Good morning TFL sourdough bakers, I DESPERATELY need your help!
I am sorry that this is going to be a long post. I hope you bear with me…
Yesterday evening after yet another frustrating failure, I finally gave up on my starter and tossed it in the garbage. After so much trouble with it the last few months I think it is safe to say that it is incurable and unsalvageable.
I saw many posts of people complaining that their starter is somehow turning their dough to goo as well. Search ‘Every dough turns to goo’ on TFL and you find many; Eve Psmirth, Debra Wink, Palindrome, and so on. But none of them had any conclusive answer, either because they didn’t found one or they found one but somehow forget to report it. Or there was a solution reported and I just didn’t recognise it. So I will yet again start a post on starters turning dough to goo in the hope that we can find a solution together (maybe again).
I am sure that it is my starter because when I change the starter for commercial instant yeast, while keeping all other things the same, I end up with a nice, high, soft and tender crusty boule. Great oven spring, and depending on my slicing angle, decent ear formation. But once my recipe contains any sourdough starter I end up with a dough that is impossible to hold its shape by the time it doubles in volume. I have tried different inoculation percentages from 10% of fermented flour of the total flour amount to 25%.
Also, my starter seems to check all common tests. It doubles in volume in about 6 hours after feeding almost like clockwork. When I use it just before at at its peak it passes the float test. Also it doesn’t smell weird. Sort of lightly sour, like fruit or yoghurt or vinegary, but not unpleasant and it tastes just fine too by itself.
To tell you the truth I have been able to back decent sourdough breads, but only in the beginning of my sourdough journeys. The starter starts fine, then there comes a point where it starts to decline, to the point it produces either bad bread, or something utterly unbakeable. This happened two times already now, both times me tossing away the starter and giving up on sourdough for a good while. It is almost like my starter gradually gets infected and then once the infection takes hold there is nothing but throw it away and start over.
I think here comes the point where I need to give you guys some more concrete information:
I keep my starter at 100% hydration and feed it every morning at 9AM and every evening at 9PM on a 1:1:1 feeding ratio. I use a biological T65 wheat flour with a 12% protein content. The temperature in my apartment is about 21 C on average. So not too low, not too high. Let's say about 20.0 during the night and 22 during the day. Like I said before. Rising and ebbing like clockwork. Also when I stir it after it peaks it seems active/strong enough to peak for a second time (maybe less high). When I stir with a chopstick it feels glutenous and strong, not like thick yoghurt.
My starter is neither old nor new. I think it’s about 3 months old but I didn’t keep any records. I used Patrick Ryan’s method from his SD masterclass (https://www.ilovecooking.ie/features/sourdough-bread-masterclass-with-patrick-ryan/). I always keep it on the counter, not in the fridge. I bake one bread every two days.
The recipe I use is always more or less the same:
100% of T65 @ 12% protein
5% or light rye flour
65-70% hydration
2% salt
10-25% levain (defined as the amount of flour in the levain compared to the total amount of flour.)
I use a 14% protein Caputo Manitoba flour as a correction flour to keep the total protein level at 12%
All my measurements are by weight, not by volume. And my fridge temp, if you want to now, fluctuates between 4 and 6.5 degrees Celsius.
I usually mix my ingredients in a Kenwood chef titanium for 5 min on setting 1. Then I wait for at least 10 min to let it rest. Then I mix/knead the dough for another 5 min on setting 2 (to get some slapping against the bowl. read about that here somewhere)
Then bulk ferment for 1.5 to 4 hours, or until double in size. Then I pre-shape, rest for 10m, shape and put in the banneton. Then I rest for another 15m-1h (depending on yeast only or sourdough). Then it goes into the fridge for the night. I bake in the morning in a dutch oven at 230C. 25 min lid on. 25 min lid off. Or sometimes 30m lid on, 10 min lid off. Or whatever works to get oven spring and caramelised crust.
