Hi All,
I've attempted the Tartine Country Loaf recipe a few times and my loafs have turned out ok. Not as much oven spring as I had hoped for and the crumb was a bit dense. I have modified the recipe a bit to try and remedy these problems, and it hasn't been going well. I'm a bit baffled and so I thought I would pass along the notes from my latest bake in the hopes that someone could offer a bit of advice.
1. I mixed the levain and let it rise for 6.5 hours. It doubled in size by this point and passed the float test with flying colours.
2.) I mixed 800g of Light Bread Flour from a local, organic miller with 100g of Whole Wheat Bread Flour from the same miller. I added 630 g of water and let it autolyse for 1 hour.
3.) I mixed in 180g of the levain and let it rest for 40 additional minutes. I then incorporated 45 grams of warm water and 18g of salt.
4.) In the past, I've noticed that my dough went from being soft & pillowy during the first 2.5-3 hours of bulk fermentation to sticky and tight if I bulk fermented for the full 3-4 hour period as per the recipe. This time around, I bulk fermented for around 2.5 hours performing a turn every half hour. The dough was soft, pillowy and had a really good amount of bubbles on the surface. It seemed as though the bulk fermentation went really well.
5.) Initial shaping and bench rest seemed to go really well. The two pieces of dough shaped really nicely and appeared to have strong tension. The surface was really smooth and I could see a few bubbles popping up. The dough pieces maintained their shape really well during the 30 minute bench rest.
6. Here is where things seemed to go off the rails. The dough seemed to have changed from being soft and pillowy to sticky and almost impossible to handle. The final shaping was a bit of a disaster. The dough was tight and resisted most attempts to stay in the final shaping form. I tried to perform the final shaping method as per the Tartine book, but the dough was really sticky and tight. I managed to get the dough pieces into a well floured oval banneton. I left the bannetons overnight for 9 hours.
7.) When I attempted to remove the loafs from the banneton, the top of the loafs were still sticky and they did not appear to rise at all overnight. Unsurprisingly, they completely deflated when I put them on a piece of parchment paper before putting them into the dutch oven. In addition, the loafs were nearly impossible to score in account of being too sticky.
8.) The first loaf baked as flat as a pancake. The crumb was dense and the minimal scoring had no affect whatsoever.
9.) The second loaf had very little spring. BUT, and this part baffles me, it had decent crumb and the best tasting I have ever produced - just the right amount of tang and earthiness. I was blown away by how good this loaf tasted.
Initial thoughts: I'm not sure, but it seems like my dough was overproofed given how deflated it was when coming out of the bannetons? I cant be certain though, because it seems like shortening the bulk fermentation and leaving it overnight in the fridge would have helped with that? Was the problem that I used bread flours and these require less time for bulk fermentation before the yeast exhausts itself?
I'm completely lost here and would really appreciate any insight. Thanks!
It has been my experience that the float test may be used inaccurately.
I have observed many yeasts and starters sinking in water and return to the surface a few minutes later. At this point it has just started producing air enough to float itself. If it floats straight away I believe it is already too active for anything other than short fermentation or use in smaller doses for longer.
In combination with such a long autolyse, which produces much Maltose, if Im not mistaken, the yeast will work very quickly and over fermentation is more likely.
Huh, 2.5 hours for a bulk really doesn't seem like enough time with that amount of levain.
Was it super hot in your house?
(Just checking that your overnight proof was not at room temperature? It was in the fridge, right?)
Have you had success with this bread flour before? What's the Protein%? I've never used freshly-milled flour before, but it's my understanding that that can kinda "change the game", so to speak.
What stands out is "left the bannetons overnight for 9 hours". If that was at room T, you went way beyond overproofed to dead dough. It also sounds like your bench rests were a bit long as you already had well developed dough that was pillowy and you handled it carefully. I would have just preshaped, rested for 5-10min max then loosely done the final shaping. Straight in the banneton and fridge for an overnight retard.
Thanks for the responses. Just to clarify - the 9 hour proof was in the fridge.