Forkish Overnight Country Brown. Fail after fail.
Other than having you here with me in my kitchen I don't know quite how to show you what my wife and I keep coming up with. I'll try to be brief but with useful info.
Kitchen sits at roughly 23-24C. We follow the book to the letter. Everything seems fine.
Problem 1: Proofed, separated dough sticks to the banneton and 2nd linen lined basket. Placed in oven anyway to see what would happen.
Problem 2: Nice flavour (bit sour) but flat as focaccia and dense as damp banana bread. Actual chunks of barely cooked dough inside.
This happens to us two times.
I contact Forkish himself on Twitter. He says, "if you change the quantity of anything you're making someone else's bread. But try a different flour." Ok, we do. We get Robin Hood's bread flour (we live in Quebec)
Attempt 2
Autolyse feels much MUCH better when folding. Let it sit overnight. 13 hours later, we go to separate. Dough looks like his videos but wetter. Not like the dry airy pillow he has. Fluffy, yes, but stickier than his. We separate, we let proof. I instantly think it's too damp. Again, NEITHER dough wants to come out of its basket. The second one actualy tears apart into a mass of wet dough. Impossible to put it back together. It is as wet as if it had just been mixed. Second one stays together better, we bake it.
Flavour is better than it's ever been. This is up there with the best bread I've ever tasted. But again, 2 inches thick. But airy, nice crust. Just not risen enough. At all.
We simply don't know what else to do. Ok, so the flour needed to change, clearly. Our levain is fantastic. Used in other breads and recipes it works great.
Please. Please. I implore you. If anyone can think of anything or wants more info to help, please do. We feel like we're SO close. We just want to see a nicely raised loaf. Don't know what else to say other than that we do everything he says. I cook a lot. My instinct tells me there is too much moisture in the dough. But the guy himSELF says not to change the quantities. I just don't know.
Anyone?... :) Thank you.