before... and shaping the dough - never done THAT before... and an overnight proof in the fridge in my new banneton - never done THAT before... and baking in a Dutch oven - never done THAT before... Learning curve all of the sudden got real steep!
Most of the process went seemingly fine, but I think I've got some work to do on my hand-mixing - wound up with lumps in the dough after the autolyse step - guess I didn't mix it well enough. Then the bulk-fermentation step; that seemed to go OK but I was asking myself if I was doing those stretch-and-folds correctly the whole time... maybe, maybe not? Again; more work to do to get the "feel" for the dough and be able to tell when it is properly developed.
Slash, cover and bake. Internal temp = 211 F - done! Fast-forward to a cooled loaf, er, uh... brick! "Well, it kinda looks pretty..." I thought to myself, reevaluating that thought and settling on the inevitable conclusion that the loaf appeared much smaller than I anticipated considering the 900g of dough that went into it. Felt relatively heavy, too. What happened?
So I sliced into it to see what it looked like. Gummy. Dense. What's a good word for NOT light and fluffy? Yeah, that's it! What went wrong?
What I think: The dough did not seem to rise as much as I expected. The levain went swimmingly, the flour was fresh, the water good, the proportions were according to the recipe to the gram, temperatures were measured and monitored throughout the process. Seems my levain just didn't do its job like I expected. Maybe it was too little an amount of levain for that cold of a retard?
Recipe - One 900g Boule:
460g AP Flour
350g Water
10g Kosher Salt
90g Levain (at 100% Hydration - 6 hours old - single-stage - AP Mother fed with 50/50 AP and WW - 1:2:2)
The recipe showed 78% Hydration, and used 10% levain.
Should I be using a higher percentage than 10% for the levain if proofing at 37 F? I've done an overnight on-the-counter proof (72 F) with around 10% levain with excellent results. Are any other issues popping out at anyone?
Maybe I didn't develop the dough well enough...?