Maybe I also should say something about my situation and wishes in case this proves important. I work during the day so I cannot feed my starter more than 2 times a day at regular intervals. I can feed in the morning and I can feed in the evening. If this is not enough to get a decent starter then too bad, no more sourdough for me.
I prefer to bake in the morning early so I have fresh slightly warm bread for breakfast.
I don’t like sour bread and I am also not a huge fan of whole wheat bread. If my bread really needs to contain whole wheat or rye (because the starter is being picky) I want to keep that part below 10%, but 5% is better (I DO like 5% of light rye flour in my bread though). So in short, I want my acidity to be barely noticeable and my flour on the white/light side.
I hope this is enough information, maybe too much. If you have any more questions about my starter, temperatures, methods times, etc. Please ask and I will be happy to give them.
After feeling that I have failed 2 times now, I really need some good news. Sourdough can’t be this hard to do otherwise people would have stopped doing it ages ago, so obviously I am doing something wrong, or we are all crazy!
Thank you very much in advance,
François
Hi Francois. First off, a big thanks for the detailed writeup. Your information is extremely helpful. Wished you hadn’t chucked the starter, but I know it must have felt great to get some form of revenge on that monster. <LOL>
Oh! If you can provide images, that would be great.
While reading your expose, one though came to mind. Your starter is 1:1:1 and it is fed every 12hr @ 21C (70F). Had you kept the starter, a larger feed would have been recommended. Also, decreasing the hydration would have prolonged the feed to recede cycle. In my experience a healthy starter will overferment and turn acidic if kept according to your decription. It should require more feed (flour).
A 100% starter can be more difficult to read, because the gluten is not sufficiently formed to show an accurate picture of rise and fall.
If you can dig that baby out of the can (I have done that before), try mixing 1:3:5 or something similar and let us know how that works.
Maybe I am way off base, but it seems possible that your starter was overfermented on an on going basis. If that was the case any levain built from it could have introduced too much acid to the dough, causing severe degradation.
Do you see any validity to my thought?
From reading your post, it is obvious that you are knowledgeable and persistent. I think once you find your problem, happy days are soon to come.
Thanks for posting and by all means, “don’t abandon the ship”.
Danny
Hi Danny! Wow! Such a fast rescue response. I am extremely grateful! :D
I haven't chucked it all away, just this last batch, and yes, it felt really liberating. Revenge was sweet. I still have my little box of discard SD that I keep in the fridge to make crêpes in the weekend. So not all is lost. But I think I would feel a bit more relaxed by building a new starter from scratch. Last time I was able to get a successful loaf after only 7 days. After 3 months (minus a few weeks) of frustratingly bad results, waiting for just a week seems okay to me ;)
Out of curiosity. Is there anything against having a white wheat starter? People say you can feed it technically any kind of flour, but is it fundamentally more difficult to maintain a white wheat starter than, say, a partial or full whole wheat or rye starter?
Another question. What images would you like? Of the starter, the dough, the finished bread? All of them?
About feeding ratios, with 1:3:5 you mean starter:water:flour (so 60% hydration)? Sorry, I always forget. Is a 100% hydration starter to be considered firm or wet? I also see a lot of 1:2:2, 1:3:3, 1:4:4 and even 1:5:5, but in this case only the food supply is increased. The hydration stays at 100%.
And yes, I see validity in your thoughts. Decreasing the hydration would make the starter a bit stiffer. I think I remember Debra Wink writing something about decreasing the LABs mobility is a good thing to keep them in check.
I hope I will be persistent enough though. The ongoing chain of failures is frustrating but the problem is intriguing enough to keep me going. It's getting personal now ;-) During the week I will continue my yeast breads, just to have something to eat during breakfast. Then the weekends I can experiment with my sourdough and monitor them more closely during the day.
I will start a new starter with the same process as before with whole-wheat. Then after it is establish I will convert it to a 1:3:5 white-wheat as you suggested and keep it on a 12h hour feeding schedule. I will let you know how it goes, but since this will take some time it might take a few weeks before I will answer.
