Troubleshooting failure
I've only been baking sourdough bread seriously for 5 months but this is by far the biggest failure I've had! It also happens to be the first time I've used my new Fibrament stone. Here's what I did:
- It's a 50% whole wheat sourdough. Total 684g flour. The dough looked and felt fine.
- Proofed overnight in the fridge. Removed from fridge at 6:15 am. The house was cold: 59 F.
- Fibrament on second to bottom rack; at 7:15 it was 515 F. Stainless bowl also preheated. Gas oven.
- On a large cutting board, with a large piece of parchment paper, I turned the banneton over, dusted off flour and slashed. The slashes opened nicely.
- I misted the dough, then slid the parchment onto the stone and covered with a large stainless bowl that did not go beyond the size of the stone. No convection.
- Baked 20 minutes. Removed bowl. (It already looked really weird and flat at this point.) Baked additional 17 minutes with convection. Thermomenter inserted in bread read 211 F.
- The crust obviously looked really weird and was soft, except from the base to about 1" up. (Perhaps where mist hadn't hit it?)
- Cut into it 2 hours later and discovered photo #2!
Just last week I made the same formula, also proofed overnight in fridge, but baked in cloche (no mist), no stone. It turned out beautiful and delicious. I'd appreciate any insight on what went wrong. I have a hunch it might have been the misting.