Hi wonderful bakers! I'm Fatima, first time poster, long time lurker.
A few days ago I tried my first sourdough recipe. I used a 2 week old starter that I made. Everything seemed to be going very very well, until it came time to bake. The loaf that came out of the oven was exactly the size of the loaf that went in.
The levain was *almost* tripling in size so I assume it wasn't the issue.
I followed "foolproofbaking"'s video on how to make a sourdough. The method she used was
Autolyse 3 hours
Add 5 hour old levain and rest 30mins
Add salt and rest 30mins
Fold and rest 30min
Laminate the dough and rest 30min
Complete 3 sets of folds at 45min intervals
Rest for 1.5 hours.
That brought the bulk ferment to around 6 hours total. It was approx 26degrees at RT.
The dough was shapred and then went into a banneton, sat at RT for a further 15mins before going into the fridge for 11 hours.
The only questionable thing i did was my makeshift dutch oven. Which may not have preheated as high as I wanted. The oven was still preheated to 230degrees C and there was a tray with water providing steam.
The recipe was:
255g Bread Flour
70g Whole wheat flour
235g Water
20% starter (11% fermented flour approx) - 65g
7.5g salt
The dough was beautifully extensible, had considerable strength and held it's shape quite nicely even after a few hours of the final folds. It looked like it had been gaining volume when I compared pics from the start of the folds to the end of the folds. I can't understand why things just stopped moving when it got into the oven!
I ended up with a wonderful hole-y crumb, the taste was perfect too. It was just a bit dense from not rising at all!
Any insights would be really appreciated!
You don’t say how long you allowed the bread to proof after you took it out of the refrigerator. My loaves are very dense when coming out of the refrigerator and I have to wait up to 7 hrs for the dough to warm up and finish proofing. Just a thought.
I actually didn't let it warm up at all. This particular method I followed said to bake while cold, as have many others i've seen.
Do you think this is potentially why I didn't get any rise?
Thanks for your response :-)
i am just a home baker and don’t know this technique, but from my experience if the dough isn’t does not proof until a finger poke says it’s ready the loaf will be dense. Maybe try this next time and see
Hi Fatima, what was the hydration % of your levain? You mention your starter was 2 weeks old. It’s possible that it wasn’t strong enough yet to provide the oven spring. Often, very new starters don’t have enough strength even if they are doubling or tripling.
I never let my bread warm up before baking if there was cold retard overnight or unless a recipe asks for it. In your DO, do you have a lid? The reason I’m asking is that I don’t bake with steam - I use a DO with a lid. So it’s important that your oven and DO have heated long enough. Did you remove the steam after 20 minutes? These are just questions - because sometimes it’s hard to figure out why - can you send some photos of your bread? I like to bake with the lid on for about 20 minutes @ 475 with a lid, and then another 25 minutes without the lid, often dropping the temp to 450, depending. Each recipe requires different baking times. But if you are new at this, and have a lid, I would recommend starting with that.
Hopefully others will weigh in.
Thanks, Sharon
My levain was made at 1:2:2, i'm not sure what that leaves the hydration level at. But if i recall correctly the total water percentage including the starter was about 80%.
That's a little comforting to know that the potential culprit was the sourdough. Having never made, or even eaten sourdough before this, I really am not sure what sort of smells to be looking for in my starter. But i'm guessing a light sour tang in the crust is the right flavour to be chasing.
I used a cast iron skillet with a pyrex glass lid on top (it didn't form a seal so air was able to escape) but I did have a tray of water steaming the oven. After 20mins at 446F I took the lid off and cooked for another 20mins at 428F without the lid. My temps are definitely lower than yours. Would a insufficiently heated oven be a potential cause too?
Thank you Sharon for your thoughtful response :-)
That's the loaf after it was cooked. It looks quite puffy in the photo but as you can see below, no rise whatsoever between going in the oven (first pic) , and 20mins after when the lid was taken off (pic 2).
A room temperature of 26° (in Fahrenheit that's about 79) is quite warm. Could that have something to do with it?
You didn't mention what temp your fridge is set at. Warmer fridge temps (5.5C/40F) could cause your dough to proof fast than you may think. I have my fridge set at about 34F/1.4C and usually cold proof 8-10 hours.
So sorry! My temp is set to 3C. There appeared to be no further rise of the dough once it was put in the fridge.
Not seeing the dough rise during a retarded proof (refrigerated) is not unusual. The magic usually happens once it gets into the hot oven. But it sounds like your dough may have been overfermented/overproofed.
Maybe try shortening both your bulk ferment and proof times and see how it goes.
EDIT: (added content)
Something else just came to me. When you BF and proof do you cover your bowl/banneton with a plastic bowl cover, plastic bag, or cling wrap? Could it be that your dough just dried up too much? I use bowl covers for my BF, and large food safe plastic bags for my proofing. Helps prevent too much moisture from evaporating.
Yes - Just wanted to clarify there would have been minimal further proofing once it reached the fridge temp! :)
But I think you're right about the over proofing. Bugger!
And yes, I do cover with plastic wrap too but that's a good consideration!
My thoughts are...
- 20% starter is on the high side.
- 6 hours at 26 C (=79 Fahrenheit) is a long time for such a warm temperature.
- During its further 11 hours in the fridge, the dough is still fermenting, albeit slowly,
I'm guessing that by the time it made it to the oven, the dough had nothing left to give!
At least it tasted good, though! Personally I'd rather have an over-fermented loaf that has great flavour and nutrition, than a less fermented one that looks more impressive. The key is finding a balance between the two.
Thank you so much!
Your response is immensely helpful. I might try dropping the BF down to 4 hours and see how it goes then.
Fingers crossed I get a good result this time!