In any case, your help is greatly appreciated! :D
“Is there anything against having a white wheat starter?” As you stated any flour is fine. But a flour has a lot of bran will speed up fermentation greatly. I’m talking about whole, whole grain four. No part of the grain was removed (100% extraction). In order to ferment a 100% starter for 12 hr @ room temp, I find that all purpose commercial flour works well. Sorry, I am not familiar with French flour designations. BUT (let me back up a little) whole grain rye is hard to beat when initially starting a starter. After it is established you can switch to whatever you like. If not whole rye, any whole grain wheat is great. Highly processed flours would be a last choice but will work fine if nothing else is available.
”What images would you like?” Anything that might be pertinent to the issue. I would like to see your starter after it had beed fed 12 hr prior and just before the refresh. I would be looking for how much the starter receded. Too much would indicate over fermentation leading to an overly acidic starter. A starter with too much acid will degrade the dough making it super extensible and lacking any elasticity.
Debra is my ultimate authority when it comes to starters. Wetter starters ferment much faster than drier ones. Also starters that are fed 1:1:1 (1 part starter + 1 part water + 1 part flour) will ferment much faster than a starter that is fed 1:3:3, even at the same hydration. Temperature is another huge factor.
My starter has not been refrigerated for almost 2 years. Do you plan to eventually refrigerate your starter?
As this is written I am in the process of making a new starter. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/60097/new-starter-pineapple-solution-what-happening
Take a look at the 3 links in the first post of that link. Following Debra’s advice produced the quickest results I have ever experienced. But, I wouldn’t use fresh pineapple. The enzymes are crazy powerful and unnecessary, IMO. Use commercial pineapple juice instead.
Danny
Try this link
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/18144/sourdough-loosing-elasticity-please-help#comment-121566
and scroll down to Debra Wink's comment: Which starts with this heading:
PESKY THIOL COMPOUNDS
it's very long but at the end she says this:
f you have read the milk powder thread, then you already know that thiol compounds interfere in the formation of the gluten network by blocking cross-linkage between gluten proteins. Cross-linking is what pulls the gluten together into a strong, elastic mesh. Some sourdough bacteria produce thiol compounds from peptides and amino acids containing sulfur such as glutathione, cystine or cysteine (and may throw off a cheesy or sulfury odor in the process). More people seem to be complaining of these problems lately, with starters in transition (or maybe I'm just more in tune to it now that I've experienced it first-hand). By transition I mean changing hydration, changing flour, etc., as well as new starters that haven't stabilized yet, or even established starters that have gone "off" because of underfeeding or neglect.
Starting over doesn't necessarily help. What I recommend is stepping up your feeding to 3 times a day, if you can, or to a bigger feeding twice/day if you can't. Feed at peak, before it collapses. I did 5:3:5, three times a day, and when I couldn't manage at least two feedings, I parked it in the fridge to slow it down in between. It took 9 to 10 days to rid my starter of the offending organism, but the transformation was dramatic and overnight. It had been in sort of a holding pattern for 9 days, and then changed all at once, indicating to me that a new (more desirable) organism took over. It has behaved beautifully ever since, and my doughs have elasticity again. Give it a try.
good luck
hester
Thank you very much for the excerpt. I've read those post before and indeed, I thought that this was my problem. However, if I read correctly the thiol infected starters were always accompanied by weird funky smells right?
Francois
Here is what I find when my dough would to get as you described - yes - it has happened to me. Basically, the starter is way to acidic. At your hydration, temps, and feeling schedule, the starter is in a perpetual state of starvation. If you have any left, try thickening it up, a lot, and feed it 4 times the amount you are now if you would like to stick to a once a day feeding schedule. Bear in mind that right now the baby isn't healthy and it will take some time to get back on track. May be a week, may be more (I'm guessing a week may be enough). You may also want to consider adding a little commercial yeast as I'm sure now the ratio of lab to yeast is very very low (that's how it gets too acidic). Also, as your taste is similar to mine when it comes to sourdough, make sure the starter is healthy and well feed before using. Only use it when it has fully risen after a good feed and you should get a mild sourness noticed on the back of the palette after a couple chews. Hope all this helps!
