Overfermented sourdough dough with minimal rise.
Hi
I'm sorry if this is long-winded but I'd like to share as much information as possible.
I cannot get my sourdough dough to rise. If I try to be patient and allow for longer rise times, it turns into unshapeable batter. I'm located in Mumbai and our current temperatures reach up to 34C (max) in the afternoons and 26C in the early morning (min).
I've kept my starter going for about 2 weeks now and this is what I feed it once a day:
25g mature starter
100g whole wheat flour, unbleached
100g filtered water
It does form fairly decent air bubbles and takes about 8-9 hours to double in size and this is the highest it'll go. I wait until it reaches this stage before adding it to my dough. The best way for me to describe the smell at this stage is "sourish and fermented". It also never falls unless I deflate it by sticking a spoon or something into it. It fails all float tests but I've read that this may not always be reliable, especially since I'm using a heavy whole wheat flour.
My dough is 400g of WW flour with 85% hydration. I do a 3 hour autolyse and knead after adding the starter and salt. The dough is very wet and sticky at this stage but perfect for kneading with Rubaud method. This is followed by 5-6 stretch and folds at intervals of 20 minutes, which also seems to go well and the dough seems perfect.
I've tried using 10% starter but it barely rose even after several hours in room temperature. I tried being patient and after 20 hours or so, it did rise a bit but it had also turned into unshapeable batter.
Yesterday I upped the starter to 20% and after 8 hours at RT there were minimal air bubbles with an almost unnoticeable rise. I shaped it anyway (as it seemed like it would turn into batter again if I let it ferment any longer) and stuck it in the fridge overnight but it did not rise.
I try to follow recipes for whole wheat sourdough breads, but I'm not sure where I'm going wrong if the dough seems to overferment even with a minimal rise.
I'm also unable to change to a different type of flour since the only types I seem to have access to is this WW flour (With a bit of barley flour mixed in) or maida (refined flour - bleached and processed similar to cake flour. I would not like to use this). If there are any bakers here from this part of the world, I'd highly appreciate recommendations for brands available here.
Any help is appreciated!