After posting mine.
Agreed!
Yes this all helps. I'm getting more information than I hoped for :-D
I don't have any old starter left unfortunately, but I am building a new one. This is not the first time I've heard the argument that my starter was in an eternal state of starvation. If so, the default advice on maintaining a starter on the internet seems incomplete at the best: once a day feed it 1:1:1. I was doing it 2x a day so I though I was already more diligent ;)
During the moment of peak, roughly 5-6 hours after feeding, my starter didn't taste very acidic though. There were times where it tasted so acidic that my mouth would contract but, usually this was just before feeding in the evening or morning. But then again, I have no means of quantifying acidity since I have no pH meter or titration setup.
There was another thin I was thinking about. My starter, even-though it was probably in a perpetual state of malnourishment, was able to peak very regularly. About 5-6 hours after feeding. And you are supposed to either bake or feed at the peak. Assuming temperature is a constant for the moment; when I increase the feeding ratio by two, from 1:1:1 to 1:2:2, does this mean it will double the time between feedings/peaks? Is there a simple linear relation between ratio and peak time, or is it more complicated than that?
I am now monitoring the development of my new starter. Combining your and DanAyo's advice with my previous starter building method I am not using the initial feeding ratios of Patrick Ryan but replacing water for commercial pineapple juice as Debra advices. After the colony is established I will start feeding it 1:3:5 (st:w:fl) so that it will be thicker (60%) and close to the 4x more food you suggested. I feed it now with biological T110 wheat flour. It is called semi-whole-wheat flour ( since the shop was out of whole-wheat (T150 here)). I'm making photos of the progress.
Thanks!
If you are not insistent upon making your own starter, you could go to an established sourdough bakery and ask for a bit of theirs. They would probably be willing to tell you how they maintain their starter.
Make sure to buy their bread and let them know how much you like it :D
Another option - starters can be easily mailed in a regular envelop in a dehydrated form. Reconstitution is simple.
Having said all of that I still like to make my own...
Dan
Hi DanAyo, that is indeed a great idea. I live in a French city so almost more bakeries than inhabitants ;-)
But I agree, I too like to build my own. Gives me a sense of independence. People here on TFL already offered me a bit of their starter in dehydrated form, that is super nice!
Regards from a bit windy Toulouse,
Francois
If you have had, more than once, this sequence:
...then there's some kind of problem with the way you maintain your old starter.
After a starter is not "new" anymore, what is your method for keeping it?
I foresee you'll reencounter a similar problem if you don't figure out what went wrong with your current routine.
My wild guess: not keeping your starter in the fridge is the culprit, but wait to see what the scientists have to say.
Yippee
That is exactly the way it went down the last 2 times. My method of keeping it was feeding it 1:1:1 every 12 hours (9AM, 9PM), while keeping it on the counter at roughly 21 degrees C.
I think we have established this was a bit on the meagre side. I will increase the feeding once my new one is ready.
François
And peaks after 6 hours but you only feed it every 12 hours then your starter has 6 more hours after peaking before being fed again.
Why do you keep it at room temperature? Do you bake everyday and need one on the go? If it does peak after 6 hours and you only wish to feed it every 12 hours then why do you feed it 1:1:1? Perhaps your starter needs a change in schedule and feed.
Dear Abe,
Not every day. Ideally every other day. The 1:1:1 was just the advice I got from the website I initially used to get the starter going. That was before I found TFL! :D
François
Just a few words on advice - or opinions as they should really be called (and as they say, opinions are like a certain body part - everybody has one). Now the real deal, the basics that need to be understood so you can achieve success. A starter is a live entity, it needs food to live and stay healthy. How much food is needed varies depending on other variables, which are many and not worth going into for fear of making things more complicated than they already are. As it seems obvious the current feeding schedule is not right for your particular set of circumstances, we will set out a method to determine what will be right for you, and it's simple (just the way I like it). Take a starter and feed it whatever you normally feed it. See how long it takes to rise and start to fall. When it starts to fall, stir it well without feeding. See if it rises again, how much it rises, and how long it takes. If it still rises, it has enough food. Continue this till it stops rising - this is when it's out of available food. This will determine how long a certain feed really lasts (at a certain temp that is), and will keep the starter from being over fed (becoming diluted and weak) and being underfed (starved and weak). With that info you can adjust everything to keep a starter, and hopefully you, happy. Enjoy!
I get consistent, good results, and my process is a lot different from yours. I wouldn't blame your starter, I'd look at the process first. How I do it:
My recipe is somewhere around 70% hydration, often higher. Usually just white flour. I put everything in a bowl at once and mix thoroughly, but not past the point that the flour and water have been evenly mixed. Then I put it in the cooler for 24 hours. No kneading, not even a look at it. Then I take it out and give it a first shaping. Rest for several minutes. Final shaping, and then proof for about an hour and a quarter. I put it into a very hot oven on baking stones for 7 or 8 minutes, then cool the oven to about 380F, and finish baking for 15 minutes or so, depending how large the loaves are.
When I started, I was kneading, slapping, folding, etc. and the bread was always flat. My lessons:
1) if you're bulk fermenting for longer than 12 hours or so, manipulating the dough after mixing it is unnecessary, In fact it's easy to go too far.
2) At refrigerator temps, bulk fermenting would take 5 or 6 days to complete, depending on the innoculation. So I'd probably put it in the fridge for 20 hours or so, and then let it finish at room temperature for a few hours. I can tell by looking when I've overdone the bulk ferment, and I haven't found that it's possible to recover from that: you can count on flat loaves. Maybe you can treat the over-fermented dough like a firm starter and use it to create other doughs.
3) I wouldn't shape before putting in the fridge.. I'd do that after.
4) temperature is the number one factor in whether you succeed or fail. Keep things cool, and they take longer, but you have more control and lower risk of it getting ahead of you.
5) It's ok to under-ferment. Over-fermenting = failure.
6) Unlike bread I've made with commercial yeast, my sourdough has never doubled, regardless of temperature, recipe, or anything else, either during fermentation or during proofing. Without a doubt it expands, but if I waited for it to double, it would be too late. Go by time and temperature, and forget about volume.
Our methods are indeed very different. Keeping things cool and slow to maximise control and minimise the potential for over-fermentation makes lots of sense to me.
Considering point 5) I had the same experience. And for 3), do you shape the cold dough and then let it proof at room temp before baking? For 6) You still get plenty of ovenspring?
You method seems more easy going than mine. I would love to try it!
is a very deciding factor in the amount of food fed to the starter to maintain it. One has to remain flexible as the starter's needs will change with seasons, temp rises and cold spells. Even a hot baking day in the kitchen will influence the next feeding. Be in tune with your starter. A few degrees warmer and the wee beasties will go thru the food faster, cooler they slow down and the danger becomes on of overfeeding. Be flexible. The starter is living and will respond as living things do. A fix schedule of exactness day in and day out can lead to trouble if temps change. A culture at room temp will fluctuate so you may find yourself feeding slightly more flour before the warmer day temps and less at night (or skipping a feeding) for cooler temps. Especially spring and fall play havoc on strict feeding regimes.
I agree with the others. The main problem with the starter: the maintenance needs to be evaluated. The culture sounds deficient in yeast. This deficiency starts out slowly then speeds up over time. It can be reversed if caught. Larger flour feeds combined with warmer temps 23°C to 26°C encourage more yeast growth. Too warm encourages more bacteria as well and since the culture seems to have plenty of bacteria, we don't need to encourage them more.
Note: When the yeasts burst into action with the new starter eating up the food, raise the feeding ratio of the starter. That one step is often overlooked the step of changing the feeding to correspond with the amount of yeast in the culture. Going from starter start-up mode to maintenance mode. Going from waiting for the yeast population to feeding a yeast population. Naturally the temperature and amount of water will influence the rate of fermentation. But when changing to a higher feeding, if the yeast population is high enough, the result will be dramatic.
I haven't seen this dramatic result yet but I am already anxious to get there!
Do you mean that I have to change the feeding already when I am still in the startup phase, the moment I see that yeast is suddenly starting to eat and grow? If I remember correctly from the Pineapple Solution part 1 and 2, this commonly happens around day 4, right?
It seems that maintaining a starter requires a lot of experience. I just hope that in time I learn to interpret the starters signals correctly to know what it wants and keep it healthy and thriving. For now I lack a baseline to compare things to. That makes it very difficult to to troubleshot for me. It seems most people here agree it is the starter. This makes me more hopeful because at least that eliminates the myriad of possible errors that can be introduced in the method.
get your new starter in good shape perhaps after a month or so you might consider refrigerating it between bakes and taking it out a day or so b/f you bake.
good luck
hester
Is this practical if I bake every other day? Usually I bake one medium size loaf for the both of us (800g dough), that we eat for breakfast/"goûter" and takes us about 2 days to finish.
Francois
You are correct. if you are baking every other day, no point in refrigerating it.
hester
I tried refrigerating before though. There was this moment where I thought it would be good idea to make a weeks worth of dough in the weekend. Then feed the starter again, and put the dough and the starter in the fridge. Then during the week I would cut a chunk of of the cold dough, shape and proof it at room temp and put the rest of the dough back in the fridge.
It wasn't too bad. The fun thing was you could taste the flavour changing throughout the week as the dough fermented longer and longer in the fridge. But in the end it was a bit too sour for my taste. I would take she starter out on a Thursday or Friday, nurse it back to strength to make a new weeks worth batch of dough in the weekend.
Regards,
Francois
Typically use 20g for a levain build and make three breads.
Build 80g of starter and refrigerate.
Night before the bake take off 20g for a levain build (this way it has a nice big feed before each bake making it healthy. strong and a good flavour balance).
When you're down to the last 20g then build it up again and refrigerate etc.
You aren't slave to your starter, it is never allowed to peak and sit at room temperature for a further 6 hours where the acid build up will be too much and with each bake you build a levain where it gets another feed.
As an example!
Dear Abe,
That looks good me. Small starter, no waste. What hydration level would this starter usually be at? I have no experience yet baking bread built with a levain though, since I never got past my starter problems. Could you maybe link me to a good forum thread that explains this process?
Many thanks,
Francois
that will be your standard bake through the week? Perhaps we can come up with something here.
This is what I normally bake in the mornings for breakfast (for now with just commercial yeast, 0.5%)
100% of T65 @ 12% protein wheat flour
5% of light rye flour
65-70% hydration
2% salt
10-25% white starter at 100%hyd. (defined as the amount of fermented flour compared to the total amount of flour). I had the most success (when my starter was still new) with 17%.
I do this in the late afternoon, beginning of the evening after I get home from work. I first dissolve my starter in the water in the mixing bowl of my kenwood mixer. Then add all the dry stuff on top of that. Mix for 5 min on setting 1 with the dough hook. Wait about 10-15min. Mix for 5 more min on setting 2 (also with the dough hook) and check windowpane for the gluten. Bulk ferment for 3-4 hours, or until doubled in volume. Then I pre-shape. Wait 10 min. Shape. Rest for another 10 min. Put in banneton and then in the fridge (I try to keep it around 4 deg. C). I bake in the morning at 6-6h30 in a preheated dutch oven at 240 degrees C. 25 min lid on, 15 min lid off.
I got this recipe from Reinhard's Crust & Crumb. It is a modified French Bread Type 1.
If we could convert this into a low acid pain au levain routine I will be eternally grateful ;)
Nicely explained too. A good step-by-step guide. Now there isn't one correct way to keep and use a starter. The best way is what works for you. So I can give you a guide but others can chime in with ideas. You might follow the guide for a while but settle up on your own schedule after you become more familiar with the whole process and devise your own way. If it makes great bread you're onto a winner.
https://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/sourdough-pain-naturel/
The poolish (better put as levain build - bit of a misnomer here) is:
So why don't you have a starter build like so...
(I've added a bit extra water and flour with the feed as it loses weight when fermenting - it's also best to know the weight of the starter jar so you know how much you have left)
Allow this to bubble up (around 6 hours you say for it to peak?) and refrigerate. This will now last for 4 bakes. Night before each bake take off 15g starter, by dipping into the starter and keeping it in the fridge, and follow the all night levain (poolish) build.
when it comes to the fourth bake take off the 15g you need and with the remainder rebuild the starter back up and placing it back in the fridge when it's just about peaked again.
This way it only sits around a week in the fridge between feeds, the feed is just over 1:2:2 which is healthier than 1:1:1 and it's very manageable.
Try this out for a week or two and see if you like the schedule/bread.
to Abe. That's a perfect suggestion in my opinion.
hester
It took me some time to rebuilt my starter from scratch before I could try Abe's suggestion of the Pain Naturel from WeekendBakery.com.
The starter is now about 3 weeks old I think and it seems to rise consistently and reliably. I feed it 5g:12g:13g (starter:water:flour) with organic whole-wheat flour twice a day (~8h30AM/8h30PM). I still keep it on the counter. Eventually I want to convert it to a white-wheat starter and store it in the fridge. I was advised to keep it on the counter for a little while longer to be sure it is completely stabilised. To be honest I am a little bit fearful now to change anything since it seems it's finally performing well.
This weekend I finally dared to try and bake with it. After all the trouble I was pleasantly surprised with the results. I followed the WeekendBakery's recipe and method to the letter, only adjusting the temperature of the water to have dough temperature between 24-25 degrees celsius.
The result was amazing. A tall and airy boule with a nice irregular open crumb. Fluffy, soft and creamy and a crispy thick crust. The oven spring is good! Never got this kind of oven spring with my direct-yeasted doughs. Not sure this is due to the sourdough starter, or the fact it is a multi-stage build with a poolish (based on a SD starter) or both?
The flavour is very nice. Not sour at all, just the way I like it. The crumb smells just a tiny bit sour.
Here are 4 pictures of the second bake where I changed the procedure by retarding the final proof in the fridge overnight. It was not well risen in the morning so I had to let it rise at room temp. for a couple of hours longer. I always thought that to get the big irregular hole structure one needs a high hydration, typically 70% and above. This was more around 65%. This is the result:
Thank you all for the advice and suggestions. I will continue to try and modify this recipe and procedure to my schedule and taste. Did anybody did this recipe with a biga instead of a poolish?
Thanks again!
-François
Wow that is a beaut! I've never been able to get any ears like that, you should be very happy with the results.
Thanks, and yes. Very happy indeed. We ate it almost all in one go. Just some butter and a drizzle of sugar. Hard to stop eating!
-François
That looks amazing! Beautiful crumb, crust and great oven spring. Very impressed.
Btw although my weekend bakery calls the preferment a poolish technically that's incorrect. It's actually a levain.
And think you for suggesting this recipe. I am going to make it a few more times to get the scheduling right. After that I will start experimenting with it.
About the levain, yes you're right. They actually mention it in this article, but only later in the comment.
-François
Francois, now would be a great time to make a backup of that super healthy starter. See “Storing: Spread, Dry, and Crack Into Shards”
in this LINK.
It is easy to do and if your starter ever fails you can restore it quickly from your backup. It is a great insurance policy.
Danny
Yes, that is exactly what I am going to do. Now that the starter is finally performing well, I am anxious to lose it.
Thanks for the link. I saw this website before. It's always the same websites that keep popping up.
-François